Beach seeks to buy key site near Convention Center

Yes, Cfrederick has it right. And the point is, if the city decides to make an investment of public funds, and knows that this investment will increase the land value of adjacent property, isn't it appropriate for the city to take that adjacent land at the market value, and lock in the profit for the public instead of for the speculator? In essence, that is what has occured in this case. An Investor, with the same knowldege that everyone else had, bought property knowing that land value would increase. More power to him. My problem is with these ill informed libertarians in the VBTA who have advocated for restrictions on the use of eminent domain, restrictions which benefit landlords and speculators at the expense of the taxpayers. This is a classic example of that , and for once they must now come face to face with the damage wrought by their ideological purity.

Where is it written that everyone is "entitled" to affordable housing? When I purchased my first home, I made it affordable ,..........BY WORKING AS MANY JOBS AS IT TOOK TO SAVE ENOUGH FOR A DOWNPAYMENT !!!!!! DUH !!! I also paid my bills on time, never late and never missed.
That's how you buy a home !
So to hell with affordable housing, try WORKING and EARNING a home !!!

Anyone who has sold property in VB knows that property generally sells well above the city's assessed value. Property upgraded to commercial zoning is worth even more. Opportunists and speculators can be expected to move in and drive up prices on undeveloped property near the convention center. During the planning of the new convention center, citizens from all walks of life and from all over Virginia Beach supported the development of a pedestrian-friendly corridor of commercial development and public plazas between the convention center and the Dome site. (It may not be your cup of tea, but the resort area has always been open to everyone, and is heavily used by locals.) To show you what happens when the decision to acquire land is delayed, just look to the west side of the 19th Street Radisson hotel to see how property the city delayed its decision about was instead developed for resid

Well of course, who would ever be for misleading taxpayers or employees. However, you can't have it both ways either. The TIF's and PPV's that I have researched all have had a positive return on investment, and have contributed to the tax base and our ability to build new fire stations, new EMS facilities, and a new communication facility. You say some perform better than others; of course, not every investment works out exactly as you would wish. However, in the context of this issue, the convention center and the development within the old beach district will bring thousands of new jobs, extra tax revenue from visitors to conventions and meetings at the center, and will provide a new living environment in the beach district that leverages existing infrastructure to create much greater real estate value and higher contributions to the city's revenue base. You can't have it both ways; if

I see a lot of money going out to these commercial investments such as the Convention Center and Town Center, but the question is, when do the people of Virginia Beach get the big payback for these investments? Where are the improved roads, the better pay for city employees and school improvements? After living and tracking VB spending this way for the last eight years, I see a lot of this 'investing for more taxes' going on, but very little coming of any of it for the infrastructure of the city. City Council members should be stuck in traffic around Town Center at rush hour to see how their failure to invest in the infrastructure is affecting things. When the city can't attract top quality people for city positions, they only have themselves to blame. It's not an anti-tax issue as you continue to complain about: it is an issue of how those tax dollars are being spent.

Is this a comedy site?

"The CCO rep is always the outsider at the RAC, not a member of the Resort business community. Mike is as nice a guy as you'll ever meet. Back when I was a freshman Commissioner in 2004, he regularly watched my back. In short, he's the last Commissioner who would cut a self-serving deal."

So what your saying is that because he helped YOU, then WE should believe that he is not interested in creating profit through a "self serving deal?

Thsoe of you not familiar w/ the property should drive by and take alook at it. Mr. Standing didn't go out of his way to honor the community in his care for the property. See Uhrin's description above article. It is a slum. Crime rates will drop once it is razed.

I've never been opposed to investing to grow this city but I do oppose misleading the employees, taxpayers and business groups. Frankly some of the investments have provided returns but others have failed to meet expectations. What we are seeing today is a lack of balance on the part of City Council in order to appease the big ticket investors.

I see our local employees as an investment just like Town Center or the oceanfront as it is our public safety and educational system that keeps VB one of the best cities in the state. I have indicated many times that I supported reduced expenditures across the city budget but not on solely on the backs of the employees. What I am witnessing is millions for private business PPV's and nothing for the residents or the employees. No balance…

If city council continues this activity, I'm afraid they are going to lose a great numbers of supporters and votes. As th

Again, the irony of those who make demands on the council to spend more money for whatever is their biggest objective, whether it be schools, or health care, or support for retirees, or higher pay for public safety personnel, must acknowledge that in an environment in which the General Assembly is cutting on a regular basis the intergovernmetnal support for local government, if council is to meet the legitimate demands for support, they must invest to stimulate private development that increases the tax base. This is a perfect example of that strategy, which follows other successul PPV's like the TIF's in Sandbridge Beach, Town Center, 31st Street, and the parking deck at Lynnhaven. These investments required much greater private investment, which has occured, and which has provided money in excess of the debt service to transfer to the general fund to meet the aforementioned deman

they're saving the big surprise until AFTER the election. How much we're going to have to pay a poor broke developer to develop the Dome site....

