City of Virginia Beach Pattern Book
Why is the Preservation of our Homes and Neighborhoods Important?
Lively, safe and beautiful neighborhoods are a key factor contributing to a high quality of life in any city. Vibrant neighborhoods are visually interesting and attractive. They have well-maintained homes, yards, sidewalks, and parks. Residents of vibrant neighborhoods know one another, enjoy living there, and plan to keep their homes indefinitely. At the same time, vibrant neighborhoods do not come to be on their own. They require consistent maintenance and care.
Virginia Beach faces unique challenges with regard to its housing stock. Almost all of the land in the city has been developed, leaving few opportunities for new housing construction. In addition, over half of the existing housing units in Virginia Beach are more than 25 years old. If Virginia Beach is to remain a Community for a Lifetime, it will be critical for us to preserve, renew, and enhance the existing housing stock for current and future generations of homeowners. As a city, we want to maintain neighborhoods that are places of choice – places where people want to live, not places where they have to live.
Many homes in Virginia Beach are in good repair. Taking a pro-active approach to maintaining our homes will help keep them this way. When residents neglect the maintenance of their own property this can lead to neighborhood deterioration, blight, reduced property values, and eventually a low quality of life. Forgoing necessary home upgrades
can also simply make homes unsuitable for future generations of home buyers.
Pattern Book Chapter 1: Welcome Home
One other important reason to be concerned with neighborhood preservation is that each neighborhood in Virginia Beach has a distinct history and features that make it unique. Maintaining your property, and contributing to the quality of life in your neighborhood, helps to preserve the characteristics that make your neighborhood special and make your neighborhood a desirable place to live.
What is PREmier Homes and Neighborhoods?
PREmier Homes and Neighborhoods is an initiative of the Department of Housing and Neighborhood Preservation (DHNP) that defines a program that supports the Preservation, Renewal, and Enhancement of Virginia Beach homes and neighborhoods. The PREmier program makes available to the public a variety of free resources and tools. The intent of these tools is to help residents:
• Extend the useful modernizations
• Make enhancements
life of a home through upgrades and to keep
homes desirable, while maintaining neighborhood character and design
• Reinvest resources into neighborhood activities • Improve the physical condition of neighborhoods • Improve quality of life
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