DATE: Saturday, October 4, 1997             TAG: 9710040378

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY LEWIS KRAUSKOPF, STAFF WRITER

DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE                        LENGTH:   70 lines

CIVIC GROUP WANTS VOTERS TO HAVE A SAY IN GROWTH CHESAPEAKE COULD SEE A GROWTH-CONTROL REFERENDUM BY MAY.

Voters may soon have a chance to express their opinions on whether the time has come to get more serious about controlling this city's rapid growth.

The Chesapeake Council of Civic Organizations approved the wording of an advisory referendum Thursday, asking voters' sentiments on managing the city's residential growth.

The organization will kick off a petition drive to put the question on an upcoming ballot - perhaps by the general election in May.

In 1995 and 1996, the City Council rejected attempts to place such a referendum on the ballot. But the General Assembly approved legislation earlier this year giving citizens the right to place questions on the ballot without getting permission from city councils.

``With this being the first chance for residents to voice their opinions on managing growth, this is an exciting event,'' said Denise Waters of the CCCO.

Legislation enabling the city to control residential development would go a long way toward solving school crowding and traffic snarls, among other problems, say some CCCO members.

City Councilman W. Joe Newman said the City Council has taken important steps to control growth, citing the council's levels-of-service policy, which calls for planners to reject all rezoning applications should they push schools or other services beyond 120 percent of capacity.

Residential rezonings have dropped dramatically from a pre-1995 range of 25 to 35 a year to about seven applications since the policy took effect in March 1995.

But growth controls should apply to already zoned property as well, said Gene Waters, president of the CCCO.

``The City Council hasn't done something with the existing inventory - and that's the problem,'' he said.

Newman, who said he voted against allowing the referendum because ``nobody was going to tell me what it was going to say,'' also said he was worried about the bureaucracy created by a potential managed-growth ordinance.

Councilwoman Elizabeth P. Thornton also cited the council's levels-of-service policy, which establishes guidelines relating new development to existing public services.

``I think it's probably an appropriate referendum for our city,'' said Thornton, who attended Thursday's CCCO meeting. ``(But) I think that the City Council has done a good job in managing the growth.''

An advisory referendum does not force action; it merely tells the city and state what the voters want. Still, CCCO members saw the question as a chance to educate citizens about growth.

``Every time you look around, there's a community impacted by growth that hasn't been managed well,'' Waters said at Thursday's meeting.

The CCCO has spent a number of months honing the question amid concerns that it would not stand up to legal scrutiny and was too narrowly worded.

But after running the question past City Attorney Ronald S. Hallman and members of state Sen. Frederick M. Quayle's legislative staff, the group completed the language Thursday.

The group will soon submit the question to Circuit Court. Then the group will have four months to get about 16,250 signatures - approximately one-fourth the number of Chesapeake voters in the last presidential election - required to place the question on the ballot for the next general election, said Assistant General Registrar Ruth Mangone.

CCCO members will man the city's 45 poll stations Nov. 4, hoping to acquire the signatures they need.

The CCCO has mobilized a similar petition drive previously. The group gathered about 11,000 signatures on Election Day last November to persuade the City Council to ask the General Assembly to let citizens place questions on ballots.

The council consented, and the General Assembly in March approved the advisory referendum powers that have been in effect since July 1.

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