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Planning staff provide Chesapeake Bay Preservation District training and review recent administrative approvals
Summary
City planners briefed commissioners on Chesapeake Bay Preservation District rules, mitigation requirements and recent administrative approvals including a bulkhead replacement, buffer-tree removals, and a laboratory building for Hoffler Creek Wildlife Preserve.
Planning staff provided a training briefing on Portsmouth’s Chesapeake Bay Preservation District program during the Jan. 7 planning work session, reviewing the resource protection area (RPA), resource management area (RMA) buffers, exception processes and several recent administrative approvals.
Director Rhonda Russell and Senior Planner Valerie Malzone explained the local program’s structure and how the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act is implemented locally. Malzone said the RMA is a 100-foot buffer adjacent to RPAs and that encroachment into the RMA may be permitted up to 50 feet with a required Water Quality Impact Assessment (WQIA) and mitigation. “What we want to accomplish with the water quality impact assessment is that you are proposing to encroach and disturb vegetation in the RMA, and you’re going to implement best management practices that would act to manage the pollutant load,” Malzone said.
Staff reviewed several administrative approvals from 2024, including a bulkhead replacement and riprap revetment with approximately 2,500 square feet of land disturbance that required planting-unit mitigation. Malzone summarized mitigation ratios used in staff reports: roughly one planting unit per 400 square feet of land disturbance (one planting unit commonly includes three trees and three shrubs) and a 3:1 replacement rate for remediation when tree removal in the RPA was unpermitted.
Other examples included buffer modifications to remove dead or diseased trees (administrative approval required a certified arborist’s letter), remediation for unpermitted tree removal requiring replacement plantings, and a laboratory building at Hoffler Creek Wildlife Preserve that was placed in the landward 50-foot buffer with mitigation because the site predated the Bay Act.
Staff said accessory structures located in the 100-foot RPA buffer frequently require variances from the Board of Zoning Appeals and mitigation; they also highlighted that public roads, utilities and railroads are exempt from some provisions.
The briefing concluded with staff noting they will continue similar training sessions in future work meetings and asked commissioners to complete a short training survey to guide future topics.
