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In this edition ● Follow us on Facebook ● Data Center Ordinance and Policy ● Chesapeake Sustainability Network ● Planning Commission ● City Council ● Green Drinks ● Action Alerts ● Volunteer Opportunities ● In the News | |||||||||
Topics of Interest
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Candidate Survey Respones - Dr. George Yacus
1. Considering data center ordinance changes under consideration in Chesapeake, what policies would you support regarding the siting of data centers and the management of associated impacts, such as setbacks, noise, pollution, water use, energy demand, backup generators, environmental impacts, and infrastructure costs?
Answer: Since our governing state statutes do not allow us to ban certain types of businesses and industry, the best we can do in our governance is to regulate limitations for the community’s best interest. I would try to ensure that the data center was located in a non-residential area, had appropriate setbacks , set a specific measurable noise level limit in decibels, ensure that the proposal included expected environmental pollution impacts to the community, would ensure that the site plan had adequate drainage and parking in accordance with city codes, and ensure that an engineering study would indicate that water and electrical usage would not adversely affect our community customers and result in an additional negative burden, either service-wise or economically. We can only develop as far as our infrastructure will support the development. I would also stress that the data center be CEEDA certified and have ISO 30134 certification.
2. How would you promote making more clean energy available to residents, businesses, and institutions in Chesapeake? What is your position on siting of battery energy storage systems (BESS) and utility scale solar? What do you believe the City can do to promote rooftop, balcony, and parking lot solar?
Answer: As a former government federal employee from the office of Fossil Energy in the U.S. Department of Energy, I have a good knowledge of the energy sector and I am a firm supporter of multiple energy sources, including clean coal, natural gas, oil, hydroelectric, nuclear, wind, and solar. We are technologically finding new solutions to meet electric demand, so innovation is leading the way and I don’t know what new systems it will bring to the market. From a personal point of view demonstrating support for clean energy, I have solar hot water and solar PEV panels in my home, as well as a large battery bank, so I’m a believer. I don’t foresee any special subsidies from the city to fund personal clean energy in private homes, but I do endorse building codes and planning that supports these initiatives. Our codes have to be balanced to support new materials, better HVAC and lighting, and other initiatives while not burdening builders and buyers into only being allowed to build unaffordable homes. Federal programs like Grid-interactive Efficient Buildings (GEB), state initiatives, and industry initiatives are plentiful and supporting clean energy.
3. Between 2014 and 2021, the City had a net loss of over 800 acres of trees, largely to development. What polices will you support to protect tree canopy during development? Would you support increasing the tree canopy requirement on site plans for low-density single-family home development?
Answer: I can’t make a decision on this initiative at this time that would endorse this proposal, because it could be considered an overreach of government authority. I think we could partner and collaborate with developers to strongly encourage site planning to maintain or grow our tree canopy in developments.
4. Our region faces a significant shortage of housing that is affordable to people earning the area median income or less. How would you promote building more housing in communities that maintains a high quality of life and a healthy and livable environment?
Answer: We have areas in the city where lower-income homes are more prevalent and available for sale. Generally, people that have bought properties and homes want to maximize the return on their investment, so I don’t believe that forcing them to build low-income homes would be fair, especially if it changes the character of the community to something different than what they and their neighbors bought. I believe that we have established communities with multi-family dwellings that are more affordable and will continue to do so. From a rental housing perspective, I own a recently refurbished 4 BR rental home in the city with Section 8 tenant that seems to be working out well, because it is managed by a rental agency, maintained by me, and supported with government funding. The tenants are integrated in a vibrant neighborhood instead of a city-owned project that would deteriorate over time.
5. Chesapeake continues to experience flooding, sea level rise, and increasingly intense rainfall. What are your priorities for improving flood resilience to protect neighborhoods, businesses, and natural resources?
Answer: I live on the water on Indian River and have not experienced a significant sea-level rise and I believe it is just a natural climate variation over time and the threat may be overstated. The best we can do is maintain storm-water systems to the best of our ability, ensure that builders install the required drainage (including required French drains where stipulated), and ensure that any new development be designed with adequate infrastructure to support our mid-Atlantic climate.
6. One of the top resident priorities is "Preservation of large areas of open space and forest.*" How should Chesapeake balance continued economic growth with the preservation of open space, forests, wetlands, farms and rural character? How would you expand the City's urban forestry and natural lands management, such planting and maintaining trees, managing invasive plants, maintaining natural trails, and training staff on best practices? * As reported in the Parks, Recreation, and Tourism Master Plan study.
Answer: As a member of the city’s Citizen Advisory Committee for the Chesapeake Land Bank Authority, we do our best to repurpose blighted or unused properties for the good of the community. I think we have a good record of already doing the things mentioned in this question and will continue to do so. Blue Heron Park, a quarter of a mile from my home, is a good success story. Chesapeake is Virginia’s 2nd largest city and will continue to grow, so there needs to be a balance between development and preservation. We have a master plan to guide us and execute. With the proper oversight, we can maintain a healthy urban/rural balance. City Council members have some influence, but not overall control in this area.
7. Considering that many daily trips that people make are over short distances, often less than 1 or 2 miles, how would you work to make our streets safer and more connected for people walking, biking, and using mobility devices?
Answer: Some of this is already occurring in our community and we have a good record of accomplishment. Indian River Road next to my house has reduced travel lanes from 3 to 2 and new bike paths have been instituted and marked just this month. I would like to continue to see sidewalks and bike-paths retrofitted where feasible in our city, and have developers include sidewalks in their site plans. I am a strong supporter of finishing the shoulders/sidewalks of Military Highway between Auburn Avenue and Greenbrier Parkway, which is a busy commercial corridor.
8. How would you improve access to public transportation in our City?
Answer: I will continue to support HRT and their programs to serve the community, possibly including point-to-point transport.
9. Considering the new 25-year contract the City signed with SPSA for combined single-bin trash and recycling collection, and considering the steadily increasing tipping fees (cost per ton collected) associated with the new contract, what steps should the City take to encourage residents, businesses, schools, and institutions to REDUCE the amount of solid waste put out for collection?
Answer: I personally somewhat favor curbside recycling in some form because it provides convenience for citizens that wish to recycle and promotes slightly better efficiency in recycling. It has been discontinued due to affordability for citizens and I support that decision. I endorse citizens voluntarily paying extra for curbside recycling if such a plan could be designed, and I will continue to recycle as I do now, bringing materials to the Indian River Library recycling site.
10. Would you support implementing a 5¢ fee on plastic bags to encourage the use of reusable shopping bags and to fund local environmental cleanup, litter and pollution mitigation, or environmental education efforts, and/or to provide reusable bags to recipients of SNAP or WIC benefits? Why or why not?
Answer: More fees for citizens to pay just makes it more difficult for them to afford the basics of housing, fuel, groceries, etc. so I don’t support the 5-cent fee. I believe that we have the necessary resources already in place through non-profits like yourself, school systems, and volunteers to clean up Chesapeake and mitigate litter. I would fully support a city campaign to focus on Adopt-A-Highway programs and other similar initiatives. Almost every morning I walk 4 miles and I regularly pick up bottles and trash between Lilac Avenue and the Indian River Shopping Center, disposing of many handfuls of trash each time. We can attempt to change our culture to stop people from littering our streets with limited success, but we need to mitigate their bad behavior by cleaning it up. When I don’t pick up the litter, it remains there for weeks. I don’t believe that this has a government solution, but the government is a stakeholder and partner.
