Chesapeake’s waterfront along the Elizabeth River’s Southern Branch has long been home to a large amount of industry, like Kinder Morgan and Perdue.

City officials don’t want to change that. But they are working on a new vision for the area to better incorporate sea level rise threats and spur future economic development.

“A lot of places across the country are figuring out what to do with aged and falling-out-of-use industrial areas and how do we redevelop that into something new,” said comprehensive planning administrator Lucy Stoll. “But in Chesapeake, we're saying, ‘No, this is still good and has room for growth.’”

High demand for industrial, residential, commercial and recreational uses along the water “requires a balanced approach,” city officials wrote on the website for the project, called the Industrial Waterfront Study.

Chesapeake is about halfway through a 16-month process for the study, which includes gathering public input. Planning staff will ultimately send recommendations late this fall for the City Council to adopt under its larger comprehensive plan.

Suggestions could include building more public access points along the river’s tributaries, raising roadways plagued by flooding and congestion and encouraging new businesses in certain areas.

Proximity to water in Hampton Roads brings with it risks from the effects of climate change, which Stoll said is a focus of the new plan.

“Some of our work has been acknowledging those areas that are probably not appropriate for development and are best left as the amazing ecosystem service that they are along the river,” she said.

The main consultant for the project, Waggonner & Ball, is an architecture and environment firm based in New Orleans that’s done a range of resilience work following Hurricane Katrina.

Architectural planner Rami Diaz told council members recently that the firm plans to think about not just sea level rise but stormwater runoff, increased rainfall and other environmental challenges.

Chesapeake has more high-ground waterfront land to work with than some of its neighbors like Norfolk and Portsmouth, Diaz noted.

Only one spot in the study area— Elizabeth River Park — currently provides significant waterfront recreation, said planning deputy director Rebecca Benz. 

Residents of South Norfolk, Crestwood and other local neighborhoods are geographically near but often cut off from accessing the waterfront, she said. 

She wants to find ways to better connect them with the natural resource.

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