Eastern Shore town of Cape Charles braces for influx of new housing

CAPE CHARLES

A loudspeaker is blaring from a fire engine as it winds through the historic district’s streets, all 15 of them. It’s election day in Cape Charles, and this is the get-out-the-vote effort. If you didn’t cast a ballot, someone might knock on your door and ask why not.

“People tend to be a lot more aware of things in a small town,” said Cela Burge, chairwoman of the town’s planning commission.

It’s this familiar dynamic that makes the discourse over the proposed 435-unit Cape Harbor development – the latest of three large ones – so interesting. Directly or indirectly, most everyone in this town of 1,500 has a stake.

Steve Bennett runs construction for the town’s massive Bay Creek developments – where only about 10 percent of the lots have been developed.

“It’s not really competition,” Bennett said last week, greeting voters outside Trinity United Methodist Church. Bennett, one of the Town Council winners that day, said Bay Creek sells single-family homes, while Cape

Harbor would be condos.

Bruce Evans, a town councilman and member of the planning commission, said he and Cape Harbor’s developer, Nimrod Tavi, are good friends. He once bought land from Tavi, he said.

This is not the first time Cape Charles has been at a crossroads.

The town was born in the 1880s when railroaders William L. Scott and Alexander Cassatt realized a long-talked-about link from the southern end of the Delmarva peninsula to Norfolk, across which rail freight and passengers would pass. The town was created to support the railroad.

Cape Charles was built in a grid, with wide boulevards and its own Central Park. It was a hodge-podge of homes – stately Victorians, Sears Roebuck kit homes, 14-foot by 14-foot, two-story tenements.

In its heyday, 30 ferries a day ran to Norfolk, 100 cars on each. Three hundred rail cars passed through man-made Cape Charles Harbor each day.

The 1964 opening of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, linking the Eastern Shore and Virginia Beach, dropped a heavy curtain over the town.

Ferry service, which had moved south to Kiptopeke, ended. Railroad traffic all but stopped. The bridge-tunnel’s toll made sure the town didn’t turn into a bedroom community. The population dropped from 4,500 to 1,200. The commercial district was boarded up. Houses fell into disrepair, became rentals.

“Ten years ago, people were buying homes on a credit card,” said Jim Mahafy, who moved here from Chicago.

About 15 years ago, Virginia Beach developer Richard Foster’s ambitious Bay Creek developments breathed life into the community. Bay Creek is a golfing community on the south side of the historic district, with a marina on the north side.

Some bought in Bay Creek, others found great deals in the historic district.

Investors weren’t far behind. People would strip a house to its bones, rebuild and turn a handsome profit.

“You couldn’t hold on to a property for a couple days before someone was buying it and flipping it again,” town planner Tom Bonadeo said.

Five years ago, Cape Charles was a boom town once more.

But it didn’t last. With an abundance of second homes and investment homes, Cape Charles was among the first casualties of the real estate downturn.

“When it slowed down, the last people holding the houses lost – it was like musical chairs,” said Larry Veber, a council candidate handing out pencils at the church.

The town’s dynamic was left changed. A 2007 town study found 387 occupied homes, 184 occupied part of the time and 187 vacant homes.

Eileen Cobb said she is the only full-time resident left on her side of the 100 block of Tazewell St.

The real estate market hasn’t rebounded. Rather than wait for that, some are betting the developments could kick-start things.

South Port at Cape Charles is promoted as an all-purpose yacht center, offering yacht repairs, storage and sales. Its centerpiece is two giant cranes that pluck boats up to 600 tons from the water.

It’s built on the site of a grand, failed project: the nation’s first Sustainable Technology Industrial Park, to be the hub of “renewable” industries that dabbled in windmills, solar panels and such. But 13 years after it launched, it had drawn only one tenant.

Harbor Development Group has approval to turn a 20-acre property abutting South Port into a mixed-use area, including a boatel, marina and commercial space. The developer is awaiting some Army Corps of Engineers permits.

The latest plans are for a 6.6-acre parcel on the north side of the harbor.

Tavi, the son of Israeli actor Tuvia Tavi, plans to build seven buildings – six of them commercial/residential and one hotel. In all it, would mean 435 living units.

The debate, Bonadeo said, boils down to this: “How much do we need? And how much can we stand?”

Opponents say the development could increase homes in the historic district by 57 percent. And they say density figures are being manipulated to justify the change.

The Tavi development calls for 72 units per acre.

There are 6.6 residential units per acre in the historic district, which borders the area where Cape Harbor would be built. But in a May 6 report, Bonadeo found a precedent for 64 units per acre, citing a building in town that has nine condominium units.

“You set a precedent this is allowed, then there is no reason why other businessmen can’t expect the same treatment,” said Chad Davis, who rode his bike to the polling place .

“We can’t retain our small-town feeling if three to five of these units are spread around town.”

“It’s going to have an effect on our small town,” said Danielle Campbell, who moved to the area from Pennsylvania five years ago. “We’re already struggling to maintain it.”

Others fear Landmark Holdings U.S., Tavi’s group, may sell after winning approval. For numerous land dealings on the Eastern Shore, Tavi has developed only one subdivision.

Landmark “will be developing this property,” said Judy Morgan, who is spearheading the project for Tavi. She said Landmark is looking for investors but has the resources to build on its own.

Many say change is imminent.

“We can’t stay the way we’ve been, because there’s no employment,” said Beth Hayward, who came from Philadelphia about four years ago and renovated a home on Strawberry Street.

Others welcome it.

“We could build a population base that would build jobs,” said Evans, who runs a bed and breakfast .

Tavi’s group pushed for a public hearing, and two dates have been set, which Evans said is unusual.

“There are scary thoughts of monstrous buildings,” Morgan said. “There’s not enough public information for there to be proper conceptions.”

The hearings are 6 p.m. June 3 and 2 p.m. June 21 at the volunteer fire department.

John Warren, (757) 221-5114, john.warren@pilotonline.com