THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 23, 1996 TAG: 9606250424
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: COVER STORY
SOURCE: BY ELIZABETH THIEL, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 218 lines
IT'S 2030 IN Chesapeake.
Neighbors wave to each other as they walk to work or to nearby stores, along streets with little traffic. Children ride bikes on tree-lined trails or take dips in the sparkling-clean Southern Branch of the Elizabeth River.
The air is fresh. The water flowing out of everyone's tap is sweet and plentiful.
Citizens are perfectly happy with their city government, because state-of-the-art computer equipment has made all services more efficient.
Too good to be true? Maybe.
But citizens and city leaders are letting their imaginations fly this summer, as they try to draft a vision for how Chesapeake should evolve over the next 25 to 30 years.
``It's hard to visualize the future,'' said the Rev. David B. Vaughan, pastor of Lindale Christian Church and one of the citizens helping to create a vision. ``It's kind of like what Wayne Gretzky, the great hockey player says: `I'm going to skate where the puck is going to be, not where it is.' So we're trying to skate where the puck is going to be.''
Mayor William E. Ward originally convened the Mayor's Long Range Study Task Force in 1994. He brought the group back together this year to finish the work.
``Now is the time to give some thought to the type of city we want Chesapeake to be,'' Ward said.
The proposed vision is scheduled to go to City Council for consideration sometime in late summer or early fall. Council would have to approve it and adopt steps for making it happen.
Some of the goals the task force has proposed so far may be a bit utopian, such as getting all Hampton Roads cities to agree to a regional water system or replacing subdivisions in Chesapeake with idyllic villages of homes mixed in with retail stores and offices.
Other ideas, such as promoting the Great Dismal Swamp as a Chesapeake tourist attraction, could be reached fairly easily, if city officials commit.
Timothy H. Kerr, provost of Tidewater Community College's Chesapeake campus, whom Ward appointed to head the task force, said he hopes the City Council and top city administrators will seriously consider the recommendations his group is drafting.
``With the two-party system we've got now, nobody wants to agree with each other, even though privately they may think it's a great idea,'' said Kerr, referring to Democrats and Republicans on the council.
Ward said he scheduled the task force's work to avoid politics, as much as possible.
``It gives us some time - because there are no elections during the next two years - to put together some kind of vision that candidates will commit to,'' Ward said.
It will take time.
The issues the city will have to address in the next few decades are weighty: growth, quality of life, technology, the environment and regional cooperation. Residents expressed concern about all of those issues during recent elections.
Task force subcommittees are examining each issue in depth.
One problem is that few citizens have shown up so far to help the group come up with a vision.
``This is a golden opportunity for our citizens to become involved in helping to determine the future of our city,'' Ward said.
``I cannot, nor can a few of us, design a vision that would be applicable to the needs and wants and desires of 190,000 people.''
Ward and Kerr said they will find a way to allow citizens to comment on the vision statement once it's in a more final form.
Here's what the task force has come up with so far:
Growth
Anyone who has lived in Chesapeake for a long time will tell you that the city looks a whole lot different today than it did 10 years ago.
Chesapeake has been among the fastest-growing cities in the nation. Businesses have sprung up along major thoroughfares; housing developments have blossomed from farm fields.
Citizens are concerned about how much their community has changed.
Gerald A. Porterfield, 45, a landscape architect and land planner who lives in Greenbrier, believes it's not growth itself, but the type of growth, that has bred anxiety.
Giant subdivisions have isolated people from each other, Porterfield said, forcing them to become dependent on automobiles to get to jobs, stores and recreational activities.
Most people who live in single-family homes can't walk to the grocery store, to work or to visit a friend who lives in an apartment complex, Porterfield said.
Porterfield headed the task force's subcommittee on growth. The subcommittee's vision for future growth in Chesapeake calls for changing the subdivision mentality.
Instead, Porterfield envisions a city with mini-villages; each village would contain everything residents needed for survival and fulfillment. Residents would be able to identify with a real community.
That's a major shift from today's views. Zoning ordinances and land use plans now discourage such development, because they don't allow single-family homes, apartments, condos, commercial businesses and manufacturers to mingle in the same zones.
``If you want to do anything at all, you have to get in your car and go somewhere else,'' Porterfield said. ``If you want to go get a loaf of bread or some gas, or to the doctor's office.''
``Large-lot subdivisions are the problem,'' he said. ``We need different land uses. That's what I'm trying to offer Chesapeake as an alternative.''
Such villages also would help alleviate some of the city's other growth problems, such as crowded roads, Porterfield said.
Environment
In Chesapeake's backyard, there's one of the largest federal refuges this side of the Mississippi - the Great Dismal Swamp.
Many residents don't even know what it has to offer, said Lloyd A. Culp, 41, a Western Branch resident and manager of the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge, run by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
``It's a very dominant landmark in Southeastern Virginia,'' said Culp, who headed the subcommittee's task force on the environment.