11. What steps would you take to improve transparency and public engagement in land use and development decisions?
Answer: I would like to see current rules enforced. If a property is sold and a house is being built, there should be a posted building permit with a developer’s name on it. I am not sure, but I think that neighbors are supposed to be informed when a home is sold and a new building/demolition is to occur.
12. What other sustainability, environmental, or quality-of-life issue do you believe deserves greater attention? Please elaborate.
Answer: As co-chair of the Norfolk Highlands Civic League, the major complaints are neighborhood speeding, inadequate drainage, bad neighbors that don’t comply with parking or are running businesses out of their homes, and lack of responsiveness by the city. I can’t fix bad behavior as a city council member, but I can focus on city response to citizen requests so that we have a government that works for the people. I consider the city as a service provider, and the citizens as our customers. Customers want good services and good value at affordable prices. Ultimately, I believe in quality government that provides the best quality-of-life in this city at the best value.
Candidate Survey Responses - Ozan Duran
1. Considering data center ordinance changes under consideration in Chesapeake, what policies would you support regarding the siting of data centers and the management of associated impacts, such as setbacks, noise, pollution, water use, energy demand, backup generators, environmental impacts, and infrastructure costs?
Answer: I have talked quite extensively on this issue at City Council meetings. Data centers(Or what the words currently represent to the layman) need to be restricted until they no longer pose a societal harm. There are many concerns regarding these. I don’t want to order the issues to mean that one is more important than another, but to start with: wastewater, stormwater, noise, rezoning(these are industrial facilities, we shouldn’t be rezoning residential or agricultural land for this type of project), energy use(under our first to exploit system), heat islanding, pollution(1. in the form of discharge(in the case there is closed loop[which is preferred], these systems need to be purged, the heat exchangers need to be washed down, they are breeding grounds for microorganisms(Legionella in particular) due to the temperatures that they operate at. The washdown and purge water needs to be retained on site in hazmat containers, evaporated off, then disposed of appropriately. 2. In the form of air pollution, the generators must be specified to be efficient, there should be limitations on what constitutes an emergency(they can operate for 2-3 hours in order for the servers to safely shutdown in the case of a power outage, otherwise they cannot sustain operations indefinitely or during power demand spikes to alleviate grid congestion.
Datacenters aren’t critical infrastructure, they are profit driven enterprise, and having these facilities generate their own power leads to citizens bearing the burden of their profit. The generators must also be as quiet as the datacenter restrictions, being measured at any and all points of the boundaries of their property, not to exceed 58dbC during the day, and 55 dbC during the night).
I don’t want this to be a novel, I have extensive restrictions on each of these points, where they are achievable and reasonable, but they would be enough to dissuade any datacenter from wanting to abide by them and constructing a facility here. A datacenter wouldn’t be able to be built within half a mile of any residence, farm, school, wildlife zone/preserve/waterway. They must connect to municipal water, with strict limitations on how much water they can consume. They must submit their monthly power, water, and wastewater usage, have a livestream of airquality and noise sensors near installations of their generators, all of which need to be available on their publicly(as in to the general public, not a separate auditing body) accessible website, with any violations of the statutes to be a violation of their CUP, and result in daily fines to be paid out directly to property owners nearby in an amount no less than $5000 per day per property owner. In the case the website is down regularly or longer than it takes for a server to update or reboot, that would also be a separate violation of their CUP, and result in similar fines. This is intended to be reasonable, in the event of a power outage and the server is down, and the datacenter has shutdown operations during this time, there will be no fines. But if the generators are on, the website must be online and reporting through a cell service backup or satellite feed backup. The general guiding premise should be auditing should be capable by any member of the public, and it is the guaranteed right of the public to understand the impact of the operations of this and any datacenter. On the datacenters website, there must be a list of all contractors, subcontractors, and other entities that are operating in the datacenter. The public has an interest in what computing is done in these facilities. In addition, all tax revenue from the datacenters needs to be put into a lockbox, with the apportionment not replacing existing revenues, it needs to be in addition to it. 50% to Education, 20% to safety, 15% to stormwater and flooding, and 15% to transportation.
2. How would you promote making more clean energy available to residents, businesses, and institutions in Chesapeake? What is your position on siting of battery energy storage systems (BESS) and utility scale solar? What do you believe the City can do to promote rooftop, balcony, and parking lot solar?
Answer: One of my proposals which is in line with the Dillon rule is to sever the requirement of habitability from being connected to the Grid. Right now if you disconnected power service from Dominion, your house would be deemed uninhabitable.
Why do we do this? If you have enough solar or wind power on your property to meet your needs, you still need to be connected to the grid, and pay grid fees. Unless you have a grandfathered contract, you earn pennies on the dollar to support the profit of Dominion Energy. With this one change, if you have batteries or enough power generation capacity, you don’t need to be connected to the grid and would allow for homeowners and businesses to have greater freedom in their property rights. The installation of the systems must still be in compliance with the NEC and local, state, and federal regulations.
Regarding BESS, it is being sold as an “improving reliance and allowing storage of unreliable energy sources”. The reality of the situation is that it will ensure that Dominion will be able to always have “peak demand”. I don’t agree with BESS systems being prioritized over additional power generating systems. The recent BESS system wouldn’t have stored much power at all, would have significantly disturbed the environment that it was to be installed in, and be deprecated soon. Installing solar on the same site would have powered 600 homes.
The more we prioritize power generation over storage, the closer we get to inverting the demand curve. In certain places of the country, residents are PAID for being connected to the grid, due to surplus power generation. We have a long way to go. I am in support of utility scale solar as long as it fits into “Mixed use”. If it is installed on agricultural land, they MUST ALSO have sheep or other livestock to clear the vegetation underneath it. The panels must be raised enough off the ground as to not cause heat concentration underneath the panels which has been found to kill off flora and fauna underneath them. They must also be sufficiently spread apart to minimize the impact on stormwater infiltration. If we need culverts, detention/retention ponds to fix an issue generated by the panels, we haven’t engineered the system in a way that is compatible with humans.
The City could partner with local property owners to establish a local site for used solar panels, and either with a non-profit or by establishing Economic Development Partnership Authority and funding it for this purpose, help with procuring the panels and systems along with installing them on large businesses/parking lots first, then houses.
In addition, on the permitting side, we need to be more nimble. We need to develop a GIS based autopermitting system, that would dramatically speed up the process. If a system was approved on one parking lot, that should be available in a database, that can be reapplied elsewhere. The City should have this database of parking lot solar deployments that a property owner can say “I want that one”, say how many sqft of it they intend to put, submit a bounding box on their property that has built in setback restrictions, and be done.
3. Between 2014 and 2021, the City had a net loss of over 800 acres of trees, largely to development. What polices will you support to protect tree canopy during development? Would you support increasing the tree canopy requirement on site plans for low-density single-family home development?
Answer: I love trees, I think it is a shame that developers do not care for them, nor do insurance companies, or hedge funds. I will begin with saying I would like to mandate that any tree over the age of 80 must be preserved, especially if there was already another home on the property. We also need to make sure that during development of these properties, developers aren’t damaging their root systems, they can use pier foundations to make sure that the house still has a good foundation, while staying away from the lifesystem of the tree. We shouldn’t have century old oaks being cut down for the sake of Wall Street billionaires.
