Neighbors REJECTED this tax scheme after they got the facts:
Thoroughgood Cove
Baycliff
Robin Hood Forest
"GERRYMANDERING: achieve a result by manipulating the boundaries of an electoral constituency"
Why
are the city tax planners and the "Captains" constantly changing the boundaries of
the voting districts? Are they changing boundaries to produce a YES vote
by selectively omitting NO votes?
Would that be legal if the city were doing it?
By Aaron Applegate
The Virginian-Pilot
© August 26, 2013
VIRGINIA BEACH
In one of the city's oldest neighborhoods, among the meandering fingers of the Lynnhaven River, waterfront residents had taken sides.
Most wanted to be part of a city program to dredge muck from the river to deepen waterways and improve boating access to private docks. They were willing to pay significantly higher property taxes to make it happen.
But not everyone in Chesopeian Colony was on board. To qualify for the program, the neighborhood needed support from 80 percent of waterfront residents.
Dredging proponents and the civic league argued deepwater access would raise property values. Still, despite months of lobbying, the 80-percent threshold appeared just out of reach early last year.
Then, suddenly, it wasn't.
Earlier this month, the City Council approved Chesopeian Colony as the city's fourth - and largest - special taxing district to pay for neighborhood dredging. The margin was narrow: 81.7 percent of homeowners in the district voted for it.
Dredging opponents said the vote was rigged. They said the district boundaries were drawn to achieve 80 percent support by excluding pockets of anti-dredging homeowners. They called it gerrymandering.
"If they'd gotten it fairly, that's one thing, but they were making up the rules as they go," homeowner Ed Schwab said.
Dredging supporters and city officials dismissed the claim as inflammatory and unfair. They bristled at the word "gerrymander."
"That's an emotional word they use to try to rouse people," said Frank Gurdziel, chairman of the civic league's dredging committee. "We adjusted the boundaries."
Chesopeian Colony was created in 1957 by the late Virginia Beach developer Wayne McLeskey. The name refers to the Chesapeake Indians who lived along the Lynnhaven.
The development was part of the first wave of suburban homes built in rural Princess Anne County, which would become modern-day Virginia Beach six years later. While the neighborhood's towering pine trees and quiet dead end roads were appealing, private docks with access to the Atlantic Ocean were a big draw.
Many boaters bought homes.
But over the years, sediment from erosion and stormwater runoff clogged river channels, making some too shallow to navigate except at high tide.
In 1992, a group of about 120 waterfront homeowners pooled money to dredge waterways. The fix lasted about 10 years. In the early 2000s, legal wrangling held up another effort as the muck kept filling in.
In 2008, a group of waterfront homeowners on a different part of the river approached the city about dredging, and a new concept was born: special taxing districts.
The idea is waterfront homeowners would agree to pay a higher property tax rate to fund a dredging project managed by the city. Inland property owners are excluded from the districts.
"We're a water-based community with fabulous waterfront properties that are suffering because they no longer have deepwater access," Deputy City Manager Dave Hansen said.
In Chesopeian Colony, many waterfront homeowners were eager to sign on. Those who had paid for the earlier dredging wanted to turn the headache of managing a complex project over to the city. Supporters argued that deepwater access would boost property values. The average waterfront home is valued at about $515,000.
Not everyone was excited. Some, especially those without boats, worried about higher property taxes. A small group gathered signatures opposing dredging. On the other side, the civic league lobbied for the project.
Gurdziel, president of the neighborhood's dredging committee, kept a large map of neighborhood parcels. He marked dredging supporters with blue sticky dots, opponents with red.
Early last year, supporters appeared to be just shy of their goal.
Gurdziel and his committee, with the support of the civic league, then made several changes. The most significant was the removal of nine homes from the district just before the boundaries were set.
"Based on our survey of the community, over 80%... have stated their intent to support the creation of the" special service district, he wrote in a June 2012 email to inform the city of the changes.
Dredging opponents were livid.
"If they had not taken out the votes, there would not have been 80 percent support," said resident Mike Aschkenas. "They carved up the district and then said, 'Let's go vote.' "
In the spring of 2012, the city sent official paperwork to 131 homeowners in the proposed district to determine the level of support for dredging.
Of those, 107 were for it - or 81.7 percent.
