NORFOLK
City leaders are drawing up plans to develop 21 acres in East Ocean View that they hope will end a divisive five-year controversy over the property.
City Councilman Barclay C. Winn said the area likely will be used as open and recreation space with housing in places that are already partially developed.
Planning Director Frank Duke will soon present the plan to City Manager Regina V.K. Williams, he said. It will then go to the City Council for approval.
The Bay Oaks Park Committee, an advocacy group, wants the entire wooded tract set aside as open space. The group has sponsored petition drives, including one that drew more than 5,000 signatures; packed public hearings and defeated the city in the Virginia Supreme Court.
But after five years it has yet to receive what it wants: To have the land from 3rd Bay to 7th Bay streets rezoned as park space.
Duke said he would be guided by what officials heard at a series of public hearings last year. Residents were evenly divided between those who want open space, those who want active recreation space, such as soccer fields; and those who want housing, Duke said.
"I can't take the whole area and make it open space," he said. "There is land the city doesn't own."
Winn said he's hopeful Duke will come up with a compromise all sides can endorse. "But given how strongly people feel on this issue, I'm not overly optimistic."
The dissent over the land was evident over the weekend. City Attorney Bernard Pishko asked the Bay Oaks Committee if it would consider postponing any further action until after the council's retreat in September.
"I told them that the council will be reserving significant time to talk about this issue," Pishko said.
Bill Kerry, the group's president, said his executive committee unanimously voted no on Saturday. "The City Council and city leadership have never had formal or meaningful conversations with the committee," he wrote in an e-mail to Pishko. He added that the city's past actions "hamper any sense of trust."
Kerry asked the council three weeks ago to begin the process of rezoning the property. If it doesn't do so by July 24, the Bay Oaks group said it would begin a complicated process of petition drives to force the city to vote on rezoning the land. The first petition drive likely would begin later this month, committee member Ann Fitzgibbon said.
Harry Minium, (757) 446-2371, harry.minium@pilotonline.com
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if it's 20 ft tall and green
If it's 20 ft tall and green some developer will build a house on it in Ocean View.
Bay Oaks Park
Great comment by Paul - my thoughts exactly. I wish this Bay Oaks "committee" would get it's head out of the sand and appreciate the cities plan. Were the names verified on that petition? I know some folks who signed at least 5 times! I own a home in this area and we are desperately in need of improvements, including improvements in the flooding situation. The city has been very compromising - let them build!
Open space in Ocean View....
Sure, why not? No one can afford the overpriced monstrosities being built all over Ocean View these days anyway. There are more "For Sale" signs on new properties in East OV, than there are troops in Iraq. Enough is enough...
Bay Oaks
My thoughts exactly Paul. I own a house in this area and wish this "committee" would get their heads out of the sand. Did anyone ever verify the sigantures on that petition? I know people who signed it at least five times. I was and am all for the original plan the city presented. We desperately need improvements to this area including improvements to control the flooding.
Bay Oaks
I still dont get the "Bay Oaks Committee". Before redevelopement of 3rd Bay to 7th Bay on the ocean side of EOV, now called Bay Oaks, this area was blighted with rentals, abandoned shacks and poverty. The Bill Kerry's moved here to be near the beach. 7 1/2 miles of open space east and west and all you want to the north. That wasnt good enough. Bill Kerry wanted more. The city should have left things as they were on the south side of EOV, what Bill Kerry has determined will be called "Bay Oaks Park", with the Williamsburg Cottages, rental house and blight, with their drug dealers, pimps and prostitutes. The "Bay Oaks" committee would be begging the city to redevelope that area with homes/park space, anything to rid the area of the blighted coditions. The homeless that now frequent "mid-town" OV will be run from the 100 block to the 2300 block. Lets see then what the "Bay Oaks Committee" has to scream about.
a sense of community
This is a golden opportunity for Norfolk to develope a sense of community in Ocean View which is already an over-developed area, but don't hold your breath. The City of Norfolk is and has been doing exactly as they want regardless of the people it respresents. If there is a petition to save Bay Oaks from another group of pooly constructed, overprised homes, then I'll be the first to sign.