This may be small thinking, but it is also impactful where we are humans. Our neighborhoods are important reflections of how we live our lives.
This being said, it doesn’t address the larger issue, which is that we have a lot of agricultural land. Policies need to reflect sound forestry management, and I know some of our farmers have tree farms. Part of their lifecycle is harvesting them. I do believe that we have freedoms to manage our agricultural lands as needed to best serve the interests of their ownership. I do draw the line at significant percentage changes of the makeup of Chesapeake. If a farmer owns 200 acres of timber, its time to harvest, they harvest, then sell the land to a developer that wants to build some new development, I think that Chesapeake has already had enough thoughtless expansion for the next 50 years. First we need to figure out how to service our own infrastructure with the existing tax base, not rezoning and loss of our ag land to residential sprawl. In short, no clear cutting of trees then rezoning to form subdivisions. Farmland is farmland, it needs to remain farmland, and we need to support individuals that have been doing this, and want to keep doing it. I will vote against farmland being rezoned for non-agricultural purposes. That being said, I do view certain low density grid scale solar and wind as being compatible with farmlife, provided neighbors and the community are supportive.
Trees are known to buffer stormwater from immediately overwhelming infrastructure, proportional to the canopy size. So, older mature trees with large canopies are more effective than multiple small ones. Species matter as well. Black and Red Mulberry are native to Virginia, are amazing in too wet, and too dry, along with slight saltwater resistance. They also grow fast, and produce great canopies, along with producing tasty fruit. I would absolutely support increasing tree canopy requirements on site plans, and in byways. What I can use more education on is how many trees is too many, as I probably swing in the direction of “How can we make our neighborhood into a forest”, but ecosystems require diversity, and pollinators require a diversity of environments, and pollinators aren’t the only thing that live. Trees also provide shade, and reduce heat islanding, so they need to be protected.
4. Our region faces a significant shortage of housing that is affordable to people earning the area median income or less. How would you promote building more housing in communities that maintains a high quality of life and a healthy and livable environment?
Answer: This is complicated and nuanced. Densification is important, but so is neighborhood cohesion. I live in Norfolk Highlands, we have a lot of older homes on larger plots. I’ve been lamenting the loss of these older homes that get replaced with cookie cutter duplicate houses. When we know that this will happen in the planning phase, we need to mandate that developers incorporate the existing building aesthetics so that we aren’t losing the character of the existing community. We also can incentivize that the older building be expanded and an attached or detached ADU be incorporated. We need to make the permitting process more streamlined, such that there are preconfigured 20x10, 20x20,20x30 autoapprove ADU permits that can be issued, provided the ADU match the existing architecture of the building. These notions should be the guidelines for within neighborhoods.
On the edges of neighborhoods and along major thoroughfares, we need to incentivize densification. Even in older established neighborhoods, having mixed use 3-4 floor buildings that are close to the street with covered sidewalks, businesses on the bottom floor, residential on the top, would significantly reduce road noise within neighborhoods, and add competition in the commercial property sector(there aren’t enough commercial properties for sale or available for rent within neighborhoods). Added densification would also aid in developing our transportation network, as we don’t have great density to make use of public transportation. Half of new developments should be below the metrics for being cost-burdened for the median income of the neighborhood that they belong in, and there should be a 10% cap on luxury apartments.
5. Chesapeake continues to experience flooding, sea level rise, and increasingly intense rainfall. What are your priorities for improving flood resilience to protect neighborhoods, businesses, and natural resources?
Answer: Not cutting trees is an incredibly important start, and I think that beautifying stormwater infrastructure is an understated item. We have a lot of stormwater detention and retention ponds that could serve as destinations for people, which would increase appetite for additional projects that serve the interests of the public. It could be as simple as adding paddleboats and a pier to them.
Sealevel rise has two components: The sea as we know it is rising as ice and snow in previously frozen areas of the planet thaws, but Southeastern VA also is experiencing subsidence(The land sinking down). As we’ve been drawing from the aquifer(water that is underneath the soil that wells are supplied from), the water underneath the soil no longer can keep the soil up, and the soil drops. SWIFT is a program to pump highly treated wastewater back into the aquifer. 50% of the sealevel rise in Hampton Roads is attributed to subsidence. For me, this program is slightly controversial, as we don’t have a good way of filtering forever chemicals out of the water that we are pumping in. That being said, it is critical that we offset the water that is being used, ideally not use it any more, and we need to make sure that our land isn’t lost. So, this program needs to be expanded and fully funded.
Regarding flooding, priority should be “first in time”, if a community has been experiencing flooding longer than another, it should be prioritized. We need to clear our backlog of flooding in Pughsville, in South Norfolk, and in other areas that have been deprioritized. Flooding strategies differ depending on the cause, stormwater flooding is different from tidal flooding, and when both hit, it can be devastating. The experts say that eventually we will have to retreat, I think that we as humans need to have the appetite and money to engineer the environment to both preserve our wetlands to not lose our land, and to make sure that we can continue living. Unfortunately, everything always boils down to having enough money to address the problem. I think we can hold off on expensive facilities and prioritize lower cost projects that have existed for decades. We also need to explore inhousing the ability to deploy and construct these projects, and fix costs for projects that we know will need to happen. This may mean constructing a concrete plant, prepurchasing culverts/drainage pipes, water pipes, or developing pipe manufacturing capabilities. The region under the LCRR provisions will need to replace a significant amount of pipes to meet federal standards, and there are no current preparations for the wholesale replacement of this currently in Chesapeake. We need to think forward and prepare. Katoen Natie is one of the worlds largest polymer suppliers, so we are well suited to having plastics manufacturing capabilities on our doorstep. We could situate ourselves to supply pipes to the eastern seaboard, with the port and rail to deliver it with the right leadership. This is an idea that needs to be explored.
6. One of the top resident priorities is "Preservation of large areas of open space and forest.*" How should Chesapeake balance continued economic growth with the preservation of open space, forests, wetlands, farms and rural character? How would you expand the City's urban forestry and natural lands management, such planting and maintaining trees, managing invasive plants, maintaining natural trails, and training staff on best practices? * As reported in the Parks, Recreation, and Tourism Master Plan study.
Answer: Chesapeake should not treat every farm, forest, or empty field as land waiting to become another subdivision. Economic growth should first happen where we already have roads, utilities, schools, empty shopping centers, and large parking lots. We should grow inward before we grow outward. I would generally vote against rezoning agricultural land for large residential developments.
Forests, farms, and wetlands also perform work for us. They hold water, reduce flooding, provide shade, and give wildlife somewhere to live. Once they are paved over, taxpayers often have to pay engineers to poorly recreate the same services.
Preserving open space does not mean putting a fence around it. I would like every home to have multiple places to recreate within a five-minute safe walk or bike ride. These do not all need to be expensive parks. A wooded path, pond, culvert, spillway, or drainage area can be made useful with safe access, shade, and places to sit.
At a public outdoor event, my daughter saw a rocky stormwater feature. It was dry, it was not muddy, and to a small child it looked like an amazing place to climb and play. Staff stopped her from playing on it. I understand why they did it. They were probably worried that she might fall and that someone would blame the City.
Unfortunately, public liability is slowly eating away at our freedom to use public spaces. This deserves a larger discussion about personal responsibility. If I knowingly allow my child to climb on a rocky stormwater feature, the City should not automatically be responsible because she falls off a rock. We already accept that parks, trails, forests, beaches, and natural spaces contain risks. We should not design every public space as if no child can ever climb, slip, get dirty, or make a bad decision.
