THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, July 11, 1996 TAG: 9607110391
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ALEX MARSHALL, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE LENGTH: 106 lines
Competing visions of what one corner of Chesapeake should look like clashed Wednesday night at a Planning Commission meeting over a proposed new development.
Supporters saw an old family farm transformed into a modern version of a small town, complete with a main street, corner grocery stores and rowhouses. They billed it as a better way to grow.
``I hope it will be a model for Chesapeake and an answer to some of the suburban sprawl that has come here,'' said Carroll Williamson, a Chesapeake native who owns the 127-acre property and designed the development.
But opponents from surrounding neighborhoods saw the 436-home Planned Unit Development as something that would spoil their corner of suburbia with townhouses, office buildings, more traffic, as well as burdening schools with additional children.
``This smells downtownish,'' said Bryan Davis, who represented the Kemp Crossing civic league. ``It will transform my area from a rural setting to an urban setting. That's not why I moved to Chesapeake.''
In the end, the commission members, many of whom offered tempered praise for the project, advised opponents to study the concept and delayed the application for 30 days.
What was causing such a fuss was a type of development that is generally new to the area.
Williamson, a landscape architect who lives in Massachusetts, has proposed building something from the cutting edge of community development, a movement called neo-traditionalism or new urbanism.
Publications from Newsweek to Consumer Reports have hailed it as promoting stronger communities and a less car-centered lifestyle. Such subdivisions usually feature main streets lined with stores, rowhouses, and a mixture of prices and types of homes.
Williamson's Warrington Hall project is one of the first such developments proposed for the area.
One already approved is in East Ocean View, where the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority is planning to clear away an existing neighborhood and replace it with a more upscale project. Like Warrington Hall, it would feature rowhouses and a neighborhood shopping area similar to a village square.
The Williamson family land, wedged between Kempsville and Butts Station roads just below the Greenbrier Planned Unit Development, is already zoned for about 2.5 homes per acre. Williamson says he wants to build a better alternative to conventional suburbs.
Williamson, who was raised near the site, showed slides of similar developments around the country, including Kentlands, in Maryland, outside Washington, D.C. It is a place with brick rowhouses and garages hidden on alleys behind homes. In the generally upscale neighborhood, a $250,000 townhouse can sit on the same block as a $600,000 freestanding home with a massive front porch.
Williamson's development would be a place, he said, where kids could get together after school and walk to a nearby park to play, rather than depend on parents to drive them to recreation areas.
The development would include 208 single-family homes,66 townhouses, 62 multifamily and 100 units of housing for the elderly. At the center of the development would be an old farm house, built in 1814, on one corner of a proposed open space area.
The plan minimizes usage of suburban cul-de-sacs, but boasts European-style traffic circles. A street called Washington Boulevard would feature a central traffic circle, with stores and offices on each side and pushed up close to the street. Townhouses, built like traditional rowhouses, are on nearby streets. Washington Boulevard would stretch between Kempsville and Butts Station roads and could function like a new main street for the area.
But this shopping street, the townhouses and proposed office buildings along it aroused the ire of the neighbors from Tallwood Estates, Clearfield and Kemp Crossing.
They worried that by increasing the density of development on the property, more commuters would be thrown onto already crowded Kempsville Road. Williamson's plan would call for about 100 more homes or apartments than the current zoning.
They said townhouses could lower property values and that office buildings were not welcome neighbors.
``The reason we came here was to get a single-family home with a lot of land around it,'' said John P. Powell of Tallwood Estates. ``This project is taking a whole bunch of homes and putting it in one corner.''
Planning Commission Chairman Robert L. Briggs Sr. advised opponents to visit Ghent in Norfolk to see an urban neighborhood that illustrated some of the principles of the project. Commissioner Debbie Ritter said the concept could be valuable for the city.
``I grew up in New England, and there is a lot of New England here,'' Ritter said. ``I hope everyone will keep an open mind.''
If approved, the community would be the first new planned unit development since the zoning category was re-established in 1993.
Although born and raised in Chesapeake, Williamson has lived in New England for 30 years and resides in Brookline, Mass., an urban neighborhood that is similar in style to the one he wants to build.
Williamson said that because he owns the land debt-free, he has no rush to turn a profit quickly and can afford to stick to the original concept.
``We are not under financial pressure to spin this off real quick,'' Williamson said. ``We're phasing it out over 5 years, and it might be a lot longer than that.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
ALEX MARSHALL
A row of townhouses in Kentlands, a development in Maryland, outside
Washington, designed by nationally known architect Andres Duany.
Chesapeake landowner Carroll Williamson said Wednesday his proposed
Warrington Hall would be similar to this.
KEYWORDS: CHESAPEAKE GROWTH DEVELOPMENT by CNB