The Virginia Beach City Council met on April 8, 2026, for an afternoon session that included a planning staff briefing on 17 items for the April 21 public hearing, presentations on the FY 2026-27 budgets for Emergency Communications and Citizen Services (ECCS), Emergency Medical Services (EMS), and the Police Department, followed by council liaison reports, a consent agenda, public hearings, and resolutions honoring Captain David L. Gray and the Virginia Beach Mustangs. The meeting also featured a public hearing and council debate on the open-space acquisition of five lots near Crab Creek for $2.6 million.
ECCS (Jada Lee):
EMS (Chief Jason Stroud):
Police Department (Chief Lantigate):
Welcome all. We're ready for our afternoon session. It's that fun time of year with the budget presentations, and uh we're gonna look forward to them. Uh Mr. Deheny, if we go ahead and get going. All right, so Mr. Mayor, members of council. Before we get the first um string of budget presentations going, we're gonna have our planning staff give City Council a briefing on depending planning items that will come before you on April 21. Go ahead, Caitlin, the floor is yours. All right, good afternoon, Mayor Vice Mayor, members of council. As the city manager just stated, I will be running through the planning items that will be up for consideration at your April 21st hearing. So there are a total of 17 items on that agenda, including consideration of the imagined VB 2040 comprehensive plan. So looking first at item one, this is a modification of proffers request for a parcel located at the northeast corner of the intersection of Northampton Boulevard and Premium Outlets Boulevard in District 4. This property, which is located in the Burton Station SGA, was conditionally rezoned to B2 in 2018 for the development of a 250,000 square foot retail center. The current applicant is seeking a modification of proffers to develop the northern 20 acres of the site with an approximately 2440,000 244,000 square foot veterans administration outpatient facility. The facility will employ approximately 622 full-time employees. A total of 1,250 parking spaces are proposed to support the use, exceeding the 903 spaces required by the ordinance. A 15 foot wide landscape buffer, shown in green on the slide here, is proposed along the northern and eastern property lines adjacent to the R5D properties. Various pedestrian connections are proposed with this development, including an eight foot wide side path along premium outlets boulevard, an eight foot wide multi-use path along the eastern and northern property lines connecting to the Lake Wright Linear Park, and a 10 foot wide multi-use path along the proposed Tolliver Road extension. As seen in the images on the slide, the building will include a mix of brick veneer, aluminum paneling, and glass. Since the building height is limited to a max of 35 feet when within 100 feet of a residentially zoned property, the applicant is requesting a deviation to allow a height of just over 64 feet. I will note that the proposed building is approximately 325 feet from the nearest single family dwelling. While the average daily trips are lower than the retail only development that was approved in 2018, the morning and afternoon peak hour traffic will be increased with this proposal. The recommendations of the traffic impact analysis include retiming of several signals along this corridor, including two signals in the city of Norfolk and two in Virginia Beach. The development is proposing a full access on Premium Outlets Boulevard at the northern edge of the site, as well as a traffic signal at the intersection of Northampton Boulevard and the Tolliver Road extension. Staff is unaware of any opposition to the request, and the planning commission recommended approval by unanimous vote. Item two is another modification of proffers for the same parcel that was discussed in the previous item. Again, this is in district four. So this request is related to the southern 12.9 acres of the parcel, which was also included in the 2018 conditional rezoning. It is now proposed to be developed with an 81,000 square foot retail center. The modified proposal, which will be located immediately south of the VA facility discussed in item one, includes a significant reduction in the overall retail space. 325 parking spaces are required to support the retail use, and 416 are proposed on site. As with the previous application, several pedestrian connections are included with the overall development, including a 10-foot-wide shared use path along Northampton Boulevard. The images on the screen here show the renderings approved with the 2018 application, which are not subject to change with this request. And this concept plan here shows both developments together along with the proposed Tolliver Road extension. The traffic impact analysis that was discussed with item one included the retail development that is proposed with this application. As with the previous item, staff is unaware of any opposition, and the planning commission recommended approval by unanimous vote. The next two items include a straight rezoning and a conditional use permit for property at the northwest corner of London Bridge Road and Hornet Drive in District 5. The site is just under four acres and is located within the greater than 75 decibel noise zone as well as the special economic growth area or Sega 2 West Oceana. The applicant is requesting a straight rezoning of the site from AG1 and AG2 to I-1 Light Industrial, along with a conditional use permit for a bulk storage yard. The development will consist of 26 fenced storage lots, ranging in size from 2400 square feet to just under 5,000 square feet, and will be be leased individually for the storage of equipment and materials. No buildings or on-site employees are proposed with this request. Barbara, do you have something? Yes. Light industrial. And it's just sort of up to somebody's opinion, I think. Could we look into that? Because we're having an awful lot of this come up. So I since we're really having this come up quite often, I would like us to look at this issue of what is light industrial, what is allowed there, and and so forth. Yeah, we could we can certainly do it.