Title
Zoning Ordinance Amendment to amend and re-enact Chapter 9 of the Zoning Ordinance of Hampton, Virginia Entitled “Overlay Districts” by amending Article 5 - Infill Housing Overlay by creating an exemption for older beach house development in Buckroe and Grandview Island
Purpose
Background Statement:
BRIEF BACKGROUND:
The Infill Housing Overlay (O-IH) was adopted to assure reasonable conformance with the scale and development patterns of existing neighborhoods where existing lot size is smaller than the minimum required by the zoning district applied to that property. The vast majority of such lots exist in Hampton’s older and historic neighborhoods, which were often developed in a regular block pattern and prior to the existence of zoning.
However, it has come to staff’s attention that these standards are not appropriate when applied to legally nonconforming lots at the bay front along North 1st Street as well as the older section of Grandview Island, which includes properties both east of State Park Drive and north of Beach Road. While there are numerous places in the city with waterfront residential development, this section is unique in the conflicts created between other city, state, and federal requirements and the requirements of the Infill Housing Overlay. Laws intended to protect dunes and limit or mitigate potential damage from flooding have changed over time. While the Infill Housing Overlay limits the height of homes to twenty-five feet and two stories, other regulations require homes to be elevated via pilings, often leading to the first habitable floor being a full story off of the ground. Given this type of construction, it is also common for parking to occur under the home, which makes the requirement to set the garage back superfluous. Additionally, newer regulations will not permit homes to be built in line with existing homes as dune regulations push new construction away from the beach and closer to the street than in the pas...
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