Chesapeake City Council Work Session and Regular Meeting - March 10, 2026
Chesapeake City Council Work Session and Regular Meeting - March 10, 2026\n\nThe Chesapeake City Council held a Work Session at 4:45 PM and a Regular Meeting at 6:30 PM on March 10, 2026, in the City Hall Council Chamber. The Work Session featured a presentation on Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) and an update on the Deep Creek Area Plan. The Regular Meeting included a public hearing for the Cedar Lakes Traffic Signalization Project, approval of consent and regular agenda items, citizens' comments, and council discussions on various city matters. Council Member E.R. “Jeff” Jefferies was excused from both sessions. All votes were 8-0 unless noted.\n\n### Work Session (4:45 PM – 5:55 PM)\n- Transfer of Development Rights (TDR): Planning Director James McNamara and consultant Dr. Tom Daniels presented a proposed TDR program to preserve rural land by allowing landowners in the Rural Overlay District (sending area) to sell development rights to developers in designated receiving areas (primarily Greenbrier). Key features: minimum 50-acre parcels, perpetual conservation easements, voluntary participation, and proposed transfer ratios (1 TDR = 1 single-family unit, 2 attached units, or 5 multifamily units). Council members raised questions about tax assessments, priority areas, compatibility with existing plans, and the impact of pending state legislation (e.g., the “Faith in Housing” bill). City Manager Christopher Price noted that the program is exploratory and subject to further refinement.\n- Deep Creek Area Plan: The presentation was continued to the March 17, 2026 Work Session due to time constraints.\n\n### Consent Calendar\n- Approved unanimously (8-0):\n - Acceptance of resignations from Steve Froncillo (Bicycle/Trails Advisory Committee) and Faith Watson (Public Art Committee).\n - Donation of a decommissioned 2015 Freightliner medic unit from the Chesapeake Fire Department to the Knox Creek Fire Department.\n\n### Public Hearings\n- Cedar Lakes Traffic Signalization Project: A resolution authorizing property acquisition (fee simple, leasehold, easements) by agreement or condemnation for the Cedar Lakes Drive and Cedar Road traffic signal project. Two citizens spoke: Vic Nichols (read from resolution documentation) and Jimmy Jackson (spoke in support, citing 35-year residency and safety concerns). Council approved the resolution 8-0.\n\n### Citizens’ Comments on Agenda Items Only\n- None.\n\n### Regular Agenda Items\n- Operation Ceasefire Grant (Item 2): Accepted and appropriated $115,932 from the Office of the Attorney General for the police department. Vice Mayor Ritter commented that this is the final grant from the program and commended its contributions to reducing gun violence. Approved 8-0.\n- Cedar Lakes Traffic Signal Funding (Item 3):\n - 3A: Transferred $212,000 from the Oaklette Bridge Project and $50,000 from the Greenbrier Yard Storage Building Project to the Cedar Lakes signal project. Approved 8-0.\n - 3B: Appropriated $238,000 from the Street Maintenance Fund Balance to the project, requested as an emergency action to expedite contract execution. City Manager Price outlined the timeline and procurement lead times for traffic signals. Councilwoman Newins praised staff responsiveness to citizen concerns. Approved 8-0.\n- Snow Related Expenses (Item 4): Appropriated $1,250,000 of interest income from the General Fund to the Public Works FY26 operating budget for snow expenses. Approved 8-0.\n\n### Citizens’ Comments (Non-Agenda)\nFour citizens spoke:\n- Vic Nichols: Criticized speed camera revenue collection, redistricting impacts on Hampton Roads, traffic congestion on Greenbrier Parkway (specifically Eden Way intersection), and urged council to address these issues. He also argued that armed citizens are more effective in stopping mass shootings.\n- Jack Shanker (representing Mr. Fence): Requested grandfathering for existing corner lot fences that were legally built under previous rules but cannot be replaced in the same location under current regulations.\n- Rosalyn Wooling (resident of Keith Court): Reported illegal dumping on two vacant lots (312 Keith Court and 301 Keef Court) and loud music from neighbors on Border Road. She requested city assistance.\n- Elizabeth Goodwin (Executive Director, Great Bridge Battlefield & Waterways History Foundation): Provided updates on the successful 250th commemoration, the museum’s inclusion in the Virginia 250 passport, and upcoming events including a Benjamin Franklin lecture, a sailing ship visit, and July 4th celebration. She also announced a grant from the Commonwealth History Fund for a new exhibit “Voices of the Great Dismal.”\n\nMayor West directed staff to: evaluate solutions for the Greenbrier Parkway/Eden Way intersection, review the corner lot fence grandfathering request, address the dumping and noise issues on Keith Court, and acknowledged Ms. Goodwin’s presentation.