When people walk, fish, bike, or play around stormwater features, they are more likely to care for them and report problems. When we make these places look abandoned and tell everyone to stay away, they become places where people throw trash.
Natural-land management also needs to be based on the actual land. I keep coming back to native red and black mulberries because they tolerate wet soil, dry periods, heat, and some salt. They grow quickly, provide shade, feed wildlife, and produce food for people. We should plant trees that fit the location instead of buying one tree in bulk and planting it everywhere.
Wetlands require the same attention. Phragmites can take over a wet area and crowd out other plants. Cutting it once does not solve the problem. The City needs trained staff, a treatment plan, and follow-up work to make sure it does not immediately return.
Ticks also need greater attention. They can spread Lyme disease, and tick bites can lead to alpha-gal syndrome(Meat and dairy allergy). ODU is already testing a “TickBot” in Chesapeake. It is a small remote-controlled vehicle that pulls permethrin-treated cloth along heavily used areas to reduce ticks. We should explore tools like this along trails instead of waiting for tick-borne illnesses to become a larger epidemic. We could begin with small pilots, measure tick levels before and after treatment, and publish the results.
Planting trees and opening trails are the easy announcements. Keeping trees alive, controlling phragmites, reducing ticks, maintaining trails, and cleaning stormwater areas are the real work. City staff need regular training, and the City should publish whether these projects are still working several years later.
The goal should be simple: preserve large areas of farms, forests, and wetlands while making smaller natural spaces useful and easy to reach. Land people use and value is land they will help protect.
7. Considering that many daily trips that people make are over short distances, often less than 1 or 2 miles, how would you work to make our streets safer and more connected for people walking, biking, and using mobility devices?
Answer: Lane diets are incredibly important, and the Comprehensive Plan gets a lot of things quite well when it comes to development. We need to reduce setbacks along roads, raise crosswalks within and when entering neighborhoods when sidewalks are present. With the demographics of Chesapeake, allowing low-speed vehicles along bike oriented infrastructure such as bike lanes could speed up adoption of road diets and public appetite with them. This needs to be studied. We are in an affordability crisis, it is unacceptable for a household to live within a mile of a grocery store, but not feel safe enough to walk or bike to it. Painting the lanes different colors, and adding reboundable bollards will increase the separation and aesthetic of this infrastructure. We also need to make sure that in lane dieted roads, we install pedestrian islands so that pedestrians can cross these 6 lane highways that are now converted.
8. How would you improve access to public transportation in our City?
Answer: Funding. We are woefully underfunding our public transportation system, we only contribute 1/10th of what CPS does to its transportation, and 70% of riders of public transportation use it to go to work. I’ve been looking into if there are savings that could be had in combining part of the highschool transportation routes with existing HRT funding to see if that is possible, by expanding service, it might increase ridership. This needs to be studied. We need to stop paying consultants crazy fees when we have the ability to fund pilot programs and directly test what our experts at HRT and within the Public Works/Planning department know. This isn’t rocket science. We can’t complain about traffic but also not fund solutions to the traffic problem. A bus transports more people than a single car does, and does it for less fuel and cost. We need these buses to go to places that people need to go first, then want to go second. Let’s start by doubling our investment of 4m annually, and see where that gets us. Where do the diminishing returns begin? Are there studies that show this? Ideally we need to have models that demonstrate what expansion gets us, at what cost. Also, bus riders spend money on the bus system which is returned as revenue. So people using public transportation aren’t freeloaders, they are paying their fair share.
9. Considering the new 25-year contract the City signed with SPSA for combined single-bin trash and recycling collection, and considering the steadily increasing tipping fees (cost per ton collected) associated with the new contract, what steps should the City take to encourage residents, businesses, schools, and institutions to REDUCE the amount of solid waste put out for collection?
Answer: The cheapest ton of trash is the ton we never have to collect. We need to treat waste reduction as a financial issue. First, we need to measure what we are throwing away. The City should publish the total tons collected, the cost to taxpayers, and the amount of waste produced per household. We should set a public goal of reducing waste per resident by 10% by 2030 and 25% by 2040. City departments should also report their own waste and be held to the same goals. Ideally, we should know what type of trash is being produced at the greatest volume. My brain says it might be packaging materials such as cardboard and foam.
Food and yard waste should be the first target because they are heavy. The City should provide low-cost compost bins, expand places where residents can drop off food scraps and yard waste, and make it easier for local farms and composting businesses to accept these materials. We should work with Chesapeake Public Schools to compost cafeteria scraps.
The City should buy durable and repairable products, reduce single-use items, and require large vendors to take back pallets, packaging, equipment, and other materials.
Finally, our trash fees should reward people who reduce waste. One normal trash cart should remain part of basic service. A household that chooses a smaller cart should receive a lower fee, while extra carts should carry an extra charge based on their real cost. A family putting out one half-full cart should not pay the same amount as a property putting out three full carts every week.
Education by itself will not solve this. The City must make reducing, repairing, donating, and composting easier and cheaper than throwing everything away.
10. Would you support implementing a 5¢ fee on plastic bags to encourage the use of reusable shopping bags and to fund local environmental cleanup, litter and pollution mitigation, or environmental education efforts, and/or to provide reusable bags to recipients of SNAP or WIC benefits? Why or why not?
Answer: Yes. My only concern would be impact, is it regressive, but I think that a fee on plastic bags is more than reasonable. I also have a bone to pick with the receipt being automatically printed, as thermal paper is a carcinogen and hormone disrupter due to the presence of BPA and BPS. If I have a rewards account, just email or text me my receipt, or ask me if I want it.
11. What steps would you take to improve transparency and public engagement in land use and development decisions?
Answer: The City should create one public website where residents can see every active rezoning, conditional use permit, and major development proposal. Each project should include a plain-language summary, a map, the number and type of homes or businesses proposed, expected traffic, school impacts, stormwater impacts, public infrastructure costs, and all documents submitted by the applicant. The website should show where the project is in the process and the dates of every future public meeting.
We should also publish a record of meetings between developers, City staff, Planning Commissioners, and City Council members. Residents should be able to see who met, when they met, what project was discussed, and what major concerns were raised. Ideally this is a transcript. It needs to be enough for the public to understand how the proposal changed and who helped shape it. Citizens shouldn’t have to play and replay a video of a meeting numerous times to see who said what when over time. Having a written record allows keyword searching, rather than the contents of meetings disappearing into obscurity, which is an accountability issue. My computer can run a good enough AI model for accurate transcription, the City has access to much more powerful servers that can easily transcribe meetings in realtime, which would allow members that have hearing problems and deafness to also participate in discussions, rather than having to go through the process of requesting the City appoint an intermediary.
Public notice also needs to be improved. A small sign on the side of a road is not enough. Property owners and residents within a wider area should receive notice earlier in the process. Notices should explain the proposal in normal language and include a map, not just legal terms and parcel numbers. Major projects should require at least one public meeting before the formal Planning Commission hearing.
Finally, staff reports should clearly explain who benefits, who pays, and what risks remain. They should list the public concerns that were raised and explain whether each concern was addressed. Being able to talk about the pros and cons of undergoing a specific decision shows thorough thinking. If a project will require new roads, schools, drainage, utilities, or public safety services, the expected cost should be published before the vote.
