
DATE: Saturday, October 25, 1997            TAG: 9710250361

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY JOHN MURPHY AND TONI GUAGENTI 

        STAFF WRITERS  

DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                    LENGTH:  239 lines

BEACH'S VISION OF THE FUTURE THE IDEA: MOVING FROM HIGH-QUANTITY GROWTH, TO GROWTH OF HIGH QUALITY

If you lived here a generation ago, you witnessed what will surely go down as one of the wildest times in the city's history.

You experienced your roads torn up, strip malls planted on almost every corner, overcrowded schools, houses and townhomes constructed at a frenetic pace and the city's landscape reshaped. An agricultural county and resort town were transformed into the nation's 27th largest city almost overnight.

Today, on the eve of its 35th birthday, Virginia Beach has reached middle age. It no longer resembles the undisciplined teen-ager with a big appetite, growing uncontrollably, gobbling up large tracts of undeveloped land. The rate of growth has slowed to a fraction of what it once was.

Looking in the mirror, Virginia Beach has found its first gray hairs. It's a time for reflection, a chance to look over its shoulder, and ask what it has learned and what the next 35 years will bring.

These questions form the heart of the city's comprehensive plan, a 600-page, two-volume document that serves as a guide for the Beach's future development.

The plan promotes two key ideas:

Save the south. Residents have demanded that the rural character in the southern portion of the city be preserved by prohibiting large-scale development there.

Rebuild the north. City planners want developers to avoid plowing up what remains of the north's vacant land and instead direct those energies at redeveloping blighted areas and aging housing.

These recommendations are the result of nearly two years of meetings between residents and city planners. They have discussed what they like about their city now and how they want it to change.

On Tuesday, the public will be heard one last time, before the City Council moves from defining the future to actually helping it take shape.

THE GLUE THAT HOLDS US TOGETHER''

After holding 17 public meetings and four workshops, city officials heard again and again what Beach citizens valued above all: open space.

They fear that more strip malls, homes and other construction will destroy the remaining undeveloped land. Residents in the northern section of the city, where the majority of the growth has taken place over the years, are demanding that more land be dedicated for green space, parks or other recreation areas.

``Open space,'' city Planning Director Robert J. Scott concludes, ``is the glue that holds us together.''

Yet ironically, as the city's comprehensive plan came together during the last year, open space was the one issue that has divided residents.

In a recent interview in his city office, Scott enjoyed telling a story about the city's public meetings on the plan.

He said two things got people on their feet during the meetings:

``The first is the Green Line and the second is the Green Line,'' he said, grinning.

The Green Line is the imaginary border separating the suburban north from the rural south. It was designed to limit growth only to areas where city services, such as roads, schools and sewers, were adequately available.

Since the line's creation in 1979, the city has added about 160,000 residents north of it and only a small handful south of it.

Proponents of the line have bristled at suggestions that the line should be crossed. In August, when the Planning Commission proposed allowing some development just south of the Green Line, dozens of residents rallied against the change.

Nine of the 11 commissioners said that building proposals in that area - regarded as a ``transition area'' - should be considered on a case-by-case basis.

Developers have been the most avid opponents of the line. Members of the Tidewater Builders Association argue that the line had been successful in keeping construction to a minimum, but now it's time for a plan that would allow for quality development that pays for itself.

``This arbitrary 18-year-old line has outlived its usefulness as a planning tool,'' wrote Richard S. Foster, chairman of the builder association's Municipal Affairs Committee in a letter to the Planning Commission.

The City Council chose not to accept the commission's recommendation that growth be allowed south of the Green Line on a case-by-case basis. Instead, the council wants to establish uniform standards for any development that might be allowed there.

A TRANSITION TO WHAT?

Yet the council's recommendations have not provided an answer to what development should look like on the transition area's 6,100 acres.

The comprehensive plan encourages development that provides recreation or other open-space uses and does not place a drain on taxpayer dollars.

One such example is Heron Ridge Estates, a development south of the Green Line off Seaboard Road.

The 408-acre subdivision, approved in June, will include an 18-hole championship golf course and 108 homes priced at $300,000 and above. Eighty percent of the subdivision will be considered open space, thanks to the golf course.

This development serves as a model of sorts for what the city would like to see in the transition area.

The comprehensive plan's ``hypothetical example'' of the kind of development it would consider favorable is strikingly similar to Heron Ridge Estates: a property of 250 developable acres with a 175-acre golf course and 100 to 125 single-family, half-acre lots.

The council's restrictions, critics argue, leave a plan for the transition area undefined.

``They seem to know what they don't want, but they can't say what they do want. That's not the way to put together a plan,'' said Eddie Bourdon, a Beach attorney who represents several landowners in the transition area.

Mary M. Heinricht, an environmental consultant and activist supporting the Green Line, argues that the city will need to strike a balance in the transition area.

``If you have too much detail, people are not going to have people coming up with imaginative suggestions,'' she said.

Council members agree that more work needs to be done. The city plans to create a committee to investigate the transition area.

``There's a lot to work out after we pass the plan,'' said Councilman John A. Baum.

Councilwoman Louisa M. Strayhorn said several council members were looking for more detail than the proposed plan was providing.

``I can't think of it as complete,'' she said. ``I think it has to continually be revised. This isn't over.''

