DATE: Thursday, August 7, 1997              TAG: 9708070455

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B7   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY LIZ SZABO, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE                        LENGTH:   73 lines

PLAN FOR CHESAPEAKE PARKING LOT WOULD SPARE SOME TREES IF OK'D COMMITTEE RECOMMENDS A SMALLER LOT, MORE GREEN SPACE IN PROPOSAL TO CITY.

The municipal center could keep many of its trees - but lose its baseball field - under a compromise proposal for a new parking lot.

A committee studying the controversial parking lot plan recommended Wednesday that Chesapeake scale down its plans for additional parking spaces. The plan would save 200 trees from the bulldozers, preserving them in a city park protected from future development, said city planner Dorothy Kowalsky, who heads the five-member study committee.

Under the proposal, which was presented to City Manager John L. Pazour for review, the Great Bridge Community Center would lose its baseball field as well as another open field and one-third of its nature trail. The center also would lose many of its trees, demolished to make room for 400 new parking spaces.

But most of the wooded area and fitness trail behind the community center would be spared, Kowalsky said. Originally, Chesapeake officials had planned to clear-cut the entire woods and install more than 700 new parking spaces.

The municipal center needs more parking because it will lose 100 of its current permanent parking spaces due to construction of a new courts building.

The remaining green space would be improved as a park, to include features such as benches. The park could even include a wooden walkway or bridge to make the nature trail slightly more accessible for wheelchairs, said committee member Carl Edwards, a Chesapeake contractor and environmentalist.

If Pazour approves the proposal, he will pass it on to the Capital Projects Review Committee, which eventually could submit the plan to City Council. Pazour said he plans to review the proposal carefully.

``It's been a fairly touchy issue,'' Pazour said.

While City Council members may not review the proposal for several weeks, some Chesapeake environmentalists have already approved the compromise.

Edwards, the only non-government official on the committee, drafted the plans for the new parking lot. Edwards had opposed the original parking lot plan for two years and had collected 700 signatures on a petition to save the trees. The committee also includes the city arborist, a representative from the agricultural extension and the public works department.

Construction of the first 505 parking spaces was scheduled to begin this summer, with the final 206 parking spaces to be built later, Kowalsky said. City officials delayed construction while the committee evaluated other options.

The committee suggested building 364 parking spaces west of Shea Road, which would be extended through the woods, and another 34 spaces closer to the nature trail, Kowalsky said.

City parks and recreation officials had qualified praise for the compromise.

``Knowing there's a need for parking, I still hate to lose the green space. It's one of the last serene places'' left in Chesapeake, said Claire R. Askew, director of the city's Parks and Recreation Department.

``I'm so glad you've decided to leave a little green space,'' she told the committee Tuesday.

The compromise proposal would clear the woods closest to the community center, surrounding it with ``an asphalt jungle,'' Askew said.

Hundreds of additional cars driving around the community center might endanger children on the playground, Askew said. The Parks and Recreation Department may have to relocate an annual summer playground program once construction begins, she said.

The study committee also is looking at long-term parking solutions and has measured traffic in and out of the municipal center.

On a recent day during ``peak flow'' when courts were in session, there were fewer than 100 available parking spaces in the 1,970-space lot, said Thomas H. Westbrook, assistant director of public works and a member of the committee.

Many of those open spaces are in the farthest corners of the parking lot.

Many drivers park illegally on the grass near the community center, rather than park further away and face a longer walk, Westbrook said.

The committee suggested a parking garage or shuttle buses and off-sight parking as alternatives to future parking lots, Edwards said.

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