Are the citizens of Virginia Beach the April Fools? It’s sure starting to look that way. After the developer has worked and re-worked a site plan, in just two weeks City Council will vote on removing a Religious Use Permit for the land--a single action that would allow for Lake Conrad 2 (LC2) to be filled in and homes to be built on this stormwater drainage asset. Last November, City Council emphatically committed to us that “the lake will be protected.” Yet, their single vote can allow the destruction of this natural asset and threaten the surrounding community and businesses. 

When asked what protection is in place for LC2, the developer said they drew a new site plan for homes around it. The Planning Department hasn't actually reviewed this new site plan, but perhaps some of our Council Members have seen it. 

Is this a classic "bait and switch?" Remove the CUP, then come back later for the site plan approval? Virginia Beach government and citizens have worked too hard and paid too much for this hearing to take place without a complete picture and ever question answered. Too many facts are disputable. Too much is at stake. 

• We suffered $30 million in flood damage from Hurricane Matthew in 2016.
• We paid the Dewberry engineering firm $2.6 million to explain sea level rise, subsidence (sinking land), and increased rainfall to us.
• We paid $11 million to expand retention ponds and reforest 800 trees in Ashville Park to fix a development plan that shouldn't have ever been approved. 
• We paid $68 million to create a stormwater park out of the Bow Creek golf course to protect the city.
• We voted to accelerate the Flood Protection Program within a 10 year plan to protect our communities to the cost of $567.8 million.
• Those costs are now over $1 billion per recent estimates.
• We voted to raise our own taxes to achieve this protection.
• City Council will now vote to approve of new housing at a key drainage site.

How much does the word “NAY” cost?

Have you seen more standing water in your neighborhoods? Until our leaders start saying no…you will see the puddles grow…and you will see the money go…

With LC2 holding 53,500 Cubic Feet of water on an average day, and more held in the surrounding ground and mature trees, this lake has never run dry. Stormwater, for as long as our city’s history can document, enters this lake (former river) faster than it can escape. Subsidence, sea-level rise, and increased rainfall will make it's value even greater, and the solution for Council should be simple. According to FEMA, "stormwater parks are spaces developed to withstand flooding and reduce flooding elsewhere.” LC2 is already existing at its highest and best use, and the city has the power to legislate that for the future—just like they did a Pleasure House Lake decades ago. In 1991, Deputy City Attorney signed off on the eminent domain acquisition of that threatened lake for drainage purposes. You and I just paid for it's improvements last year.

A Recent and Concerning Timeline:

March 2020: VB implemented the Sea Level Wise Adaptation Strategy, “a proactive, long-term approach to enable the City of Virginia Beach to adapt to changing environmental conditions.”

April 2020 (just one month later) the developer initiated a plan with the City of Virginia Beach to fill in LC2 while exploring the feasibility to buy it from Wycliffe Presbyterian Church.

September 2021: City Council unanimously signed the Stormwater Resolution-a commitment to deny any application that would allow any increase of water into our drainage systems, in order to garner our vote on the Flood Prevention Bond Referendum.

November 2021: VB residents agreed to increase our property taxes to enact the referendum allowing the city to issue up to $567M in bonds to cover the costs to accelerate the flood protection program to address stormwater and sea level rise. 

January 2022 to Present: City Council has deferred implementing the Stormwater Resolution repeatedly.

March 2024:  4 years after the Sea Level Wise publication, our Public Works Director said that LC2 does not have value as a stormwater asset, only as a channel for water to flow over, therefore the city does not want to purchase it.

April 2024: The proposed site plan before City Council on April 16th has NO FLOOD PROTECTION four (4) years after the developer first proposed this project!

Facts:

• LC2 is a Stormwater Management Facility (SWMF) belonging to us taxpayers, SWMF ID# SU2408090000 and SWMF Name: Lake Conrad 2
• LC2 receives the stormwater runoff for 37 acres in the Great Neck community.
• LC2 does not run dry.
• LC2 is a state-recognized natural wetland as opposed to a “manmade...amenity for the church"and a "shallow ponding area" as described by Public Works.
• Homes, businesses, and transportation are the impact area if decisions are made on false or incomplete information.
• The city (we) spent $140,638.10 in 2019 to remove trees on the lake's perimeter, to dredge the channel, and to install rip rap bulkhead. 
• The city received state and federal funds to install a water filtration device for Lake Conrad 1 & 2 in 2018. The city retracted the installation of the device from LC2 when the developer went into discussions with the city and the neighborhood objected to the destruction of the lake.
• Neighbors have reported increasing drainage problems around their properties but none have flooded, indicating the EXISTING system is working as intended inside a city experiencing worsening drainage issues.
• Recurrent flooding costs the city $26M per year according to the Virginia Academy of Science, Engineering, ad Medicine (VASEM).
• Virginia Beach is sinking per a Virginia Tech study published in Science Daily on Jan 2, 2024.
   

When Public Works doesn’t stand up to protect an asset of our city, we need our City Leadership to do the job. We are learning that City Council is strongly in favor of approving the removal of the permit that will allow the lake to be filled in. This one action paves the way to the entire lake being filled in, by-right. This is an ill-conceived plan that ignores the face of expensive issues in Virginia Beach, ones that we citizens have already paid for.

We need your voices to encourage them to stop this Foolishness! LC2 and the greater Great Neck Community need protection!