REDEVELOPING AS THE FUTURE

Imagine two trains on the same track - miles apart - but heading toward each other.

That's one way, Scott says, to look at open space in Virginia Beach.

``What we have in the city are two key policies that are heading toward a collision course,'' he said. ``The city wants to limit growth in the southern part of the city and maintain the quality of life and open space in the northern part of the city. For the time being, that's OK, but pretty soon future councils are going to have some very hard choices.''

What will those hard choices be?

When all the undeveloped land in the northern section of the city is gone, there will be increasing pressure placed on the Green Line. The choice will be between crossing the line with more development or redeveloping areas in the northern part of the city.

Development in Virginia Beach up to this point has been largely defined by a bulldozer clearing vacant land. In the future, city officials hope, development will be redefined by reinvestment and renewal.

Planning officials point to Princess Anne Plaza Shopping Center as a harbinger of the future. Princess Anne Plaza was the second-oldest shopping center in the city, but it was revitalized recently into a more lucrative, attractive and vital commercial center.

The city argues that this kind of redevelopment increases property values and sparks similar improvements among adjacent property owners. It also preserves open space by reusing an existing development instead of building a new retail center on vacant land elsewhere.

Michael Gelardi, vice president of ESG Companies, said the plaza was appraised at $8 million before the renovation. Now it's valued at more than $25 million.

The number of employees used to be a couple hundred, he said, and now it's well more than 1,200.

The developers couldn't walk away from the site because of its strategic location on Virginia Beach Boulevard near the Virginia Beach-Norfolk Expressway at Rosemont Road.

Redevelopment makes sense, Gelardi said.

``We maximized what was already there,'' he said. ``You already got the infrastructure in place.''

The city hopes to encourage other private enterprises to make similar improvements.

Redevelopment in residential areas is more difficult.

The strongest tool a municipality can have is a redevelopment authority, which allows the city to take over tracts of residential land and revitalize them.

Such an authority was proposed a year ago to help the city acquire the Burton Station neighborhood and turn it into industrial use. Yet when the city placed a referendum on the November 1996 ballot asking voters to approve an authority, the voters rejected it.

``They may have to speak again,'' said Councilman Baum. ``When people start seeing areas deteriorating, they are going to ask what can be done about it.''

City planners warn that citizens might begin seeing blighted areas sometime soon. By 2020, about 130,000 homes, many thrown up hastily in the booming '80s, will be 30 years old or older, the age when most homes need serious reinvestment and repair.

Scott argues that a redevelopment authority is the natural counterpart to the city's agricultural reserve program, in which the city purchases the development rights on large tracts of farmland. Under the plan, adopted last year, landowners continue to own and farm their property and can sell it, but it cannot be developed.

R.J. ``Rip'' McGinnis of McGinnis Realty and Development Co. said he doesn't see residential redevelopment working north of the Green Line.

The land is picked over in the northern part of the city, said McGinnis, who is looking to become the first person to develop south of the Green Line without a court order. He has proposed building 98 homes on 58 acres where Princess Anne Road meets Sandbridge Road.

``Density drives values of real estate,'' McGinnis said. ``If they're going to have redevelopment, they're going to have to create more density to justify paying for the land, which in turn puts more people above the Green Line . . . on the roads and in the school system.''

WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS

If one idea dominates the city's plan, it's a shift from the high quantity of development to high quality.

With the rate of growth diminished, city planners say they will have the chance to plot better development than they have in the past.

``In the '80s, the city was growing at about 8,000 residential homes per year. Now, we're growing at about 1,500 homes. . . . We are moving from growth control to quality development,'' Scott said.

In the past, added Tom Pauls, the Beach's comprehensive planning coordinator, the city planners were ``functionally myopic,'' not seeing the relationship between one development and the next. When the city proposed a park, for example, the city would place it where it was needed and did not think about its relationship to schools, libraries, roads and other services.

This fundamental shift from quantity to quality is significant. It means the city will be demanding more from developers and from itself: more attractive commercial areas, better homes and higher quality roadways.

In an interview at his office, Scott pulled a 1974 map of the city from a file drawer and spread it on his desk.

``Look at all the land. Look at all the development possibilities,'' he said, pointing out large chunks of white space, indicating open space. ``What happened was that development focused on the choicest land. If you look at a similar map today, you see all these open areas are filled in, so development is forced to look at land that has been passed over by other developers. . . . That's not good.''

What the city ends up with, Scott argues, is land that does not have a chance to be quality because developers won't invest much in land that's not deemed valuable to begin with.

The key for the city is to find ways for development to occur without resorting to that, he said.

``I think there is a need for the city to plan a different way, to stay away from that last piece of property and head into redevelopment - make an upgrade,'' Scott said.

``A lot of people made it clear that they moved here for the quality of life,'' said Robert Vakos, Planning Commission chairman.

Preserving it, he said, is the way to keep them here. ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photos]

The Virginian-Pilot

FILE PHOTOS

Residents want to preserve the rural character in the southern

portion of the city. The comprehensive plan encourages development

that provides recreation and open-space uses.

Beach officials point to Princess Anne Plaza Shopping Center as a

harbinger of the future. After redevelopment, the center was

appraised at $25 million, up from $8 million.

Virginia Beach's road map to the future. Full-page graphic/A6

D. KEVIN ELLIOTT/The Virginian-Pilot