\n\n### Unfinished Business\n- Water Line Connection Policy: Councilwoman Newins directed staff to implement the proposed policy (no mandatory connections for residents along West Road area). She also noted concerns about future connection fees and suggested future review.\n- Traffic Synchronization: Councilwoman Ward requested staff evaluate synchronizing traffic signals on Greenbrier Parkway and Battlefield Boulevard to alleviate congestion.\n- Citizen Response: Councilman Whitaker thanked Development and Permits Director Jay Tate for responding to a weekend citizen concern about land disturbance/flooding.\n- Collaboration Suggestion: Vice Mayor Ritter suggested the Great Bridge Battlefield Museum and the Visitor Center at the Dismal Swamp collaborate to share the video “Voices of the Dismal” at both locations.\n\n### New Business\n- Congratulatory Remarks: Councilwoman Newins congratulated Councilwoman King (2025 Woman of the Year by Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce – Chesapeake) and Councilman Bunn for organizing the Miss and Mr. Abilities pageant. Councilman Bunn and Councilwoman Ward expressed appreciation for the pageant.\n- Site Plan Review Fees: Councilwoman Newins directed staff to review and potentially create a reduced fee category for projects with bona fide agricultural purposes, to be discussed at a future Work Session.\n- Department of Agriculture Grant: Vice Mayor Ritter discussed a grant opportunity (50/50 match, state up to $50,000, total $100,000) for supporting “Grow Your Own” and “U-Pick” establishments and community gardens. Staff was asked to evaluate budget capacity for the match.\n- Birthday Thanks: Councilwoman Ward’s thank you letter was read for 80th birthday well-wishes.\n\n### Key Outcomes\n- All regular agenda items and the consent calendar were approved unanimously (8-0) with Council Member Jefferies excused.\n- Staff was directed to study Greenbrier/Eden Way traffic solutions, corner lot fence grandfathering, and vacant lot dumping/music complaints.\n- The TDR program and Deep Creek Area Plan discussions will continue; the initiating resolution for TDR is pending further review.\n- Water line policy implemented; site plan fee review underway.\n- Grant match feasibility to be evaluated.\n\n### Closed Meeting (7:19 PM – 8:21 PM)\nCouncil entered a closed meeting to discuss investment of public funds, legal advice, proprietary economic development information, and real property acquisition. The meeting adjourned at 8:22 PM after certification of the closed meeting.
Meeting Transcript
Welcome everyone to our Tuesday, March tenth, twenty twenty six uh City Council work session. Turn it over to our city manager. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um so uh this is right in my wheelhouse land use planning, so been looking forward to this for a while, but uh two very interesting topics tonight. Uh council is aware, and I hope everyone's aware that our vision for the community is to make Chesapeake an exceptional place to live, learn, work, farm, and play. And we live in a really unique community where we have a lot a lot of different character areas, and we're gonna see some of that tonight. So council's taken several steps over the past few years to protect the rural character of uh Chesapeake and to promote the rural economy. And so we're gonna talk to you about a tool that's uh actually authorized by state code that we're not currently using in Chesapeake, that's transferred uh development rights. And then second, we're gonna talk about the uh Deep Creek area plan. You've seen this a little bit before. Um we're getting near the finish line, so the team wants to um uh have a chance to present uh sort of where we're at, what kind of feedback we've been getting. But first up on transfer of development rights, I'll turn it over to Dr. McNamara and Daniels. Thank you, Mr. Manager. I I I like that you uh included a lot of the previous work that we have done so far as a as a city to to really look at preserving uh you know rural Chesapeake in particular. And I'll take us back on a journey uh, you know, just a couple years ago where we closed the agricultural subdivision loophole. Uh and you can see on the screen here that we have an exhibit that shows uh that that point in time we had uh a great number of unintended uh uh residential lots that started popping up in southern Chesapeake. And it was because of a loophole within our regulations that allowed uh this to happen. And through a great amount of uh public input and and working with the community to try to find solutions here, difficult decisions were made on behalf of the council to uh prioritize closing this this uh subdivision loophole that was in place. And at that time, we uh we told the the landowners uh that we would be back with a tool that would help offset the loss of this subdivision loophole with another tool that could help uh with uh potential uh compensation for preservation of these properties. So we're back today, and we want to talk about uh transferable development rights. But first, we want to talk about tools that we already have