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A Virginia Beach-based developer will start building 150 homes in Chesapeake’s Greenbrier area next year.
The City Council on July 20 approved a request from Dragas Companies along with Elbow Properties LLC and American Engineering Associates to rezone 120 acres off Elbow Road near Greenbrier, a narrow stretch of road traveled by nearly 10,000 cars a day. Some in Chesapeake know the road as a busy corridor for commuters from Chesapeake and Virginia Beach.
Named Crestfield, the development will be built on 65 acres; the remaining land will stay empty. Its single-family, two-story homes will have between four and five bedrooms. Construction is expected to begin in 2022 and homes will cost at least $500,000, Bryan Plumlee, a local attorney associated with the project, told planning commissioners this summer.
The Chesapeake City Council voted 8-1 in support of the project. Councilman Matt Hamel was the sole dissenting vote.
A resident complained that the new homes will create more traffic in Greenbrier.
Inside Business
“We do not need more people,” said Vic Nicholls, who frequently speaks out at public meetings and lives in Greenbrier. “Traffic there is horrendous. We’re already sitting on top of each other. We need to be able to have a livable area, not to the point where every blade of grass is so developed that we can’t even move.”
Chesapeake councilwoman Debbie Ritter said she had been hesitant to OK projects along Elbow Road because the city has not had the money to widen the road and improve stormwater ditches. She also worried that adding new homes would bring too many students to nearby schools.
She voted yes on Crestfield because a project to improve and widen Elbow Road to four lanes and replace a bridge over a spillway from Stumpy Lake has been funded.
Building Crestfield would not put any surrounding schools — Indian River High School, Greenbrier Intermediate, Greenbrier Middle and Greenbrier Primary — over capacity, according to city documents. The city studied student enrollment numbers from the 2020-21 school year, which dropped through the coronavirus pandemic.
Developers have agreed to give the school division $238,000 for future projects and $500,000 specifically for road improvements.
“It’s kind of hard to turn it down because (of the developer’s) offerings of things that we need,” Ritter said before the council vote.
Gordon Rago, 757-446-2601, gordon.rago@pilotonline.com