
DATE: Saturday, August 16, 1997             TAG: 9708160259

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MAC DANIEL, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE                        LENGTH:  110 lines

ROAD COMING, BUT THEY WON'T GO

The Floyds spend their days on a second floor sun porch overlooking their quiet garden, four lazy black Angus cows and 60 pristine acres they call home.

It's a rare piece of paradise in Chesapeake, one that fits the nature preserve marker that announces the property's border. The couple have known this land since 1941, bought it in 1955 and stayed.

They rode out the horrible Ash Wednesday flood of 1962 here, which claimed their first house and all their records. Rather than leave, they built again just across the driveway.

But progress is barreling down on Virginia and Robert Floyd's peace. Someday soon, a highway will split their ``preserve'' in two, and there is little the Floyds can do about it.

``We don't have many years left,'' Virginia said, ``but the ones we do have are going to be hectic.''

Across the room, Robert, her husband, blinked in affirmation.

Robert will be 81 next month. Virginia is 76. Time is fleeting. And the new alignment for Cedar Road is coming.

The road, designed to help Deep Creek deal with breakneck development, is scheduled to whir within about 500 feet of their home.

Construction is about a year away.

``We're going to have to cope with it,'' said Virginia. ``We've been fortunate. It's His will that we do this and cope with it. But we'll make it. We'll survive. We won't like it, but we'll survive.''

Their story is one of official sympathy, missed opportunities, and phantom records.

The Floyds believed that they had their land declared a wildlife sanctuary in 1955.

A sign on Millville Road marks the boundary of the Pine Cove Wild Life Sanctuary, so named, Virginia said, because the property's deed said throughout that ``it was so many feet to a cove and so many feet to a pine tree.''

State officials carefully checked their records, but could find nothing to back that claim.

``I'm certainly sympathetic to their problem here,'' said David Dowling, a special projects biologist for the department of Game and Inland Fisheries who helped with the checking. ``But according to their records, we can't support their claim, as much as I would like to.''

Any documentation the Floyds might have had was likely lost in a roll-top desk that was submerged for three days during the 1962 Ash Wednesday storm.

The Floyds also missed their opportunities to petition officials to get the road moved.

The city said at least three notices were sent to the Floyds about public hearings held to discuss the road's construction.

The Floyds, whose home is at least a quarter mile off the current Cedar Road, said they never received any.

So they never attended a single hearing where the road's path was finalized and concessions made to landowners. Now, it's too late to change the route, officials say.

The Floyds first came to this piece of land in 1941 to get away from Portsmouth and Norfolk and reconnect with their rural roots.

``My grace,'' said Robert, ``we loved it.''

The people building the new Cedar Road are sorry for the Floyds.

John O'Connor, director of public works, shakes his head. ``That's just a shame,'' he has said, ``but there's not a lot we can do.''

Bob Morrisette Jr., assistant city engineer, also is sympathetic.

``It wasn't easy,'' Morrisette said of the decision to cut through the property. ``It was a lot of pros and cons all around. There's very little I can do for them politically. And in the process of getting an approved location for the road, there are a lot of personal feelings and such. But in the end, this is a political process.

``When you have a project like this,'' he added, ``everyone has an interest. And for us, it's like threading a needle.''

Morrisette listed others who will be affected by Cedar Road's new alignment: Grassfield Baptist Church, the developer of Mariner's Shores, most of the residents in downtown Deep Creek, and all of the people along the current Cedar Road, a narrow and dangerous two-lane obstacle course filled nowadays with more dump trucks than cars.

The new road will initially be just two lanes and a center median, but there will be a 115-foot right of way, with room for up to six lanes. It will cost the city an estimated $13.8 million.

``If you move the road one place, you affect somebody else,'' said Morrisette. ``We're serving the public, and this project is good for Chesapeake. And that, in the end, is what we have to do - look at the good of the whole, the good of the public. Still, you know, it's unpleasant.''

The Floyd's sanctuary will be prime waterfront property once the road is built and could fetch top dollar from hungry developers gobbling up this corridor.

Others might cash in their property, take the money for the road, sell the rest of the land and avoid the congestion and inconvenience that is coming.

But the Floyds said they aren't budging. They rode out the Ash Wednesday storm. They'll survive a highway.

Robert and Virginia said they'll spend their remaining time on their sun porch.

There they will munch on butter beans and cantaloupe grown in Robert's garden and occasionally glance to the southeast looking for the road that will too soon approach. ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]

LIVING IN THE PATH OF PROGRESS

D. KEVIN ELLIOTT/The Virginian-Pilot

Robert and Virginia Floyd's land will be split in two by a new road.

But the couple has no intention of moving from their ``preserve.''

VP MAP

Robert and Virginia Floyd say their 60 acres of land near New Mill

Creek was declared a wildlife sanctuary in 1955. State officials,

however, have been unsuccessful in finding any records to verify

that claim. The Floyds believe their records were lost in the 1962

Ash Wednesday flood that destroyed their first house.

D. KEVIN ELLIOTT

The Virginian-Pilot