Hey I'm no anti-tax zealot either. I've publicly opposed the VBTA for many years. Mike just likes to paint all posters who do not agree with his views with the broad brush of “anti-tax zealots.”

Back on topic, I have to seriously question support for a city council that bills older fixed income retirees for health care claiming a financial downturn but who can find millions at the drop of a hat to buy a McDonalds or more lots. Also there is the issue of a measly 1% pay raise while claiming not to have the money to follow thru on merit increases or the public safety pay plan to help retain our experienced public safety employees. If I were speaking to other employees or retires from the schools or city, I’d suggest they look closely at the other candidates(Except Sessoms & Davis) before deciding who gets their votes. I hate to admit it but frankly I've been very supportive of city council for several ye

The sidewalk is an already-funded CIP project.

I don't know where the money for the full property is being pulled from. Even though I'm a RAC Commissioner, I had to learn about this one the same way you did.

and I still disagree with the way the City runs these deals.....
The Council cries poverty when it comes time to support it's police,fire and ems employees, but then can mysteriously find the money for these pet projects.
NO money for retirees or health care, no money for earned pay raises, yet lots of money to throw at a sidewalk.
NO money for NEEDED personnel on fire trucks, NO money for needed police and EMS issues, yet we have money to build a sidewalk.
VIrginia Beach public safety workers are CHAMPIONS at how they work with LESS....... Less manning than our neighboring cities and LESS caring by the City Council members....
To heck with the sidewalk........ and I've got nothing to do with anti-tax........LOL!!

like all well trained salesman our favorite blogger always sidesteps the real question....how was the price of this property arrived at and where is the necessity of it's acquisition.

What part of "public money is not for private development" do you fail to understand? All of your arguments assume the "improper" use of pubic money to finance private developers is just fine and dandy so how the city improperly spends that money could be more improperly value added by an improper RHA. What the heck is da Bull?

Of course, C.B. and da Bull want it both ways; they want to complain that the city has apparently agreed to pay too much, and they want to complain because if the city had condmenation power, they claim they would pay too little. That is typical of an anti tax zealot; criticize everyone but themselves. For it was clearly the libertarian, anti tax movement that pushed the General Assembly to make Virginia's strict law even more restrictive, and which therefore will require jurisdictions who want to take advantage, on behalf of their citizens, of the development potential of property adjacent and near to facilities developed by the same public. But this is a classic case where if a public entitiy could have used eminent domain, it would have resulted in a fair settlement to the landowner, and a better return on the public investment. But of course these nay sayers don't even have a clue of the ex

Yes, Mike Standing is a RAC Commissioner, and so am I. I've been the CCO RAC representative since February, 2004.

The CCO rep is always the outsider at the RAC, not a member of the Resort business community. Mike is as nice a guy as you'll ever meet. Back when I was a freshman Commissioner in 2004, he regularly watched my back. In short, he's the last Commissioner who would cut a self-serving deal.

Let me point out that if Standing really wanted to make a pile, he could have sold the sidewalk frontage to the City and redeveloped the remainder of the property himself.

Henry Ryto, CCO RAC voting representative.

You obviously skirted the point. The point is the property is being bought for "development" purposes and not a public utility. This idea that imminent domain would make things better in this scenario is just plain dumb. Va Beach citizens voted to not have a VBRHA because of this exact type of case in which housing authorities historically abuse imminent domain leaving property owners with the short end of the stick. That is called "theft". To make it even more perverse is the cities usually turn over the land to a developer who then claims the property is suddenly worth 10 times more. The other point that was skirted was why VB has unlimited funds to buy land or develop but cries poverty on any other budget item. I am not against development, I am against public money being used to bankroll development companies. You build it with your own money and you take the risk. That is completely reasonable.

