DATE: Wednesday, September 24, 1997         TAG: 9709240429

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B3   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: PUBLIC LIFE

                                            LENGTH:   60 lines

YESTERDAY:

NORFOLK

FREEMASON APARTMENTS: A residential and commercial development that will reshape the face of downtown cleared a hurdle Tuesday. The City Council voted 5-1 to award a downtown development certificate to Collins Enterprises of Greenwich, Conn., for a 3 1/2-story building that will contain 60 rental apartments and space for retail shops, the first phase of a $32-million project in Freemason Harbor. See page

BOND AID: The City Council on Tuesday authorized the Industrial Development Authority to issue up to $1.6 million in revenue bonds for the Food Bank of Southeastern Virginia to buy and renovate a warehouse at 800 Tidewater Drive. The agency plans to use the 75,000-square-foot building as its headquarters and operations center. Neither city funds nor its credit is involved in the bond sale.

SCHOOL CHANGE: Norfolk Collegiate School on Tidewater Drive won a zoning change Tuesday that will enable it to add more parking spaces for employees and to make two small additions to the existing building.

CHESAPEAKE

ROAD WISHES: Chesapeake asked the state to earmark money for several road improvements in the city:

Widening a 2 1/2-mile stretch of Military Highway with two additional lanes from Allison Drive to the Virginia Beach city line;

Improving the Tyre Neck Road crossing of Sterns Creek at the Chesapeake/Portsmouth city line; and

Improving the intersections of Greenbrier Parkway and Eden Way North and Greenbrier Parkway and the Greenbrier Mall access road.

The council also approved a new, wider design for the Great Bridge Bridge. See page .

AIDS COMMISSION: The City Council created a new commission to combat AIDS. The Chesapeake Commission for the Prevention of AIDS will have 13 members appointed by the City Council.

VIRGINIA BEACH

3,680 ACRES AND COUNTING: The City Council Tuesday voted to pay $1.4 million to put another 499 acres into the city's Agricultural Reserve Program. The program, started in 1995, seeks to preserve about 20,000 acres of farmland in the southern portion of the city by purchasing development rights to the land. So far, 3,680 acres have been preserved with a combined price tag of $10.3 million.

EMPLOYEE BONUS: City employees can expect fatter wallets next month. The City Council Tuesday approved $1.4 million in gainsharing funds to be distributed to city staff. Checks will be issued on Oct. 31. All full-time employees receive a one-time bonus of $224; part-timers will receive $112. Before taxes.

NOISE/CRASH EXPERT: The Beach decided to hire its own consultant to provide advice and double-check the formulas used by the Navy in setting noise and crash zones around Oceana Naval Air Station. See page

PORTSMOUTH

AMBULANCE AID: The City Council approved transferring $147,702 from the general fund to increase the amount of time the city's two ambulances are available and to hire five new full-time employees. The move is in anticipation of Portsmouth General Hospital's closing its emergency department to ambulance patients in January.

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