Chesapeake is the second largest city in Virginia by land area, about 340 square miles running from South Norfolk down to the North Carolina line. Much of it was farmland within living memory. Its driveway rules are stricter than its neighbours' on one point in particular: replacing an existing entrance needs a permit.
All six of the city's boroughs: South Norfolk, Western Branch, Deep Creek, Butts Road, Pleasant Grove and Washington, including Great Bridge and Hickory. Homes, HOA streets, church and business lots anywhere in the city.
Chesapeake was created in 1963 when the city of South Norfolk merged with Norfolk County. South Norfolk, the oldest built-up part, has older houses on tighter lots. Great Bridge, site of the 1775 battle and now home to City Hall, was essentially a crossroads until the late 1980s and 1990s, when growth across the city took off. Hickory, near the North Carolina line, began as farmland and now has suburban neighbourhoods alongside the fields.
That history leaves two kinds of driveway. In the north, subdivision drives from the last few decades, many now due their first real repair. In the south, long country drives that leave the road over a ditch, with asphalt edges sitting on soft shoulders and a culvert pipe under the entrance.
The Southern and Western branches of the Elizabeth River, the Northwest River, the Intracoastal Waterway through the Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal, and the Dismal Swamp Canal, 22 miles long and finished in 1805, all run through the city. A large part of the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge, which covers about 113,000 acres, lies inside it.
Low, wet ground with ditches along the roads is the setting for most of the south of the city. The ditch is what keeps a rural drive dry, and a blocked or crushed culvert under the entrance is one of the commonest reasons we find a Chesapeake drive breaking up from the road end.
The permit is about the entrance. The city's page does not say whether sealing an existing drive counts, so on any job that touches the entrance we confirm with the Civil Permits Section and put the answer on the quote.
Chesapeake's Bay Act district covers Resource Protection Areas, Resource Management Areas at least 100 feet wide landward of the protected buffer, and Intensely Developed Areas. In a Resource Management Area, disturbing more than 2,500 square feet counts as substantial alteration. Within the district the city's manual asks for pervious materials, permeable asphalt among them, where feasible for driveways and parking beyond what zoning requires. A new or enlarged drive near the water is therefore checked against the map before it is priced.
The city's stormwater unit is 2,112 square feet of impervious area, and houses pay a flat rate. Chesapeake counts crusher run gravel as impervious alongside asphalt, so switching a commercial gravel lot to asphalt does not by itself change how much hard surface the city bills.
Yes. Chesapeake requires its Driveway Entrance Permit to replace an existing entrance, and on a road without curb and gutter a culvert is part of it.
Usually the culvert is blocked or crushed. Resealing will not help until the water can pass under the entrance again.
That is your call. For stormwater, Chesapeake already counts crusher run as impervious, so paving it does not change the house's flat fee. Near the water the Bay Act map is checked first.
That is hand work along the foundation and fence, and it is quoted as such. Narrow drives are normal in the older part of the city.
The city allows either the landowner or a Virginia licensed contractor to hold it.
Next door: Norfolk and Portsmouth to the north, Virginia Beach to the east, Suffolk to the west.