in our tool belt. And the first is our existing purchase of development rights programs. So these are our PDR programs, and I think there are some similarities between this and transferable development rights. Our first one is our open space and agricultural protection program, more commonly known as OSAP. Uh this program is uh is as is named to promote open space and agricultural protection. It is funded in large part by local dollars uh that we go and we purchase development rights and we extinguish those development rights uh and we put an easements on these properties to make sure that they're they're preserved and in perpetuity uh to allow for agricultural type uses but no longer development uses. Another program that we have is our French risk encroachment protection acquisition program, our FEPAP program, and this uh focuses on compatibility with uh operations of the military operations around the Fentras airfield. Uh and in general, uh this is really used to extinguish again uh the residential development rights in this area. So those could either be properties that are bought in fee simple by the city and owned by the city, or it could be through uh the purchase of uh of easements on property to make sure, again, that these incompatible uses such as residential are no longer placed on those properties. And likewise, when we talk about our Navy uh multi-year agreement and readiness and environmental protection initiative, REPI program, uh, this really focuses on the five-mile area around the uh around the Northwest Annex to make sure that we have compatible uses there, and that's really focused on protecting uh the the Rother operation and uh making sure that we don't have EMI interference. And again, that usually means trying to keep residential uh uses away from that facility. And as we've talked about in multiple occasions, uh, you know, when we talk about land conservation, there is no one silver bullet. This is a comprehensive approach to uh preservation of uh the character of rural areas, and this is going to take things like OSAP and FEPAP and preservation divisions and agritourism and farming villages, and as we're here to talk about today, transferable development rights uh in order to accomplish the full goals that we are looking to do. So I want to shift our focus now and look at our comprehensive plan that was recently adopted, and through you know some pretty extensive uh uh communication and engagement with our community, uh, you know, we have selected uh the reinvest and preserve uh uh growth model uh that was projected as part of our initial information that we background information that we that we did for the comprehensive plan. And in this model, what we essentially look at is maintaining a growth rate that's similar to what we have today, but instead of business as usual and expanding into the rural overlay, we focus on redeveloping within the areas where we have existing service uh services like water and sewer and roads that are in place. And what this means is when we talk about urban mixed use, this is a term that's been used for quite some time within our comprehensive plans, uh, we have really uh shortened the areas that we call for urban mixed use. And it's reserved for areas that say that are prime for increased population activity, and it's critical that these areas do develop with that uh increased density and activity in order to accomplish what we're looking for in the in the comprehensive plan. Uh you know, we've we've designated a lot of these areas to to accommodate a lot of the growth that we are anticipating in uh in the time period up to 2045, and we need to make sure that we have uh that we develop these areas as as as called for. When we talk about our growth management and rural area chapter, there are multiple policies that that are going to be relatable tonight. The first one is growth management uh policy number one, which prioritizes the protection of agricultural and environmentally sensitive land by limiting development in those areas. We also have as part of number two, supporting and focusing density in a few strategic areas of the city. And then number three, ensuring development follows the pattern established by the overlaid districts. So making sure that we have these compatible development patterns throughout the city as designated by the comp plan. And then specifically for tonight, number five, develop a transfer of development rights program to ensure density occurs in the parts of the city where it is most appropriate and rural landowners are compensated for preventing development of their own land. This relates back to our smart growth principles. In particular, we're looking down at the bottom here where we talk about directing development to target areas and then preservation of farmland and natural resources as well. Transferable development rights, as you'll see, uh when we do when we have a program like this, it interlocks all of the elements of our our smart growth principles.
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