DATE: Tuesday, July 15, 1997 TAG: 9707150073 SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B5 EDITION: FINAL SOURCE: BY MATTHEW DOLAN AND MAC DANIEL, STAFF WRITERS DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE LENGTH: 98 lines
Almost 2 1/2 years ago, the city adopted a unique land-use policy evaluating how new residential developments would affect schools, roads and utilities.
Essentially, the planning staff was told to reject any development that would cause those essential elements of a livable city to be overwhelmed. And the council provided explicit benchmarks against which to judge a proposal.
An application generally would fail, for instance, if its residents caused surrounding schools to exceed 120 percent of their capacities or if area roads would fail on an accepted traffic scale.
Politicians and planners from Hampton Roads to Northern Virginia heralded the slow-growth policy as a flexible compromise between a total ban and free rein for new home construction.
The council was to discuss strengthening the standards, closing some potential loopholes and applying the regulations to more categories of projects today.
Monday, however, it seemed likely that the matter would be delayed for more review.
One significant proposal would require that planned unit developments - dense mixes of residential, office, and commercial uses - be subject to a level-of-service test when they would increase the land's existing density.
Over the past year, the city approved two such developments, Warrington Hall and Cahoon Plantation Estates. Planning Department Director Brent R. Nielson said it would have been ``difficult'' for those applications to pass the level-of-service test.
Another would have the city look at the potential effects of already-zoned land, even if the developments haven't been built, when considering the services that need to be provided to a nearby project.
The proposals to tighten the level-of-service policy received the unanimous recommendation of the Planning Commission.
So how is the policy working? It's hard to tell.
The number of residential rezoning applications has dropped dramatically from a pre-1995 range of 25 to 35 a year to only seven applications since the policy took effect in March 1995.
Still, the council ultimately approved four of the seven applications that did not pass the level-of-service test.
``There were overriding circumstances,'' including the size of the application or its location, Nielson said.
Even with those exceptions, Nielson said, the policy is working by keeping developments out of the system.
``There would have been substantially more rezoning applications filed,'' Nielson said, ``and they haven't been filed over the last couple of years because of the level-of-service policy.''
Since the advent of the policy, the number of portable classrooms has been cut significantly, planning officials said.
Nielson credits the level-of-service policy with some dramatic changes, including:
The city's residential growth rate - 2.2 percent in 1996 - is half the annual rates of 1993 and 1994, years when the population boom exceeded 4 percent;
And the number of new homes approved for occupancy has dropped from 2,555 in 1994 to 1,599 in 1996.
On Monday, Mayor William E. Ward said that the proposed changes need to be carefully examined and that he was prepared to either vote against the changes tonight or call for a later work session to debate them.
Based on an unofficial poll of the council, a final decision will is likely to be postponed.
``The present level-of-service policy is working well,'' Ward said. ``I think we need to assess the current policy and not rush into some new, more stringent set of policies that will hamper economic growth in the city.''
The city's goal, he said, should be to develop the economic development department. A change in the level-of-service policy could do just the opposite, he said.
William J. Holloran Jr., the Chesapeake director of the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce, said his organization opposes changes in level-of-service policy that would factor in unbuilt developments.
``We think it could black out most of the city's future residential development,'' Holloran said.
``You cannot impact residential growth and not also impact your ability to attract business. New businesses are drawn to expanding cities,'' he said.
City Councilman John M. de Triquet, however, supports the changes.
``Unless you consider the whole entire environment in an application,'' he said, ``you're really making your decisions in a vacuum.''
Bob Widener, chairman of the Tidewater Builders Association's Chesapeake Legislative Affairs Committee and president of Widener Corp., a Virginia Beach-based home builder, said his organization was developing its stance on the changes.
``We're worried that this policy could move from a way to manage growth to become a major stumbling block for building new homes,'' he said.
The inventory of vacant, residentially zoned land in Chesapeake has dropped from more than 7,000 acres in 1993 to about 5,100 acres today. On that acreage, the TBA says, anywhere from 17,000 to 19,000 homes could be built.
Planning director Nielson sees the decreasing inventory as a sign of good planning.
``We see the overall reduction as a positive thing,'' he said. ``It provides the city with the opportunity to control development patterns and reduces the uncertainty of future, uncontrolled growth.''
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