DATE: Thursday, October 9, 1997             TAG: 9710090511

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B5   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MATTHEW DOLAN, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE                        LENGTH:   46 lines

PORTSMOUTH BOULEVARD HOTEL SITE GETS APPROVAL THE DEVELOPERS HAD CHANGED THEIR PLAN, MOVING TO A SITE ACROSS THE STREET.

What a difference crossing the street can make.

A plan to build a hotel off Portsmouth Boulevard in Western Branch, rejected by the City Council in June, was approved by the city's Planning Commission on Wednesday.

The developers, represented by Walton ``Pete'' Burkhimer Jr., had previously applied for a rezoning and a use permit for a site south of Portsmouth Boulevard. Although the rezoning request was recommended by the Planning Commission, the City Council denied it.

So they filed a plan to build on a 2.1-acre site across the street.

Local residents had once opposed the hotel plan, saying that the proposed hotel was too big for a small parcel in a traffic-clogged neighborhood. Butno residents spoke for or against the plan at Wednesday night's meeting.

The proposal to build a three-story, 95-room motel on a 2.1-acre site on Gum Road is slightly different from the four-story, 82-room plan on a 1.7-acre site rejected in June. The developers, who have built several hotels in the city's Greenbrier section, only needed site plan approval from the city.

The motel proposal, which would be part of the Marriott-affiliated Fairfield Suites, did not need the approval of the City Council because it meets current zoning requirements, planning officials said.

In other business, the commission approved a new city landscape ordinance designed to encourage developers to conserve trees.

The commission voted 6-2 in favor of the revised ordinance, with Commissioners Sanny S. Davenport and Gladys A. Wilfore in opposition. The City Council will have the final say on the revised ordinance sometime next month.

Davenport said she thought the current law allows developers to work with the community without the need for ``dangling carrots'' for tree preservation.

The revised ordinance, developed by city officials and representatives from building and construction industries, would give developers credit for saving trees by easing requirements in other areas.

Those areas include: placing buildings closer to the road, reducing the number of required parking spaces for a new building, substituting cluster woods and green spaces for traditional parking lot ``planter islands,'' and providing extra credit for saving very old or significant trees.

Planning officials said imposing citywide restrictions on tree-cutting would not be permitted because Chesapeake does not have enabling legislation to do so from the state General Assembly.

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