Portsmouth is one of the oldest cities on the Elizabeth River, home to Norfolk Naval Shipyard, and it has more historic neighbourhoods for its size than almost anywhere in the region. The driveways follow the history: old and tight in Olde Towne and Park View, planned in Cradock, suburban in Churchland.
Olde Towne, Downtown, Port Norfolk, Park View, Cradock, Truxtun, Westhaven, Academy Park, Cavalier Manor, Churchland and the rest of the city west of the river. Homes, church lots, small business lots and apartment properties.
Portsmouth has about 33 square miles of land, split by the Western Branch of the Elizabeth River, which flows in from Suffolk. Norfolk Naval Shipyard is inside the city, and the Downtown and Midtown tunnels carry traffic under the river to Norfolk. With water on several sides and a recorded elevation of about 20 feet, the city sits a little higher than Norfolk, but it is still flat ground where drainage decides how long a driveway lasts.
Olde Towne. Listed on the National Register in 1970, with Federal, Greek Revival and Victorian houses and the Ball-Nivison House of 1752, and described as one of the largest collections of historically significant homes between Alexandria and Charleston. Parking here is mostly on the street or on small rear pads, and any asphalt is hemmed in by brick, fences and old foundations.
Port Norfolk and Park View. Built up between roughly 1890 and the early 1900s, with hundreds of contributing buildings between them. Narrow lots, side drives squeezed between houses, and asphalt that has usually been patched many times over.
Cradock and Truxtun. Both were built by the federal government for Navy Yard workers during the First World War. Cradock, begun in 1918, has more than 750 contributing Colonial Revival and Craftsman buildings. Truxtun was the first wartime government housing project built exclusively for African-American residents. Houses from the same years and plans tend to have drives with the same age and the same faults.
Churchland and the western suburbs. Later, larger lots with front drives and garages, where the work is ordinary suburban sealing and repair.
If your home is in one of the historic districts and the job goes beyond sealing, such as a new apron or a change to what shows from the street, it is worth asking the city whether any review applies before work is booked.
Portsmouth, like the other cities of Hampton Roads, maintains its own streets, so apron and entrance work is a city matter rather than a state one. When this page was written, the city's current driveway apron rules and fee were not published in a form we could read and confirm, and we would rather say that than print a figure from somewhere else. Every Portsmouth job that reaches the apron starts with the city's current requirement, confirmed and written onto the quote, along with who pulls the permit.
Portsmouth is a Tidewater city under the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act, so new paving close to the river and its creeks can need the city's sign-off. Sealing, crack filling and patching an existing driveway on your own lot are not right-of-way work.
Layers. A drive that has been topped two or three times over the decades can end up higher than the garage floor or the side path, and water runs the wrong way. Seams between old patches open every season. Roots from big street trees push up the edges. None of that is a reason to pave by default. Most of it is crack filling, a few cut-out patches and a seal, and the quote will say which parts need more.
On a rear pad in Olde Towne or a side drive in Port Norfolk there is often no room for a paving machine, and sometimes not for a full size truck. That is not a reason to skip the work. Crack filling and sealing are done by hand along brick walls, steps and fences, with the edges cut in rather than sprayed over, and patches are raked and compacted with small equipment. It takes longer than an open suburban drive, and the quote says so, but the finished coat is the same.
What needs agreeing first is where the crew parks and where the material is staged, because on a narrow street that affects the neighbours too.
That is years of overlays. Another layer makes it worse. The fix is milling or cutting the old asphalt down near the garage before anything new goes on.
Yes, and in Truxtun, Port Norfolk and Olde Towne. Tight access is normal there and is quoted as hand work.
It depends on the city's current permit requirement, which we confirm for the address and put on the quote.
Across the river: Norfolk. Next door: Chesapeake and Suffolk.