Public engagement should not mean giving residents three minutes to speak after most of the work is already done. The public should be able to see the proposal, understand the costs, ask questions, and influence the project before the City commits to it.
12. What other sustainability, environmental, or quality-of-life issue do you believe deserves greater attention? Please elaborate.
Answer: One issue that deserves greater attention is the long-term strength of our neighborhoods. A sustainable neighborhood should have a local school, safe ways to walk and bike, small businesses nearby, and a City government that makes reasonable projects easier instead of making every resident start from zero.
A neighborhood school is not just a building where children attend class. It is part of the transportation system and part of the community. When a neighborhood school closes or is converted to another use, more children may need to be driven or placed on buses. That means more fuel, more traffic, longer travel times, and higher transportation costs. It also means fewer children can safely walk or bike to school.
Before closing, converting, or consolidating a school, Chesapeake Public Schools should publish the full effects of the proposal. This should include changes in bus mileage, transportation costs, travel times, traffic, school crowding, portable classrooms, and future construction needs. The public should also be shown the cost of repairing and keeping the existing school open.
School planning and City planning also need to work together. The City should not approve thousands of new homes without a clear plan for where the children will attend school. At the same time, we should not remove schools from established neighborhoods while saying that we want more walkable communities. A neighborhood is not walkable if its children must be driven across the City to attend school.
The same principle applies to permitting and small businesses. Right now, every permit application creates work for the applicant and City staff. Staff reviews the plans, checks the rules, makes corrections, and eventually approves or denies the request. Then much of that work ends. When someone submits the same or a similar request, the City often performs nearly the same work again.
Permitting should build on itself. When the City approves a common project, it should publish a simple version that another resident can reuse. This could include preapproved plans for sheds, accessory dwelling units, solar systems, small additions, signs, and other common projects. Permitting staff could add more templates over time. A resident should be able to say, “I want this approved design,” show where it will go on the property, and receive approval quickly if it meets the published rules.
This would reduce work for City staff and reduce unpermitted work by homeowners and businesses. People are more likely to follow the rules when the rules are clear, affordable, and easy to use. The City should operate less like a black box and more like an entity that says, “Someone has already done this safely. Follow this plan and you will be approved.”
The same system should make it easier to start small businesses. Starting a business should not always require signing a long commercial lease, securing a business loan, and risking a large amount of money before knowing whether the idea will work. The City should publish clear approval paths for food trucks, mobile businesses, home bakeries, and other low-impact businesses.
I would also support allowing certain small home businesses by right or through a simple conditional use permit. This could include a small bakery, tea shop, or coffee shop serving people who walk or bike from the neighborhood. The permit could set clear limits on hours, noise, parking, signs, and customer volume. If the business creates repeated problems or grows beyond those limits, it would be in violation of the permit and would need to move to a more appropriate location.
This gives residents a lower-cost way to test an idea without immediately taking on rent and debt. It can also reduce driving by allowing people to buy basic goods and services within their own neighborhoods.
A sustainable city should protect neighborhood schools, reduce unnecessary driving, and make it easier for residents to build and work legally. Once the City has found a safe and reasonable path, it should publish that path and allow the next person to use it.
City Council Candidate Questionaire 2026
Questions (click on question to jump to responses)
8. How would you improve access to public transportation in our City?
Candidate Responses
(in the order received)
1. Considering data center ordinance changes under consideration in Chesapeake, what policies would you support regarding the siting of data centers and the management of associated impacts, such as setbacks, noise, pollution, water use, energy demand, backup generators, environmental impacts, and infrastructure costs?
Ozan Duran: I have talked quite extensively on this issue at City Council meetings. Data centers(Or what the words currently represent to the layman) need to be restricted until they no longer pose a societal harm. There are many concerns regarding these. I don’t want to order the issues to mean that one is more important than another, but to start with: wastewater, stormwater, noise, rezoning(these are industrial facilities, we shouldn’t be rezoning residential or agricultural land for this type of project), energy use(under our first to exploit system), heat islanding, pollution(1. in the form of discharge(in the case there is closed loop[which is preferred], these systems need to be purged, the heat exchangers need to be washed down, they are breeding grounds for microorganisms(Legionella in particular) due to the temperatures that they operate at. The washdown and purge water needs to be retained on site in hazmat containers, evaporated off, then disposed of appropriately. 2. In the form of air pollution, the generators must be specified to be efficient, there should be limitations on what constitutes an emergency(they can operate for 2-3 hours in order for the servers to safely shutdown in the case of a power outage, .. Read More
Dr. George Yacus: Since our governing state statutes do not allow us to ban certain types of businesses and industry, the best we can do in our governance is to regulate limitations for the community’s best interest. I would try to ensure that the data center was located in a non-residential area, had appropriate setbacks , set a specific measurable noise level limit in decibels, ensure that the proposal included expected environmental pollution impacts to the community, would ensure that the site plan had adequate drainage and parking in accordance with city codes, and ensure that an engineering study would indicate that water and electrical usage would not adversely affect our community customers and result in an additional negative burden, either service-wise or economically. We can only develop as far as our infrastructure will support the development. I would also stress that the data center be CEEDA certified and have ISO 30134 certification.
2. How would you promote making more clean energy available to residents, businesses, and institutions in Chesapeake? What is your position on siting of battery energy storage systems (BESS) and utility scale solar? What do you believe the City can do to promote rooftop, balcony, and parking lot solar?
Ozan Duran: One of my proposals which is in line with the Dillon rule is to sever the requirement of habitability from being connected to the Grid. Right now if you disconnected power service from Dominion, your house would be deemed uninhabitable.
Why do we do this? If you have enough solar or wind power on your property to meet your needs, you still need to be connected to the grid, and pay grid fees. Unless you have a grandfathered contract, you earn pennies on the dollar to support the profit of Dominion Energy. With this one change, if you have batteries or enough power generation capacity, you don’t need to be connected to the grid and would allow for homeowners and businesses to have greater freedom in their property rights. The installation of the systems must still be in compliance with the NEC and local, state, and federal regulations.
Regarding BESS, it is being sold as an “improving reliance and allowing storage of unreliable energy sources”. The reality of the situation is that it will ensure that Dominion will be able to always have “peak demand”. I don’t agree with BESS systems being prioritized over additional power generating systems. ... Read More
Dr. George Yacus: As a former government federal employee from the office of Fossil Energy in the U.S. Department of Energy, I have a good knowledge of the energy sector and I am a firm supporter of multiple energy sources, including clean coal, natural gas, oil, hydroelectric, nuclear, wind, and solar. We are technologically finding new solutions to meet electric demand, so innovation is leading the way and I don’t know what new systems it will bring to the market. From a personal point of view demonstrating support for clean energy, I have solar hot water and solar PEV panels in my home, as well as a large battery bank, so I’m a believer. I don’t foresee any special subsidies from the city to fund personal clean energy in private homes, but I do endorse building codes and planning that supports these initiatives. Our codes have to be balanced to support new materials, better HVAC and lighting, and other initiatives while not burdening builders and buyers into only being allowed to build unaffordable homes. Federal programs like Grid-interactive Efficient Buildings (GEB), state initiatives, and industry initiatives are plentiful and supporting clean energy.
3. Between 2014 and 2021, the City had a net loss of over 800 acres of trees, largely to development. What polices will you support to protect tree canopy during development? Would you support increasing the tree canopy requirement on site plans for low-density single-family home development?