All I can see is greed and special interest coming from the city council. When are they going to make good on their promise of affordable housing? Soon only rich people will be able to live in Virginia Beach? Why can't "we the people" seem to elect people to council who care and who are not greedy developers.

like all well trained salesman our favorite blogger always sidesteps the real question....how was the price of this property arrived at and where is the necessity of it's acquisition.
Everytime I hear that anti-tax zealot thing I look at my file cabinet that has 58 years of tax returns in it and laugh....yes I still have all of them..

Well C.B., my point exactly. In a city which had the right of eminent domain, the city would have taken property for the convention center and for redevelopment around the convention center that is as inevitable as night follows day. And yes, they would have been required to pay a fair market price for the value of the land for the use it was in at the time of the take. No problem. But of course, we can't do that in Virginia Beach, so even though we know that our own public investment in the convention center will create added value for adjacent landowners, we must go ahead and pay the price that the landowner sets. In other words, our public investment has resulted in a windfall profit for the owner of the nearby property. Now, you could say, well don't buy the land; problem is, we, the citizens, are the ones who lose in that scenario because we don't receive the highest return on our investment in the co

Perhaps the urgency of this deal is all about the elections this fall. When the looting of the Virginia Beach City Treasury and the taxpayers pocket comes to an end...... Oh my gosh!..we might become a "backwater"!

Mr. Barrett decries citizens voting down a redevelopement and housing authority and then specifies the exact reason why, "Power of Imminent Domain". Imminent domain is to be used for the taking of personal property, at a FAIR price, for public purposes such as schools or roads not private development or the enhancemnt thereof. In the story's case, the owner is on a public board and certainly appears to be getting double for his land in a smelly deal of conflict of interest. If the same went for any other average person, we would have been offered half of the value and we would have to fight to get fair value. Other posters are absolutely correct in the obviously endless stockpile of money for property or development but other budgetary items come up short. That is the "anti-tax zealots" beef.

why is there some burning necessity to aquire this property? Nobodys in line to buy it. I thought "market pressure" and perhaps a line of buyers would prompt some action, here we have neither....but we do have a "sweetheart deal" with a political crony. Wonder what prompted this idea....a suggestion fron the Resort Advisory Committee? Did they decide the price too??

Well, it is interesting that the anti tax zealots would once again rise up in abject horror at the price offered; after all, isn't it more than the assessment? The irony is that it is these same anti tax zealots who lobbied so hard to ensure that the city did not have a redevelopment agency with the power of eminent domain. Now if such an agency were in existence, it could have taken land around the convention center, land that any citizen with a modicum of common sense, knows will increase in value as the public development occured. But of course, in Virginia Beach, that can't occur because of the failure of the citizens to support a redevelopment agency. So now they howl that the city has to pay too much for private property that benefitted from adjacent public investment; before, they howled because the city would take property on behalf of taxpayers to leverage the public investment in infras

Just to pass on another bit of information: Virginia Beach public records on the net show the property (as assessed for $1,053,700 and labeled 723 19th Street) was purchased on 06/03/04 for $835,387.00. At a sale price of $2,200,000 it's not a bad gross profit, especially at a time when property values are tanking.

But, I guess if we need it bad enough for our future projects, we have to pay what the market will bear.

But what the people of Virginia Beach really need. Forget better roads, school improvement, higher pay for our police force, park improvements or at least clean up - and yet they can somehow FIND the money to pay double what a piece of property is worth. You know, at one time a community would tar and feather people that would do things the way the VB city council and mayor do then they'd chase them out of town. Come election time we need to do the next best thing: GET THESE PEOPLE OUT OF OFFICE BEFORE THEY RUIN VIRGINIA BEACH ANYMORE!

of waste of taxpayers money. Let the "zone" who benefits, pay for it. Anyway, who wants to walk from the convention center down to the oceanfront in a full sweat with a bunch of convention bags? Have to still go by leftover apartments. Again, another get rich opportunity for one...or a few..

property owner Mike Standing just happens to be on the "Virginia Beach Resort Advissory Commision"...I guess this is all coincidence...funny the paper didn't mention that....

Why can't VB council ever find money for schools, roads, police/fire/rescue, but they seem to have an endless pit of cash for pet projects? My house is worth $300k but I would gladly sell it to them for double the amount. Seems spore and tax-em-dorf are inept enough to buy that!

Vote RENO in November....Re-Elect No One!

Spore and Company profess to have "no money for this" and "no money for that", never any money for the employees so we'd better make the retirees pay for the medical insurance we promised them, but.... they seem to always find money to buy real estate.

Maybe they'll remember their decisions AFTER the elections?