THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 14, 1996 TAG: 9604130143
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
SOURCE: Kevin Armstrong
LENGTH: Medium: 73 lines
I find that most people are too busy with their personal and professional lives to spend much time really talking about our community in a large sense.
Let's face it, when is the last time you and one of your closest friends took 30 minutes or more to discuss the challenges that face our elected leaders? And let's leave the school district's finances out of it. That's too easy. I'm talking discussions about where we've been and where we're heading.
If you have engaged in such informal debate some time last week, you are to be commended. For the rest of you, pat yourself on the back for reading at least this far. Maybe it will get you started.
Most conversations I've had about the Beach always lead to the same conclusion: How did anyone in charge allow the city to develop in such a helter skelter fashion? And, who was asleep at the wheel?
Residents resent the fact that you can drive in most any section of town north of the Courthouse or Nimmo Church and find one strip shopping center after another connected to cookie-cutter clusters of subdivisions.
It's easy to think what we could have been.
That discussion can continue long into the night, but like any Kempsville parkway, it leads right back to where you started.
More productive lip service is paid to problem solving. Have we learned anything along our way?
It seems the City Council might have. While several members have served long enough to have helped create the problems we now face, they reacted much differently last week.
Council members had to choose between sticking with an earlier commitment to control growth patterns along Princess Anne Road or allow a new retail client to put down roots along that path.
Target, the discount store giant, had hoped to erect a ``big box'' at the corner of Princess Anne Road and Lynnhaven Parkway.
Council members balked at the thought of creating traffic snarls along the eight-lane highway by allowing Target to place entrances and exits onto Princess Anne. They told Target that Lynnhaven Parkway could be accessed but Princess Anne was off limits.
That wasn't exactly an easy choice since it meant turning down a new corporate client and the half a million dollars in new sales taxes it could generate.
One of council's primary goals after all is attracting more businesses to support our growing number of residents.
Plenty of options were considered in the Target plan, but in the end council said no thanks.
Imagine if earlier leaders had taken that tact 10 years ago. What a different city this might be.
At least, though, it's a start.
Being committed more to principles instead of pocketbooks is a worthy pursuit for the folks who govern us.
It will serve them, and us, well when they embark next month on a major planning initiative. The council will revisit an important document called the Comprehensive Plan. In effect, it's the city's blueprint for future development. It determines where new houses and businesses should go, where old farms and forests should stay and where to put the roadways that connect them all.
The city will be holding 17 public hearings in locations all over town so that residents like you can sound off. They want your input. It will be meaningful now, but sour grapes if saved for later.
Think about the undeveloped corridors along Dam Neck and Princess Anne roads. Consider the emerging potential for Pembroke, Corporate Landing and Lake Ridge. And the renovation of older areas like the resort strip.
We still have a lot to work with. Working together, we can make the most of it. by CNB