Virginia Beach planners present final draft of comprehensive plan and recommend zoning rewrite
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Summary
Staff presented a final-draft comprehensive plan that prioritizes directing growth into centers, resilience, multimodal corridors and a zoning ordinance update; commissioners raised questions about centers, population projections, ADU changes and timing with the master transportation plan.
City planning staff presented the final draft of Virginia Beach's comprehensive plan during the Jan. 14 informal session, describing the document as a citywide framework to guide growth, resilience and redevelopment.
Staff said the public engagement process included three surveys (about 9,000 responses), 10 focus groups, 12 public meetings with roughly 1,500 participants, and 612 written comments. "We had 9,000 responses to those surveys," staff said, summarizing the outreach.
The draft lays out citywide goals (economic development, attainable housing, infill/redevelopment, multimodal access, environmental sustainability), four context areas (coastal, inland, green-line, rural), and a hierarchy of centers (regional, city, local) to concentrate future growth. Staff emphasized a recommended zoning ordinance rewrite and noted a budget request for FY27 to support that effort.
Commissioners questioned details including the plan's 40 centers and how population projections would be allocated among centers and types. Several commissioners asked that the master transportation plan (MTP) be considered with the comp plan; staff said the two are intended to be coordinated and that technical updates to the MTP (TPO data) would arrive in spring/summer.
Procedural concerns surfaced about late supplemental materials; one commissioner said a 249-page parking study arrived after 5 p.m. the previous night and asked staff to revisit timing and supplemental-document practices to give the public and commissioners adequate review time.
Next steps: Staff said the commission's recommendation vote is expected next month and that City Council could consider adoption in March; commissioners scheduled a workshop to discuss outstanding questions in detail before a formal recommendation.
