Project that would put manufacturing on farmland shrinks, Virginia Beach could preserve land to its south

BY JOHN-HENRY DOUCETTE

BACK BAY — Community concerns about Project Wayne, an economic development prospect which might replace farmland used for grain production near Virginia Beach National Golf Course with a major advanced manufacturing operation, have led to led to a smaller proposal to rezone 150 acres vice 250.

And now there is a possibility that the City Council, should it pursue the prospect, could act to formally preserve 100 or more acres south of the site for farming. This may address some of the concerns that the project would be located below the city’s Green Line, a longstanding boundary meant to help protect the city’s finite agricultural lands from development.

Deputy City Manager Taylor Adams provided an overview of changes in the project on Monday, May 15, during a meeting with Virginia Beach Farm Bureau held at the Creeds Ruritan Community Complex in rural Back Bay. The audience included farmers, rural residents, members of the Virginia Beach Agriculture Advisory Commission and City Councilmember Barbara Henley, a Pungo farmer who represents District 2 and has raised concerns about Project Wayne.

Additionally, the presentation by Adams previewed a briefing for the City Council that is scheduled to be held at 3 p.m., today, at City Hall. Citizens can comment on the project during the council meeting this evening at 6 p.m. — though, as officials have stressed, there is no formal rezoning request to approve, for now.

Virginia Beach is early in a process with a prospect that could wind up elsewhere, officials have said, which is why descriptions have been vague and the company’s name has gone unspoken. The state is involved in trying to land Project Wayne. Should a formal rezoning request come in, there would be more detail and additional opportunities for public comment down the road.

“No decisions have been made by your City Council yet regarding this project,” Adams said during the meeting in Back Bay. “As is always the case, when we’re working on large deals, we get a letter that comes in, and we have to react to that letter. In this case, this is a medical manufacturer that wants to come to Virginia and, specifically, wants to come to Virginia Beach.”

The 150-acre area is in the northernmost area below the city’s Green Line. The unidentified manufacturing prospect is said to be a U.S.-owned company which would relocate manufacturing work from China.

The Green Line is a boundary established in 1979 as a division between the suburban sprawl of the northern city and agricultural areas in the southern city. However, certain development is permissible below the Green Line, and the city services boundary sometimes confused with the Green Line is at Indian River Road. Still, the Project Wayne ask is controversial, and it has led to strong community reactions — not only among rural residents.

“This does represent a big shift in our existing policy,” Adams said.

The company hoping to locate here makes products such as surgical masks and sheeting.

“After the Covid pandemic,” Adams said, “we’re seeing a move where that work is coming back home. That’s happening not just here in Virginia. That’s happening across the country.”

Early on, the prospect sought as much as 750 acres south of the Green Line within the Interfacility Traffic Area between Naval Air Station Oceana and Fentress Naval Auxiliary Landing Field. Adams noted that the city advised the prospect that larger request would be unlikely. He said concerns in the community about flooding, loss of farmland and allowing industrial development – have convinced the prospect to modify its request even further.

“What I have here tonight is a change in the development pattern that was originally presented,” Adams said. “This is nothing other than us working with the prospect to try to negotiate a deal, or at least advance a deal to council that the community might find palatable.”

The revised project could still mean between $300 million and $500 million in new capital investment and between 1,200 and 1,800 new jobs, Adams said.

“We’re talking about a drastically reduced real estate plan,” Adams said, showing a map with the revisions.

“We’ve worked with the potential developer to condense their need to a single 150-acre parcel,” Adams added. “It’s the northernmost parcel in the ITA.”

A 100-acre parcel immediately south of the parcel shown on the map could be protected with a preservation easement by City Council, Adams said, “something that would create a southern barrier that they could not cross … without additional legislative action.”

That might be “enough of a blockade to ensure that we didn’t slide further,” Adams said.

The sum of land preserved could be even greater, and discussion later in the meeting included whether the city’s Agricultural Reserve Program, an incentive program which purchases development rights from property owners, could be used to protect the property south of the site for farming. Adams said it made sense for the city to retain ownership of the land south of the proposed site.

Following the meeting, Henley, who has been critical of changing city land-use policy and taking farmland out of production, said she did not understand how a project that seemed to want as much as 750 acres at first can be boiled down to 150 acres.

But she was interested in one aspect of the discussion – placing property within the ITA in the agricultural reserve program, including the land eyed for Project Wayne.

“I think we could just put all 750 acres in,” she said told The Independent News.

“We have had a lot of emails from all over the city about holding the Green Line,” Henley added.

The city-owned land is being farmed under a lease agreement by a family farming partnership which includes Don Horsley, a member of the Virginia Beach Planning Commission.

Horsley on Monday, May 15, said he would not be able to vote on any rezoning should Project Wayne go forward because he is farming the land in question.

For now, it is being used for grain production.

“We’re going to plant soybeans out there in the next few days,” he said.

John Cromwell, president of Virginia Beach Farm Bureau, introduced the presentation by Adams. Cromwell said the project would “be a major incursion of the Green Line and significant loss of farmland.”

Cromwell, who farms in Pungo, is also a member of the Virginia Beach Agriculture Advisory Commission and president of the Back Bay Restoration Foundation. Following the meeting at the Ruritan complex, Cromwell said the new pitch was different than what initially had been discussed, but there are still concerns about the possible loss of farmland.

“It’s just the camel’s nose under the tent,” added Jared Brandwein, executive director of Back Bay Restoration Foundation.

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