VA Beach Blocks Development On Flood-Prone Land; Developer Sues, Judge Upholds City

[hatrack]

I think I just heard the Clue Bus horn - still some distance away, but audible.

Glimpsed from a kayak on West Neck Creek, this swampy piece of land, a pocket of red maple and loblolly pine tucked behind growing subdivisions, doesn’t look like the stuff of existential debate. But this is where Virginia Beach, squeezed between the clamor for new housing and the relentlessness of flooding worsened by climate change, decided to draw its line in the mud.

The city last year became one of a small but growing number of communities willing to say no to developers — despite their political and economic clout — when it rejected a proposal to build a few dozen homes on this soggy parcel of 50 acres, arguing that those homes would be unsafe. The developers sued, accusing officials of making their project a scapegoat as voters clamored for action after disastrous flooding.

This past May, a judge ruled that Virginia Beach was within its rights to stop the development. The city’s experience could become a harbinger for others nationwide. “It’s a confrontation with reality,” Bobby Dyer, Virginia Beach’s mayor, said in an interview in his office. “Not everybody’s going to be happy.”

As the Trump administration reverses efforts to fight global warming, local officials around the country are forced to grapple with more intense flooding, hurricanes, wildfires and other disasters. That pressure is colliding with development, which provides jobs, homes and taxes but which also can increase the future risk of disaster as construction spreads into floodplains or forests that are prone to calamity. The outcome of that battle will shape Americans’ vulnerability to climate change for generations — and so far, development seems to be prevailing. In many coastal states, homes are going up at the fastest rate in the most flood-prone areas. The number of new houses in what experts call the wildland-urban interface, where the wildfire threat tends to be greatest, increased 41 percent nationwide between 1990 and 2010.

EDIT

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/19/climate/climate-real-estate-developers.html

[MartyTheGreek]

1. I'm on Deep Creek, Chesapeake...

This past summer some older restored home values in Norfolk, in the Ghent area, started to lose value because of the increased flooding known to happen in the low lying Norfolk neighborhoods. Planned parking during big rain events are the norm and announced on local news. I listen to local WHRO, NPR affiliate... About five years ago or so, an Insurance rep was being interviewed about flood insurance and Climate Change, the woman said then that in about 15-20 years, the flood insurance cost will exceed the mortgage payment for many of these low lying homes.

I'm on a tidal creek, my flood insurance just went up $400/year to $1700 now. Bottom-line, the reality and the costs are starting to sink in! I'm close to 60 and my house will be paid off in a few years. I've been watching the water creep higher and higher each year on my 20 year old boat dock so I have that to contend with and a little sinking and erosion where I don't have a three foot bulkhead.

Regarding your article, I think the City made a good call preventing the development in these flood prone area... Hell, the developer's motivation is to build and get out while the City has 50-100 year plans and tax revenue to collect or not collect. Oh, BTW, in a City that has had what two 500 year rain events and a few 100 year rain events in just the past several years? It's happening. Time to initiate implementing plans, and policy changes for development, I think.

[Mike 03]

2. Really interesting info

It's always fascinating when DUers share their experiences of what is going on locally.