Ozan Duran: I love trees, I think it is a shame that developers do not care for them, nor do insurance companies, or hedge funds. I will begin with saying I would like to mandate that any tree over the age of 80 must be preserved, especially if there was already another home on the property. We also need to make sure that during development of these properties, developers aren’t damaging their root systems, they can use pier foundations to make sure that the house still has a good foundation, while staying away from the lifesystem of the tree. We shouldn’t have century old oaks being cut down for the sake of Wall Street billionaires.
This may be small thinking, but it is also impactful where we are humans. Our neighborhoods are important reflections of how we live our lives.
This being said, it doesn’t address the larger issue, which is that we have a lot of agricultural land. Policies need to reflect sound forestry management, and I know some of our farmers have tree farms. ... Read More
Dr. George Yacus: I can’t make a decision on this initiative at this time that would endorse this proposal, because it could be considered an overreach of government authority. I think we could partner and collaborate with developers to strongly encourage site planning to maintain or grow our tree canopy in developments.
4. Our region faces a significant shortage of housing that is affordable to people earning the area median income or less. How would you promote building more housing in communities that maintains a high quality of life and a healthy and livable environment?
Ozan Duran: This is complicated and nuanced. Densification is important, but so is neighborhood cohesion. I live in Norfolk Highlands, we have a lot of older homes on larger plots. I’ve been lamenting the loss of these older homes that get replaced with cookie cutter duplicate houses. When we know that this will happen in the planning phase, we need to mandate that developers incorporate the existing building aesthetics so that we aren’t losing the character of the existing community. We also can incentivize that the older building be expanded and an attached or detached ADU be incorporated. We need to make the permitting process more streamlined, such that there are preconfigured 20x10, 20x20,20x30 autoapprove ADU permits that can be issued, provided the ADU match the existing architecture of the building. These notions should be the guidelines for within neighborhoods.
On the edges of neighborhoods and along major thoroughfares, we need to incentivize densification. Even in older established neighborhoods, having mixed use 3-4 floor buildings that are close to the street with covered sidewalks, businesses on the bottom floor, residential on the top, ... Read More
Dr. George Yacus: We have areas in the city where lower-income homes are more prevalent and available for sale. Generally, people that have bought properties and homes want to maximize the return on their investment, so I don’t believe that forcing them to build low-income homes would be fair, especially if it changes the character of the community to something different than what they and their neighbors bought. I believe that we have established communities with multi-family dwellings that are more affordable and will continue to do so. From a rental housing perspective, I own a recently refurbished 4 BR rental home in the city with Section 8 tenant that seems to be working out well, because it is managed by a rental agency, maintained by me, and supported with government funding. The tenants are integrated in a vibrant neighborhood instead of a city-owned project that would deteriorate over time.
5. Chesapeake continues to experience flooding, sea level rise, and increasingly intense rainfall. What are your priorities for improving flood resilience to protect neighborhoods, businesses, and natural resources?
Ozan Duran: Not cutting trees is an incredibly important start, and I think that beautifying stormwater infrastructure is an understated item. We have a lot of stormwater detention and retention ponds that could serve as destinations for people, which would increase appetite for additional projects that serve the interests of the public. It could be as simple as adding paddleboats and a pier to them.
Sealevel rise has two components: The sea as we know it is rising as ice and snow in previously frozen areas of the planet thaws, but Southeastern VA also is experiencing subsidence(The land sinking down). As we’ve been drawing from the aquifer(water that is underneath the soil that wells are supplied from), the water underneath the soil no longer can keep the soil up, and the soil drops. SWIFT is a program to pump highly treated wastewater back into the aquifer. 50% of the sealevel rise in Hampton Roads is attributed to subsidence. For me, this program is slightly controversial, as we don’t have a good way of filtering forever chemicals out of the water that we are pumping in. That being said, it is critical that we offset the water that is being used, ideally not use it any more, ... Read More
Dr. George Yacus: I live on the water on Indian River and have not experienced a significant sea-level rise and I believe it is just a natural climate variation over time and the threat may be overstated. The best we can do is maintain storm-water systems to the best of our ability, ensure that builders install the required drainage (including required French drains where stipulated), and ensure that any new development be designed with adequate infrastructure to support our mid-Atlantic climate.
6. One of the top resident priorities is "Preservation of large areas of open space and forest.*" How should Chesapeake balance continued economic growth with the preservation of open space, forests, wetlands, farms and rural character? How would you expand the City's urban forestry and natural lands management, such planting and maintaining trees, managing invasive plants, maintaining natural trails, and training staff on best practices? * As reported in the Parks, Recreation, and Tourism Master Plan study.
Ozan Duran: Chesapeake should not treat every farm, forest, or empty field as land waiting to become another subdivision. Economic growth should first happen where we already have roads, utilities, schools, empty shopping centers, and large parking lots. We should grow inward before we grow outward. I would generally vote against rezoning agricultural land for large residential developments.
Forests, farms, and wetlands also perform work for us. They hold water, reduce flooding, provide shade, and give wildlife somewhere to live. Once they are paved over, taxpayers often have to pay engineers to poorly recreate the same services.
Preserving open space does not mean putting a fence around it. I would like every home to have multiple places to recreate within a five-minute safe walk or bike ride. These do not all need to be expensive parks. A wooded path, pond, culvert, spillway, or drainage area can be made useful with safe access, shade, and places to sit. ... Read More
Dr. George Yacus: As a member of the city’s Citizen Advisory Committee for the Chesapeake Land Bank Authority, we do our best to repurpose blighted or unused properties for the good of the community. I think we have a good record of already doing the things mentioned in this question and will continue to do so. Blue Heron Park, a quarter of a mile from my home, is a good success story. Chesapeake is Virginia’s 2nd largest city and will continue to grow, so there needs to be a balance between development and preservation. We have a master plan to guide us and execute. With the proper oversight, we can maintain a healthy urban/rural balance. City Council members have some influence, but not overall control in this area.
7. Considering that many daily trips that people make are over short distances, often less than 1 or 2 miles, how would you work to make our streets safer and more connected for people walking, biking, and using mobility devices?
Ozan Duran: Lane diets are incredibly important, and the Comprehensive Plan gets a lot of things quite well when it comes to development. We need to reduce setbacks along roads, raise crosswalks within and when entering neighborhoods when sidewalks are present. With the demographics of Chesapeake, allowing low-speed vehicles along bike oriented infrastructure such as bike lanes could speed up adoption of road diets and public appetite with them. This needs to be studied. We are in an affordability crisis, it is unacceptable for a household to live within a mile of a grocery store, but not feel safe enough to walk or bike to it. Painting the lanes different colors, and adding reboundable bollards will increase the separation and aesthetic of this infrastructure. We also need to make sure that in lane dieted roads, we install pedestrian islands so that pedestrians can cross these 6 lane highways that are now converted.
Dr. George Yacus: Some of this is already occurring in our community and we have a good record of accomplishment. Indian River Road next to my house has reduced travel lanes from 3 to 2 and new bike paths have been instituted and marked just this month. I would like to continue to see sidewalks and bike-paths retrofitted where feasible in our city, and have developers include sidewalks in their site plans. I am a strong supporter of finishing the shoulders/sidewalks of Military Highway between Auburn Avenue and Greenbrier Parkway, which is a busy commercial corridor.
