THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, March 22, 1995 TAG: 9503220269
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY FRANCIE LATOUR, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE LENGTH: Short : 50 lines
Heeding the warnings of concerned residents, the City Council on Tuesday unanimously rejected a 30-acre borrow pit that would have added hundreds of dump trucks for seven years to the city's most hazardous road - South Battlefield Boulevard.
More than 70 residents from southern Chesapeake and around the city crowded City Hall chambers to protest the pit. Though they recognized the urgent need for sand to meet building demands in the state's fastest-growing city, they called the proposed 60-foot pit unconscionable - a ``death sentence'' for the more than 17,000 local and interstate commuters who travel on the narrow, two-lane road.
``I've watched this council sit up there week after week and decry the problems on Battlefield Boulevard and ask the state and even the federal government for help to fix it,'' said Adele Whitener, who several years ago fought an illegal borrow pit near her home in Mill Pond Forest.
``How can you turn and put trucks on this road that you've already declared a state hazard?''
Councilman Peter P. Duda, who made a motion to deny the pit, agreed with the dozen speakers who came to the podium.
``As I said before,'' Duda said, ``now is not the time. Route 168 is a vital link for our city, and the site on Battlefield Boulevard is just not a good one at this time. When 168 comes on line, I'll be the first to be up here and approve the site.''
It is the second time in a year the developer has sought to dig the pit, and the second time that the planning staff, Planning Commission and City Council have rejected a developer's request to dig an expansive hole near the city's Northwest River Water Treatment Plant. Each time, the city has ruled that the pit failed to meet its basic legal requirements. Those include a safe entrance and exit for trucks onto the road, a specific project nearby that the sand would serve, and a minimum distance of 1,000 feet from adjacent residents.
J. Gregory Dodd, who spoke on behalf of the owners of the pit, said he did not know whether the application would return next year.
But, he said, the need for sand won't go away.
``The statistics and facts that we showed to the city are real,'' said Dodd, principal owner of the Chesapeake building firm Horton & Dodd. ``Someone, somewhere, sometime soon in this city will get a borrow pit in Chesapeake.'' by CNB