OUR OPINIONS
Willoughby Makeover a New Test for Norfolk
In the 18th century, the seahorse shaped sliver of land we now know as Willoughby Spit was formed from the spawn of a horrific Atlantic cyclone. In the 19th century, it sat on the front row for the clash between the Monitor and the Merrimac that ended the era of the wooden warship. In the 20th century, Willoughby Spit helped launch carrier aviation, but its fortunes went up and down like the famous roller coaster at Ocean View Amusement Park, whose demise foreshadowed the community’s long, slow decline. Now, it is mostly known as the on-ramp to the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel. One by one, Norfolk’s neighborhoods are getting a chance to draw up a wish list for the future. Last week, in two days of retreats at the Senior Center, it was Willoughby Spit’s turn. The warts surfaced first: the wall-to-wall asphalt and cement parking pads, the overhead utility lines, the legendary 4th View Street bottleneck and the honeycombs of apartments thrown up in the ’70s as cheap off-base Navy housing. Then came the beauty spots: the serene beaches, the surviving cottages, the flinty character of its longtime “been heres." Willoughby Spit badly needs an overhaul, but Norfolk will have to find a new way to do it. None of its customary tools will work; it can neither buy nor bulldoze what it doesn’t like. If there’s to be a rebound, it will come block by block, a little at a time, when owners of the blighted apartments, the principal obstacle to renewal, are given a good reason to tear down and start over. This is the exact opposite of what Norfolk has done in downtown, Ghent and East Ocean View. For Don Williams, this is personal. It’s about finishing what he began 20 years ago when he led the grass-roots campaign to roll back zoning that allowed highdensity apartments to flood Ocean View. By the time it was enacted, hundreds of units — now in decay — were already in place along the spine of Willoughby Spit, south of Ocean View Avenue. Williams, now completing his first term on City Council, has worked up a realistic strategy for saving Willoughby, one promising neither quick fixes nor panaceas, but progress, slow perhaps but steady and well aimed. It begins with community consent for the picture that emerges in the next several months of planning meetings. To give its roads and sidewalks a face-lift, it requires small, but incremental investments over 10 or 15 years. To address fears that bayfront levies will drive out the people who have hung on for so long, Williams prescribes broader tax relief for seniors, tax deferrals and homestead exemptions. Finally, there’s the hard work. Because “density" is such a dirty word in Willoughby, the most contentious part of his proposal will be in giving more of it to the owners of the old apartments. Recent approvals of two high-rises fanned fears the race is on to make the Spit a condo canyon. However controversial, logic supports his argument that the only way to get rid of the old units is to give the owners a profit motive to tear them down. Now, they make more from rents than they could from rebuilding because the zoning now allows only half the units. To change the economics, Williams believes the council must consider “density bonuses." These would allow a few more units than are now permitted, but nowhere near as many as in the ‘80s. This would accomplish several aims: By allowing condos to be taller, cars could be parked out of sight, off the street on the ground floor, permitting more landscaping. This would allow owners for the first time to market units with water views. In return, Williams said the city would require the condos to harmonize with the community plan: “If they don’t agree to play by our rules, they won’t get the bonus." The trick will be in striking the right balance between economics and politics, a negotiation requiring tradeoffs and compromises. For Willoughby residents, it means accepting some things they don’t want in order to get the things they do.