Good afternoon, everyone.

June 17th, City Council work session is in session right now.

And uh, Mr.

Manager, I believe we have two items for consideration.

I'll turn it over to you.

Yes, yes.

Yes, sir.

Thank you, Mr.

Vice Mayor.

And I will turn it over immediately to Deputy City Manager Brian Solis to go over item one, which is Chesapeake Suffolk City boundary uh along the Pewesville line.

Good afternoon, Mr.

Vice Mayor, members of council, Mr.

Manager.

My pleasure to be before you uh today to talk about a uh a topic that has kind of been uh out there in the community for some time, um, and that is the uh formalizing the uh boundary in the north uh western part of the city in the Pewesville community uh with the City of Suffolk.

Um I'd like to welcome Deputy City Manager Kevin Hughes, who is uh with us from Suffolk uh in support of this initiative.

Uh Mr.

Hughes is the lead um for Suffolk's part in um working through this initiative.

So I want to thank him for being uh here today.

So our main objective in this process is to formalize what we call a working boundary, a boundary that's already in place uh today, in effect that's already in uh place today, and I'll I'll explain that.

But um uh the main objective is to do so in a way that has uh the least effect on existing residents and businesses um as possible.

And um also with us today are a number of city staff, including your real estate assessor, uh deputy director of public works, Sam Sowan, uh Jimmy McDemair with the playing department, and um there's a number of other uh staff that either um will be involved or have been involved so far to get us to this point.

Of course, um a main player in that is your city attorney, Catherine Lindley.

Um then public communication standpoint will help us uh get the word out on this on this process um as we go into some community engagement.

So if you look at the the exhibit there that was created cooperatively with the cities of Chesapeake and Suffolk, um you see kind of a stair step boundary.

And if you were to look at a map, even the old ADC maps, you would kind of see a what I call it as the ProFlies buffer that has been mapped over the years.

This stair step boundary, the blue line is what's most important.

And how that working boundary has been created over the years has generally been um an agreement between the real estate assessor for Chesapeake and the real estate assessor, the previous ones and existing ones, and um and the real estate assessor for Suffolk.

And they kind of agreed that, hey, this boundary kind of crosses the one that has been mapped.

Uh it bisects a lot of properties, there's no rhyme or reason to it.

So over time, over decades, they have effectively agreed on which parcels are assessed in Chesapeake and which are assessed in Suffolk.

And what this map generally does is formalizes that agreement.

However, if you look at the insets on the right hand side of near the Suffolk City logo there, there are about a dozen lots that, because of the trajectory of the line, just makes sense to go over to Suffolk.

And but a key part of information with this is that they're all undeveloped, they're all wooded, and for the most part, they front on what we call paper streets.

So those are streets that are platted but are not uh developed as roadways yet.

So in effect, there's a dozen parcels that uh will change from tax map parcels in Chesapeake to Suffolk.

Again, um residents or businesses involved, consequently, no students or voters involved as well.

So the cumulative value of those 12 parcels is about 400 uh thousand dollars.

Um of the activities that we're um taking on to effectuate this this boundary are we're briefing you today.

Uh tomorrow, Mr.

Hughes will will brief the um Suffolk City Council, and I'll go over there in support of that briefing.

Um your first action item will be next Tuesday for you to consider a cost sharing agreement for the city manager to uh sign that basically allows the cities of Suffolk and Chesapeake to work together in the same corridor, some professional services they may need, including surveying legal costs, advertising for mailings and things of that nature.

That will just be an instrument to allow that cooperation to take place.

Um our public communications folks have been working with our um city departments to develop frequently asked questions for a variety of office um audiences that may have questions about what are the cities doing with this city boundary, what is this all about?

Um, and so a way to answer those questions.

And then the City of Suffolk has created an online mapping tool tool, it's very uh user-friendly.

You can put in your address and see the city boundary relative to your address, and you can zoom out, zoom in, and um it's it's a very user-friendly piece.

And with this briefing and those pieces of information, uh, we are looking to both cities publish a web page on the city, Chesapeake, City of Suffolk boundary, very simple web page that has that information and also some next opportunities to get involved.

And by that I mean uh we are looking to um hold community engagement open houses, one in Suffolk and one in Chesapeake in the September time frame.

In the meantime, um during the summer, land surveyors, the community, you know, residents and businesses may see land surveyors out in the field, you know, they survey with flags and and other uh stakes to establish that boundary, survey it and put um that surveying information to legal instruments to um to record.

Um during that time um the city real estate assessors for Chesapeake and Suffolk will get together and address any back taxes for the 12 parcels that will be conveyed from Chesapeake to Suffolk.

Um so that's some of the activity that will be coming up here in the coming months.

In addition to that, they'll also they'll actually be physical markers put in place.

Typically they're put on road in roadways, it could be sewer manholes or stormwater drain pipes, just um as uh meets and bounds uh markers for the city boundary.

And any time that you have a shared boundary, in our case, it could be with the state of North Carolina, it could be with the cities of Norfolk, Portsmouth, Virginia Beach, in this case Suffolk, um the departments, the agencies that provide services or have infrastructure within those corridors typically go an extra step to coordinate on everything from all right, who's paving this street, where's tracks uh who is collecting the garbage on this side of the street versus the other.

Those things are already in place today, but um, this will be another opportunity for those uh directors of those departments to get together and refine any agreements that are in place.

So the bulk of the work that is really important uh really is the legal work, and um, that is um this process going through you, the legislative body for uh the cities of Chesapeake and then um City of Suffolk and then the courts to effectuate the boundary, and and I think uh your city attorney Catherine Lindley is best to explain those.

Thank you.

Um the process is very simple, it's laid out in the statute.

Um we are starting with the first step of the call share agreement for the reasons that Brian outlined.

Moving forward, the next step for legal is to draft the boundary line agreement, and we're working collaboratively with staff because they're going to be doing the meets and bounds description, so we can have the necessary plats and exhibits to attach that boundary line agreement.