Buckroe Initiative
By Sandra Canepa
Daily Press
June 25, 2005
Hampton has four community master plans currently in the works. They include Coliseum Central, downtown Hampton, Kecoughtan corridor and Buckroe.
Each Plan is unique to the specific area of the city addressed by the plan’s title and has the most impact only on the citizens who live in the area addressed by that specific plan.
There are five initiatives under the Buckroe Master Plan. Four of these, the Buckroe Avenue initiative, the Mallory Street initiative, the Pembroke Avenue initiative, and the infill housing initiative, will have a major impact on the Buckroe area citizens who live within the four initiative areas.
The bayfront initiative of the Buckroe Master Plan, however, if implemented, would have a major negative impact on all 147,000 Hampton residents and not just on citizens who live in that area.
Unlike the other four initiatives, the bayfront initiative concerns a portion of Hampton that belongs to every citizen living in Hampton: 10 acres of now open grassy area that the City wants to sell to developers for condominiums. Those acres were purchased with our money, the money of Hampton taxpayers, and that property belongs to us.
For this reason, the bayfront initiative needs to be removed from the Buckroe Master Plan and set up as a separate Chesapeake Bayfront Master Plan for the city.
That beautiful gateway to the Chesapeake Bay belongs to all Hampton taxpayers and not just those taxpayers in the Buckroe area.
In the meantime, concerned Hampton citizens and others can learn more about the bayfront initiative online by visiting www.buckroebeach.org.
Sandra Canepa
