Dispute over sand dunes grows heated in Ocean View

Sept. 26--NORFOLK -- Residents of the Cottage Line neighborhood on the Chesapeake Bay asked for city help to reduce sand dunes filling their yards.

Instead, City Council members say, a city employee battled them and the fight got nasty.

Norfolk officials now want to revisit the request to modify the dunes, which property owners say encroach on homes.

Council members talked about the problem Tuesday on the second day of their annual retreat in Smithfield.

"We did not handle this right as a city from the very beginning," Councilman Tommy Smigiel said. "I think they were brushed off. I think they were given to lower-level staff to talk to. I think that lower-level staff had his opinion ready.

"This has been ugly."

Sand management problems along the bay should have been dealt with years ago, Smigiel said.

Councilman Barclay Winn and Mayor Paul Fraim made similar statements. Residents need to know that city employees have their interests in mind, Winn said. Fraim told City Manager Marcus Jones that residents felt Moffatt and Nichol, a consulting firm hired to study the environmental impact, was biased and was told what to do by the city staff.

Jones agreed that his administration should work with the property owners to find a solution.

Owners of 23 homes asked the Norfolk Wetlands Board in October 2013 for permission to modify the dunes at their properties. The owners included Thelma Drake -- a former member of Congress and former director of the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation -- and developer and bar owner Ronnie Boone Sr.

Since then, meetings on the issue grew heated with debates over the appropriate height of the dunes and the nature of the property owners' request. Cottage Line is in a low-risk flood zone, and Civic League President Vic Yurkovic said repeatedly that the request was not to remove sand, but to move it away from homes toward the bay side and then replant the dunes with vegetation.

The Wetlands Board voted 4-2 in June to allow dune modifications -- including lowering the height of the dunes in some areas. But the environmental group Wetlands Watch appealed that decision to the Virginia Marine Resources Commission.

The appeal was postponed Tuesday at the request of both sides, so residents could again try to work with the city. (The staff of the Virginia Marine Resources Commission recommended the commission overturn the Norfolk Wetlands Board.)

Yurkovic said property owners look forward to more discussions with Jones and his staff. Skip Stiles, executive director of Wetlands Watch, said a comprehensive solution is what the group wanted from the beginning.

Further complicating the issue, a representative of the Federal Emergency Management Agency told Norfolk officials that if the dunes were modified more than recommended in the Moffatt and Nichol study, Norfolk would be removed from the National Flood Insurance Program.

Documents -- Marine Resources Commission report and Cottage Line's response to the report

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