Ocean View residents decry removal of dune walkways

NORFOLK

When Theresa and Joseph Cipriano bought a home on the Chesapeake Bay in 2004, a real estate agent told them they were also buying the walkway, deck and stairs over the sand dune.

"We were told we could rebuild them," she said.

Turns out they were built illegally on city property - something the couple didn't discover until the recent nor'easter.

Their walkway, stairs and deck were damaged by the storm. Two hours after her contractor gave Theresa Cipriano a price for repairing them, a city crew tore it all down.

"I feel like the city totally blindsided us," she said.

So did most of about 200 other Ocean View residents who crowded into the Pretlow Branch Library for nearly two hours Monday night for a town hall meeting on the issue of illegal walkways.

Four residents have had their walkways torn down for safety reasons. Another 20 or so may eventually be torn down.

City officials estimate there are as many as 400 illegal walkways across the dunes along the seven miles of the Chesapeake Bay in the Ocean View and Willoughby areas. All are in limbo.

There is no process for acquiring a building permit to repair a damaged walkway, and the city may eventually require some undamaged walkways to be torn down.

Councilman W. Randy Wright, who hosted the meeting along with Councilman Barclay C. Winn, said they were there mostly to listen.

Tell us how to repair our walkways legally, Catherine McCoy said. "We're taxpayers and want beach access."

The city has been studying the issue of illegal structures on the dunes for nearly two years. A draft of recommendations was done by a committee last June but is still being reviewed by the city attorney's office.

Residents wanted to know: What's taking so long?

"It looks like it will take years before this process is done," Jim Janata of East Ocean View said. "How do we get to the beach while this is being studied?"

Wright said the issue is complicated. There are lawsuits in which a businessman claims ownership of the dunes in East Ocean View. In other areas, it appears the dunes may be privately owned.

"We're trying to get this figured out as quickly as we can," Wright said.

He defended tearing down the four walkways. "They were on city property and were unsafe," he said. "We had no choice."

Wright said he has asked city staff to begin dealing with requests to rebuild walkways on a case-by-case basis as soon as possible.

He said he could not give a date as to when that process would begin. Both he and Lee Rosenberg, manager of the city's environmental services division, said not all applications for walkways will be approved.

"Everyone should have a right of access to the beach," Rosenberg said. "The question is, how do you do that?

"If everyone with a 50-foot lot has a walkway, then everyone's view" of the water would be impaired.

Harry Minium, (757) 446-2371, harry.minium@pilotonline.com