THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 17, 1996 TAG: 9603160117
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 13 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: Chesapeake Business Review
SOURCE: BY JENNIFER C. O'DONNELL, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 70 lines
Chesapeake experienced a bit of a reprieve in population growth last year as the city's number of residents increased by only 2.32 percent.
Although Chesapeake was home to 187,204 residents by the end of 1995, 4,253 more than in 1994, the percentage change was marginal. In recent years, population growth has increased by as much as 4.73 percent.
``In 1994 we added some 2,704 additional dwelling units and 7,450 new residents,'' said Karen E. Shaffer, assistant planning director. ``Most of the growth in '94 was attributed to new apartment buildings. They make the numbers go up.''
Brent R. Nielson, director of Chesapeake's Planning Department, attributes last year's moderate growth to several factors.
``I think we see a direct relationship in population increase to policies instituted by the City Council over the past few years,'' said Nielson. ``The council has adopted several growth management policies to slow down the rate of residential development in the city.''
Planning Department statistics divide the city into nine sections, showing that the least growth was in the Camelot, Indian River and South Norfolk last year.
The Rivercrest section of the city experienced the greatest growth with an increase in residents of 4.70 percent. The Great Bridge population increased by 3.01 percent in 1995 and Western Branch saw a growth spurt of 4.66 percent over the previous year.
Although the population in Great Bridge did grow by 3 percent last year, Nielson said the rate is down from previous years.
``Great Bridge will continue to grow at a substantially reduced rate from recent years because of the lack of zoned residential property available,'' he said.
The section of Chesapeake that is likely to see plenty of future growth is Western Branch.
``There's quite a bit of vacant available land in Western Branch that has been residentially zoned,'' he said.
Nielson also expects Western Branch to benefit from access to Interstate 664 and from residential spillover from the rapidly growing north Suffolk region.
``We expect Western Branch to keep pace or exceed the overall city population growth for a while,'' he said.
The city calculates population growth first by determining the number of new dwelling units, which include single-family homes, apartment units, mobile home developments and multifamily homes. Then the city assumes a vacancy rate and an average of 2.87 persons per dwelling, which is based in 1990 U.S. Census average household size.
According to Nielson, the city has more than 5,300 acres of undeveloped residentially-zoned land left which equates into approximately 19,000 future homes.
More farmland is expected to be consolidated over the next few years as fewer farmers choose to stay in the profession.
``We're seeing a lot of residential building on three-acre plots along Cederville Road, Sanderson Road and Carolina Road,'' said Richard Rhodes, director of the Chesapeake Agriculture Department and Extension Service. ``Farmers are either selling their own land or the owners they lease from are selling to builders or individuals looking to build on a couple of acres.'' ILLUSTRATION: Charts
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