8. How would you improve access to public transportation in our City?
Ozan Duran: Funding. We are woefully underfunding our public transportation system, we only contribute 1/10th of what CPS does to its transportation, and 70% of riders of public transportation use it to go to work. I’ve been looking into if there are savings that could be had in combining part of the highschool transportation routes with existing HRT funding to see if that is possible, by expanding service, it might increase ridership. This needs to be studied. We need to stop paying consultants crazy fees when we have the ability to fund pilot programs and directly test what our experts at HRT and within the Public Works/Planning department know. This isn’t rocket science. We can’t complain about traffic but also not fund solutions to the traffic problem. A bus transports more people than a single car does, and does it for less fuel and cost. We need these buses to go to places that people need to go first, then want to go second. Let’s start by doubling our investment of 4m annually, and see where that gets us. Where do the diminishing returns begin? Are there studies that show this? Ideally we need to have models that demonstrate what expansion gets us, at what cost. Also, bus riders spend money on the bus system which is returned as revenue. So people using public transportation aren’t freeloaders, they are paying their fair share.
Dr. George Yacus: I will continue to support HRT and their programs to serve the community, possibly including point-to-point transport.
9. Considering the new 25-year contract the City signed with SPSA for combined single-bin trash and recycling collection, and considering the steadily increasing tipping fees (cost per ton collected) associated with the new contract, what steps should the City take to encourage residents, businesses, schools, and institutions to REDUCE the amount of solid waste put out for collection?
Ozan Duran: The cheapest ton of trash is the ton we never have to collect. We need to treat waste reduction as a financial issue. First, we need to measure what we are throwing away. The City should publish the total tons collected, the cost to taxpayers, and the amount of waste produced per household. We should set a public goal of reducing waste per resident by 10% by 2030 and 25% by 2040. City departments should also report their own waste and be held to the same goals. Ideally, we should know what type of trash is being produced at the greatest volume. My brain says it might be packaging materials such as cardboard and foam.
Food and yard waste should be the first target because they are heavy. The City should provide low-cost compost bins, expand places where residents can drop off food scraps and yard waste, and make it easier for local farms and composting businesses to accept these materials. We should work with Chesapeake Public Schools to compost cafeteria scraps.
The City should buy durable and repairable products, reduce single-use items, and require large vendors .... Read More
Dr. George Yacus: I personally somewhat favor curbside recycling in some form because it provides convenience for citizens that wish to recycle and promotes slightly better efficiency in recycling. It has been discontinued due to affordability for citizens and I support that decision. I endorse citizens voluntarily paying extra for curbside recycling if such a plan could be designed, and I will continue to recycle as I do now, bringing materials to the Indian River Library recycling site.
10. Would you support implementing a 5¢ fee on plastic bags to encourage the use of reusable shopping bags and to fund local environmental cleanup, litter and pollution mitigation, or environmental education efforts, and/or to provide reusable bags to recipients of SNAP or WIC benefits? Why or why not?
Ozan Duran: Yes. My only concern would be impact, is it regressive, but I think that a fee on plastic bags is more than reasonable. I also have a bone to pick with the receipt being automatically printed, as thermal paper is a carcinogen and hormone disrupter due to the presence of BPA and BPS. If I have a rewards account, just email or text me my receipt, or ask me if I want it.
Dr. George Yacus: More fees for citizens to pay just makes it more difficult for them to afford the basics of housing, fuel, groceries, etc. so I don’t support the 5-cent fee. I believe that we have the necessary resources already in place through non-profits like yourself, school systems, and volunteers to clean up Chesapeake and mitigate litter. I would fully support a city campaign to focus on Adopt-A-Highway programs and other similar initiatives. Almost every morning I walk 4 miles and I regularly pick up bottles and trash between Lilac Avenue and the Indian River Shopping Center, disposing of many handfuls of trash each time. We can attempt to change our culture to stop people from littering our streets with limited success, but we need to mitigate their bad behavior by cleaning it up. When I don’t pick up the litter, it remains there for weeks. I don’t believe that this has a government solution, but the government is a stakeholder and partner.
11. What steps would you take to improve transparency and public engagement in land use and development decisions?
Ozan Duran: The City should create one public website where residents can see every active rezoning, conditional use permit, and major development proposal. Each project should include a plain-language summary, a map, the number and type of homes or businesses proposed, expected traffic, school impacts, stormwater impacts, public infrastructure costs, and all documents submitted by the applicant. The website should show where the project is in the process and the dates of every future public meeting.
We should also publish a record of meetings between developers, City staff, Planning Commissioners, and City Council members. Residents should be able to see who met, when they met, what project was discussed, and what major concerns were raised. Ideally this is a transcript. It needs to be enough for the public to understand how the proposal changed and who helped shape it. Citizens shouldn’t have to play and replay a video of a meeting numerous times to see who said what when over time. Having a written record allows keyword searching, rather than the contents of meetings disappearing into obscurity, .... Read More
Dr. George Yacus: I would like to see current rules enforced. If a property is sold and a house is being built, there should be a posted building permit with a developer’s name on it. I am not sure, but I think that neighbors are supposed to be informed when a home is sold and a new building/demolition is to occur.
12. What other sustainability, environmental, or quality-of-life issue do you believe deserves greater attention? Please elaborate.
Ozan Duran: One issue that deserves greater attention is the long-term strength of our neighborhoods. A sustainable neighborhood should have a local school, safe ways to walk and bike, small businesses nearby, and a City government that makes reasonable projects easier instead of making every resident start from zero.
A neighborhood school is not just a building where children attend class. It is part of the transportation system and part of the community. When a neighborhood school closes or is converted to another use, more children may need to be driven or placed on buses. That means more fuel, more traffic, longer travel times, and higher transportation costs. It also means fewer children can safely walk or bike to school.
Before closing, converting, or consolidating a school, Chesapeake Public Schools should publish the full effects of the proposal. This should include changes in bus mileage, transportation costs, travel times, traffic, school crowding, portable classrooms, and future construction needs. The public should .... Read More
Dr. George Yacus: As co-chair of the Norfolk Highlands Civic League, the major complaints are neighborhood speeding, inadequate drainage, bad neighbors that don’t comply with parking or are running businesses out of their homes, and lack of responsiveness by the city. I can’t fix bad behavior as a city council member, but I can focus on city response to citizen requests so that we have a government that works for the people. I consider the city as a service provider, and the citizens as our customers. Customers want good services and good value at affordable prices. Ultimately, I believe in quality government that provides the best quality-of-life in this city at the best value.
August Newsletter
In this edition ● Follow us on Facebook ● Data Center Ordinance and Policy ● Chesapeake Sustainability Network ● Planning Commission ● City Council ● Green Drinks ● Action Alerts ● Volunteer Opportunities ● In the News
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Data Center Ordinance and Policy
The Planning Commission held a public hearing on the proposed ordinance and policy on July 8. In the pre-meeting, Planning reported they had received over 140 comments and emails raising concerns about data centers. In the hearing, 26 people spoke about their concerns with the proposed ordinance.
The Planning Commission listened thoughtfully and afterwards asked excellent questions of City Staff. They ultimately approved the proposal but with multiple important amendments to address the concerns shared by so many. The amendments advanced included increasing the allowable setback from 100' from a property and 500' from an existing residence to 1320' (1/4 mile) from the property line and 2640' (1/2 mile) from existing residences. They also reduced the allowable low-frequency noise levels to 55 dBC at night and 60 dbC during the day, and made this noise limit applicable to all types of neighboring properties, not just residential properties. They also made additional language changes to emphasize the importance of protecting existing communities and minimizing infrastructure impacts.