Gurdziel unrolled his neighborhood map last week in the dining room of his home overlooking a thin branch of the Lynnhaven. His 22-foot power boat sat on a lift near his dock.
He said he took out the nine homes to meet the 80-percent threshold.
"It didn't make sense to go forward with a doomed project, maxed out at 70 percent," he said.
Gurdziel said the removal of the homes was "principle-based." He said homeowners living in river coves where support for the project was less than 50 percent were taken out. As a result, those small coves will not be dredged.
Of the nine homes taken out, three were for dredging and six were against, he said.
Based on that tally, a vote including the nine homes would have fallen just short at 78.6 percent in favor of the project.
Gurdziel predicted his neighbors who oppose dredging will come around.
"In the end, they will be thankful their waterways were dredged," he said.
City officials defended the process.
Deputy City Manager Hansen said the city relied on the neighborhood to come up with the district boundary. He said a city attorney reviewed the process.
Twenty-four homeowners in the Chesopeian Colony district, including Aschkenas and Schwab, were against dredging. Schwab said it is the process that most bothers him.
"If 80 percent truly wanted it, I could go along with it," he said.
Along with dredging supporters, they will have a 31 percent property tax increase - about $1,500 a year for a $515,000 home - for 16 years, the life of the project. The waterways will be dredged three times over that period. The total project cost is estimated at $3.3 million, with the city chipping in about $95,000.
Nine more neighborhoods are in line to explore a special taxing district for dredging. The next proposed district includes four neighborhoods on Buchanan Creek, a tributary of the Lynnhaven. City officials have estimated 250 to 280 properties could be involved.
Gurdziel predicted that the district's boundaries there will similarly be tailored to achieve the 80 percent support.
"They're going to do the same stuff," he said. "They have to."
Aaron Applegate, 757-222-5122 aaron.applegate@pilotonline.com By Aaron Applegate
How Chesopeian got to 80 percent
The Virginian-Pilot
© August 31, 2013
Dozens of neighborhoods in Virginia Beach are situated on navigable waterways such as the Lynnhaven River. Some of the channels are full of muck, making deepwater access a reality only during unusually high tides. A handful, noting a resulting drop in property values, have asked the city for help.
The city's remedy: Offer to set up special taxing districts for waterfront property owners who agree to, and would benefit from, dredging. If at least 80 percent of affected property owners accept the proposal, the city assesses a surcharge on property taxes to pay for the work.
It's a reasonable, fair way to re-establish navigable channels, and it has worked well in Shadowlawn, Bayville Creek and Old Donation Creek. Virginia Beach dredges a channel from the main waterway to the neighborhood, and then property owners and the taxing district pay the cost - including design, permitting, construction and monitoring - of dredging to individual properties.
The process begins with, and is driven by, property owners, not the city. It requires public hearings, signatures from four-fifths of those affected, and approval by the City Council.
In Chesopeian Colony, the original plan to include 166 properties did not attract enough votes from property owners to proceed. As The Pilot's Aaron Applegate reported this week, neighbors then suggested dropping some of the property owners who didn't want to participate, and polling those who remained in an attempt to reach the 80 percent threshold. They drew a new map that included just 131 properties, and 81.7 percent of those owners wanted the dredging.
Some neighbors are complaining that Chesopeian Colony gerrymandered the map, but the city attorney determined that as long as the dredging proposal didn't hopscotch properties, three coves off the waterway - where a majority of homeowners didn't want to participate - could be eliminated from the taxing district. The creek in front of their houses won't be dredged.
The map went through the usual public process. At a public meeting about the dredging, Deputy City Manager Dave Hansen answered questions and explained how the project would work.
Figuring, correctly, that no project requiring a tax increase would receive 100 percent agreement, the City Council set 80 percent as the threshold for moving forward and requiring everyone who would be benefit to be assessed.
This month, the council voted 10-1 to approve Chesopeian's taxing district. Most of the neighborhood's waterways will be dredged three times over the next 16 years, and 131 property owners will pay a 31 percent property tax surcharge for that period.
Over the years, the city manager has recommended instituting a boat tax to pay for dredging public waterways - a reasonable proposal that would require those who use the waterways to pay for maintaining them. Council members always have rejected it.
This system works in a similar way: Those who want the neighborhood channels accessible to boat traffic pay for the work.