One of the subcommittee's recommendations to the council is that the city do more to help protect the swamp, and educate the public about its value.
Culp said he envisions the city taking an active role in saving wetlands around the swamp from further damage, by activities such as encouraging farmers to turn swampy fields back into wetlands and wildlife habitats.
The city also could better promote the swamp as a tourist attraction, Culp said.
The subcommittee also has proposed that the city continue to work with other area cities to clean up the Southern Branch of the Elizabeth River, and to encourage community groups to continue city beautification projects such as planting flowers around pump stations.
Quality of life
In the recent elections, citizens complained that there isn't enough recreation in the city - few comprehensive recreation centers, no public pools, few bike trails and not enough baseball and softball fields.
The subcommittee charged with examining quality-of-life issues in Chesapeake, however, decided not to put pressure on the City Council to build those facilities right away.
``I think the parks and recreation people are already working as hard as they can to get more golf courses, pools or whatever,'' said the Rev. Vaughan, a Greenbrier resident who headed the subcommittee on quality of life. ``So we wanted to sort of cheer them on.''
Instead, the group focused on more ethereal qualities of a great future city, such as creating a healthy community, a cultural atmosphere, a mind set among citizens that high moral values are important and a safe, clean environment.
``We didn't try to dictate too much, but just kind of give some broad strokes to show what we saw as the ideal future,'' Vaughan said.
Among the things Vaughan and his group are suggesting to the City Council: organizing recreational events such as a 10-kilometer run and a bicycle marathon; creating maps and audio tapes of historic sites throughout the city, and erecting markers at those sites; encouraging churches to get more involved in city life; designating an annual clean-up day for Chesapeake.
Technology
Many cities are trying to keep up in the footrace to use technology.
Chesapeake is no different. The problem is that it's expensive, and it's tough to get people to agree on what kind of technology is best and how it should be used.
``Technology can be a tremendous black hole into which you pour lots and lots of money with no apparent result,'' said Robert H. DeMara, 45, a Great Bridge resident and computer systems analyst for the Navy Management Systems Support Office. DeMara heads the task force's subcommittee on technology.
``Unless it's business-based and business-focused to satisfy real business objectives, we don't want to pursue it.''
For DeMara's group, that meant focusing on technology that would help the city become more efficient and schools teach kids better.
The group is still working, inviting school and city officials to join them. There are no recommendations yet for the City Council.
On the school system side, they'll consider the best ways to teach kids about computers, to help teachers use technology to improve instruction and to use technology to make school administration more efficient.
On the city side, they'll examine ways to use technology to make city government more efficient, make information more readily available to citizens and share information with other Hampton Roads cities.
``I think if we can get the right folks involved, and we can get city staff and the citizens group and the political folks to play together. . . then we can make some headway,'' DeMara said.
Regional cooperation
Civic leaders have long lamented the inability of Hampton Roads cities to work together to attract business, industry and tourism.
The task force has some specific ideas for how the Chesapeake City Council can adopt a more region-friendly approach.
Chesapeake should start talks on establishing a regional water authority, which could eliminate inter-city squabbling about water supplies.
The task force also wants city leaders to support a proposed system for light rail transportation between Virginia Beach and Norfolk, which eventually could be expanded to include Chesapeake.
Chesapeake and area cities also should standardize some city codes, such as fire codes, and consolidate some public safety functions, such as emergency evacuation plans.
The cities also could get together and privatize some public services.
The idea was to ``try to break down the different ways of doing business from Chesapeake to Virginia Beach to Norfolk and so forth, to try to make it easier for the citizens,'' said Fred J. Schmitt, 49, who lives in Western Branch and is a business consultant with American Management Systems. Schmitt headed the task force's subcommittee on regional cooperation.
``We tried to temper a little bit of idealism with a dose of reality,'' he said. ``It would require people from the public sector and people from the private sector as well to think outside of the box.
``But I think it's achievable.'' MEMO: If you are interested in joining the task force, or if you have
comments on any of the preliminary results, please call the city clerk's
office, 547-6151, or task force chairman Timothy H. Kerr, 549-5201. ILLUSTRATION: Staff photos by STEVE EARLEY
Timothy H. Kerr, provost of Tidewater Community College's Chesapeake
campus, who heads the task force, hopes the City Council and top
city administrators will seriously consider the recommendations his
group is drafting.
Chesapeake is one of the nation's fastest-growing cities. Housing
developments have blossomed from farm fields.
An idea such as promoting the Great Dismal Swamp as a Chesapeake
tourist attraction could be reached fairly easily.
The city is struggling to keep up with growth. Now under
construction is Hickory High School.
KEYWORDS: CHESAPEAKE GROWTH DEVELOPMENT FUTURE by CNB