On July 14, the Planning Department briefed the City Council in a Work Session on the outcome of the Planning Commission meeting. They reported that the setback and noise limit amendments made by the Planning Commission would "effectively prevent data center development anywhere in the City". The council members expressed a desire to go ahead with closing the By-Right allowance for data centers in current city zoning but to defer action on opening new areas to data centers, i.e. Fentress, or defining the setback, noise, and other policy regulations, to allow time for more public meetings.
At the July 21 City Council meeting, the Council voted to effectively put a temporary, 8-month data center moratorium in place to allow work to continue on the final city policy. The resolution voted on at the meeting only talks about deferring the Comp Plan related policy. It does not directly address the Ordinance Change to close the existing By-Right allowance for data centers. This will be addressed in an Ordinance change expected at the August 18 City Council meeting. However, we have not seen the wording for this interim Ordinance, and it is not clear what changes will be implemented and which will be deferred for future action.
Save the date! The August 18 City Council meeting is the next opportunity to come out and let the City Council know how you want the City to deal with data centers. We will post action alerts when we learn more about the final wording of the Ordinance going to City Council that day.
Learn more about the City's proposed policy and the various concerns, including opening up the Fentress overlay to data center development, permitted noise levels, setback distances from residential properties, plans for decommissioning defunct data centers, and efficiency standards.
Chesapeake Sustainability Network
Join the Chesapeake Sustainability Network for a call on Thursday, August 6, 12:30 pm to 1:30 pm, to discuss our local efforts. We'll use Google Meet - see the e-mailed newsletter for the link or reach out to us at greeningchesapeake@gmail.com
The agenda will include the Data Center Policy Comments, We Are All Plastic Screening, and organizational Bylaws.
Planning Commission
Some agenda items of interest for the Planning Commission on August 12 include:
- PLN-REZ-2025-010 in Grassfield at 2113, 2117, & 2115 Grassfield Rd & a portion of 860 West Rd - Builds Senior Housing on 9.6-acre lot. Parcel currently has about 6 acres of trees; potential loss of 4.5 acres of tree canopy.
- PLN-REZ-2026-001 in Rivercrest at 727 Wickford Dr., 853 & 845 Great Bridge Blvd. - Build Multifamily Residential. Parcel currently has 2.2 acres of tree canopy; potential loss of about 1 acre of tree canopy.
Find the full agenda at Planning Commission Agenda
To submit comments to the Planning Commission online, visit https://cityofchesapeake.jotform.com/210536857544057
In July, the Planning Commission also Continued:
- PLN-USE-2025-009 in South Norfolk at 2651 S. Military Highway, along the waterfront. Requests a conditional use permit to utilize the site for concrete crushing and recycling, and a request to allow a height exception for 170-foot-tall silos and tanks. Parcel is 46 acres, including 20 acres of tree canopy; potential tree canopy loss of 8 acres. Note, this site is about 320' from the Reunion townhouse community (located on the other side of the railroad tracks). Continued from June 10th meeting. Continued to September
- PLN-REZ-2025-020 in Great Bridge on the east side of Battlefield Boulevard South, between Hessian Loop and Henry Jefferson Way. Builds Low-density Residential on an 8.4-acre lot. Current Tree Canopy of about 1 acre. Potentially adds about 0.4 acres of tree canopy. Continued Indefinitely.
City Council
Some agenda items of interest at the City Council in August:
- PLN-REZ-2025-015 in Great Bridge at 1401 Battlefield Blvd S., the Great Hope Baptist Church. Requests rezoning, but with no definitive site plan. An earlier site plan showed the addition of 486 parking spaces, accessory buildings, and ball fields to the existing church. Current tree canopy approx. 0 acres; no new landscaping shown in the initial site plan. Continued from June City Council
- PLN-REZ-2025-021 in Western Branch at the western terminus of Woodland Drive, builds Low Density Residential - 22 lots, minimum 8000 sq. ft. The current tree canopy covers about 10.5 acres; the potential tree canopy loss is 7 acres.
- Data Center Ordinance - see above for details.
At July City Council meetings
- PLN-REZ-2025-019 in Western Branch at 4733 Charlton Drive, builds Low-Density Residential on a 1.1-acre lot. The current tree canopy covers about 0.9 acres; the potential tree canopy loss is 0.7 acres. Approved by City Council 7/21/2026
- PLN-USE-2026-002 in Great Bridge at 1912 Centerville Turnpike S. A conditional use permit to construct and operate a Battery Energy Storage System on an approximately 31-acre portion of a 179-acre property covering 4 parcels. Current tree canopy of about 167 acres; potential tree canopy loss of 25 acres. Withdrawn by Applicant.
City Council meeting details are posted to the City Council agenda page.
Green Drinks
Our next Green Drinks Meeting will be on Wednesday, August 26 at 6 pm. Location TBA.
Action Alerts
- Chesapeake Data Center Ordinance and Policy - Speak out at the August 18 City Council Meeting. Learn more.
- Federal Budget: Urge Congress to do the right thing and uphold environmental funding for the Chesapeake Bay restoration. The administration's proposed Fiscal Year 2027 budget slashes critical funding to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), and the National Park Service (NPS). Contact your congressional representatives now - https://cbf.quorum.us/campaign/trumpbudget/
- Federal Budget: Oysters: Ask Congress to Keep the Chesapeake Bay’s Oyster Sanctuaries Protected. The U.S. House Appropriations Committee recently passed a Fiscal Year 2027 funding bill for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that includes two harmful provisions (Sec. 586 and 587). One would open up protected oyster sanctuaries to commercial fishing; the other would cut off restoration funds for oyster sanctuaries most in need of investment. Contact your congressional representatives now - https://cbf.quorum.us/campaign/noaafunding/
- Healthy Landscapes: Are you taking steps to help improve the Chesapeake environment with the landscaping in your yard? If you are, we would love to recognize your efforts and share tips on what more you can do. Sign up for our new Chesapeake Healthy Landscape program at https://www.cityofchesapeake.net/1254/Chesapeake-Healthy-Landscape-Program
Volunteer Opportunities
- Would you like to learn more about the environmental issues impacting the Chesapeake Bay watershed and ongoing restoration efforts? The next Chesapeake Bay Foundation Chesapeake Stewards (VoiCeS) class, a highly recommended multi-week adult education course, will be held in Portsmouth (near Camelot) from September 15 to October 20. Learn more and Register
- Friends of Indian River Volunteer Opportunities
- Chesapeake Environmental Improvement Council Volunteer Opportunities
In the News
- Chesapeake City Council approves 8-month hold on data center applications - WHRO
- Developers withdraw application to build battery energy storage system in Chesapeake - WAVY
- Virginia groundwater report highlights areas of concern for Hampton Roads – The Virginian-Pilot
- Virginia adopts group-buying program to reduce solar installation costs - Virginian-Pilot
- Virginia has gotten millions to address PFAS water contamination. Actually tackling the problem could cost hundreds of millions. - WHRO
- Styrofoam food containers now banned at all Virginia restaurants - WHRO
- A hotter climate could make roads more expensive - NPR
- Hampton Roads recycler is concerned about shift away from blue bins - WHRO
- Ex-NOAA employees re-create a valuable climate data site shut down by Trump - WHRO
- Habitat for endangered species in Virginia will no longer be federally protected - WHRO
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