VIRGINIA BEACH — I live in the part of the city known as the Transition Area, which was initially meant to be a kind of recreational destination for locals and visitors alike and, later, a way to phase from suburban development in the north to the rural communities in the south.
Every now and then, there’s talk about possible development here. The area, as we know so well, is prone to flooding. Typically, it’s a proposed development of relatively dense housing that starts the tongues wagging again.
A recent proposal for a wedding and event venue on Back Bay Farms at the corner of Indian River and Princess Anne roads is different. This one shows real potential because it offers community and cultural prospects for the region and it seems to preserve the Transition Area’s original intent.
Four years ago, there was a proposal for dense residential on that site and the airfield adjacent to Ashville Park. When that plan made the news, nearby residents were up in arms, and a united front formed at public meetings and in living rooms to stop it.
As the area’s planning commissioner at the time, I was sensitive to how my neighbors felt, and I was committed to goals for the area in the city’s comprehensive plan, which I helped write and update. This City Council-approved land-use policy did not call for dense residential right up to the rural area’s edge, Indian River Road.
However, our comprehensive plan calls for small-scale commercial nodes within the Transition Area. The intersection of Indian River and Princess Anne roads, which some call “downtown” Pungo, is meant to be a small, commercial, village area that serves nearby neighborhoods and the rural community.
The 2018 dense development proposal was tabled, but today’s event venue plan raised some eyebrows after being reported in The Independent News.
The developers propose 10 acres of commercial zoning for the future and imagine a small retail village on that corner. Residents are skeptical because most of us know that it’s not the current starry-eyed vision that matters but the actual zoning that determines what happens to the site over time.
Zoning is a valid concern. We’ve all watched as pretty development designs on paper are sold to the public and then become something else entirely when actual brick and mortar hit the ground. However, our recognition of these machinations can sometimes provide a win-win opportunity.
We have one with the current proposal. It is in accordance with what generally has been meant for that corner – low-impact, non-residential development – and avoids high-density development. While this would be the end of a portion of that seemingly empty green field, it would start a new conversation about this part of the city we all love. We need to have this conversation as sea levels rise, subsidence continues and we experience more severe weather events.
A low-impact event venue with small-scale village retail is undoubtedly better than dense residential. With the open space and maintained pastureland provided in the plan, we also reach a compromise that serves the preservation-minded like me.
Open space, farmland, biking and walking trails were part of the city’s grand plan for the approximately 5,900 acres below the Green Line, which is not at Indian River Road but Sandbridge Road above it. The preservation effort meant to protect the vitality of our agricultural industry and preserve the surrounding land as a kind of buffer.
That didn’t quite happen. Today, there are several well-established moderately dense subdivisions in the area and new development going on all around us. There’s increased traffic on Princess Anne Road, additional stoplights to accommodate more residents and an abundance of retail establishments, health care facilities and restaurants to service all these people.
But that doesn’t mean it’s all over for the area’s planned preservation. There’s still an opportunity to make wise decisions that illustrate we aren’t careless adolescents jumping off cliffs. Instead, we’re wizened residents who know when to make way for a good old-fashioned compromise.
Since early in the pandemic, there have been two sleeping giants among us—one dreaming of a future of dense development right up to the rural area and the other wistfully wishing for those endless green fields of days gone by. Now that these two are awake again, it’s time to resurrect a long-overdue discussion that faces reality and looks to the future.
The author is a former Virginia Beach Planning Commissioner and college professor. Reach her at leejogger@gmail.com.
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