A Date With Density: VB council backs apartment project near municipal center over community opposition

BY JOHN-HENRY DOUCETTE

COURTHOUSE — People showed up in droves on Tuesday, Oct. 17, for a long last round in a fight some figured they wouldn’t win. 

They packed City Hall all the same. For the first time at the new building, people overflowed a council chamber that seats more than 300. Some stood along the walls. Others watched on TV in a hallway. There were cheers and jeers along the way.

Dozens spoke, with many against a plan to build the Silos at Southern Pines, a collection of apartments on former farmland near the municipal center, including more than 50 units of workforce housing meant to make living in this city more attainable. 

Citizen comments were the meat of a meeting that started at 6 p.m. and ended as midnight approached. 

When council members started to speak, opponents of the rezoning request – who have criticized its density, location, height, campaign support from the developer to many on the dais and more – seemed to realize how the wind was blowing.

Ultimately, the City Council voted to approve a rezoning request by The Franklin Johnston Group. Its Silo at Southern Pines development will place apartment buildings with a combined 176 units on 6.26 acres and include more than 50 units that would quality as workforce housing, a selling point to some among the council. The project is on land partly within the Interfacility Traffic Area in Virginia Beach between Naval Air Station Oceana and the airfield at Fentress in Chesapeake. Such dense development is not allowed in that area of this city.

An initial proposal for the project had buildings within the ITA, and that version made it all the way through Planning Commission to garner a recommendation for approval. The Navy had not weighed in on that plan, however, and a committee that reviews projects within that area to ensure they don’t encroach on the jet base opposed it.

A new plan removing apartments from within the ITA was resubmitted. The ITA committee, among others, still opposed it, but the Planning Commission on Wednesday, Oct. 11, again backed the proposal, less than a week before the council vote.

Many speakers on Tuesday, Oct. 17, raised concerns that have been covered in past stories about this project. 

He said he wished he’d come up with that idea, but it came from the city code itself.

“The Silo at Southern Pines is a unique opportunity to locate workforce housing in what everybody here would say is a very desirable area of the city that has none today and has extremely limited opportunity to do so in the future,” Fletcher said.

He noted the first Southern Pine apartment project already exists nearby. The new development is billed as a second phase.

This will be the first such project completed under a city workforce housing ordinance that has been on the books for years, he said.

“I’m sure the 53 individuals and families this project will serve will thank you,” Fletcher said.

“Do we get a rebuttal, Mr. Mayor?” a man called out when Fletcher was done.

“No,” Mayor Bobby Dyer responded from the dais. “I’m sorry, sir.”

City Councilwoman Barbara Henley, who represents District 2, moved to deny the project. Henley has spoken critically about the plan, including in relation to the ITA. Earlier, an ordinance she proposed to study properties partly in the ITA was deferred by her colleagues. The project is in her district.

She argued that the review of the project by the Navy and city needed to be considered in context because enforcement is the city staff’s responsibility, with Oceana offering what she described as technical advice.

The commanding officer of the base in a letter to the city wrote Oceana has no issues with the version of the plan that removed the apartments that had been within in the ITA.

Henley said the new plan may meet technical requirements but not the “spirit and intent” of the city agreement with the Navy to prevent encroachment on the base.

“If we approve this application,” Henley said, “we will be rezoning property” within the ITA for apartment development. Among other things, critics have noted part of the land within the ITA is being used to count toward how dense the project is overall.

Henley said the council was being asked to essentially reconsider the developer’s former Southern Pine apartments project with the new application, which brought some of the density that might have been developed there to be realized on the new property.

“There was no mention that the property was going to be phase one of a later development,” Henley said, noting that she supported the former project. She even made the motion for its approval at the time.

Some applauded Henley’s remarks.

Next came City Councilmember Chris Taylor of District 8. He seconded Henley’s motion and spoke about his experience in apartment management. 

“Tonight, for the most part, there’s been civil dialogue,” he said, thanking the audience members in the chamber.

“In my experience, I have not worked in an apartment community nor visited one in my time where there were 176 units on three acres,” he said, speaking of the part of the property that is not within the ITA.

City Councilmember Joash Schulman of District 9 made a substitute motion for approval. A majority adopted it and, ultimately, approved the rezoning application, 7-2, with Henley and Taylor voting no. Councilmember Jennifer Rouse of District 10 was absent. The District 1 seat is vacant.

Before those votes, Schulman said he has heard the opposition, and some discussion  made him think back to his own childhood.

“If it weren’t for an affordable housing program where we lived, I would not have been able to go to school,” he said. “My mother would not have been able to support me through school. I’d just like to emphasize that workforce housing, affordable housing, the notion of attainable housing for everybody looks and feels a lot different for everybody because we all come at life with the sum of our individual experiences.”

He said the Navy’s stance on the project had been a concern, but the review process and letter from Oceana eased them. He said there is a need for housing for military families and housing near employment centers, as well as close to the municipal center.

Someone in the audience spoke up.

“Folks, please,” Dyer said from the dais.

Schulman noted concessions made by the developer, such as lowering one building from four to three stories and removing a requested access from Princess Anne Road.

As the vote neared, as other councilmembers spoke supportively of the project, the audience thinned further.

“What meeting were you at?” someone called from the audience while one council member on the dais spoke in support of the application.

“This was a very emotional topic,” Dyer said before the final vote. “It was a very important topic. I have what I call the ugly reality of politics … that, one way or the other, some people wind up happy and other people, you know, aren’t.”

He tried to address misperceptions about his “sense of urgency” for the project, including his decision to expedite the council vote. Dyer, who served as a Marine, said he would never do anything to harm the city’s relationship with the Navy. 

“The success of this project, I am convinced,” he said, “is going to be when you consider these folks your friends and neighbors.”

The mayor called for the final vote. The developer has its approval, and some in the audience voiced disapproval. One man called the council “sellouts.” Others got up and left City Hall to head home while the meeting continued.

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