Come by for a visit with your neighbors and have a cookie and a drink !

Even if you didn’t walk away with a raffle prize, we urge you to stop in and visit these local businesses as you start your holiday shopping! Thank you to our local businesses who supported our raffle fundraiser: Beach Built , 2Beaches Studio, Taste Unlimited, Mermaid Winery, Leaping Lizard Cafe, Buggy Bathe, American Brew Coffeehouse, A Shore Thing, Sokav massages, Froggies, J Glynn Winters Photography, Pleasure House Point Yoga, Dockside Restaurant, Northend Pizza, Jose Tequilas, Sugared Mango, Smiling Camel Creations, and the Painter Family for their generous donations!

Thank you to Ocean Apparel for the quality sweatshirts, hats, tanks and other merchandise. Ocean Park merch is also available at the Beach Built shop on Shore Dr. They generously give us space and all proceeds go to the civic league! Stop in and browse!

More great weather brought out great costumes and a fun parade on Sunday! Thank you to Froggies and Care a Lot!

Superlative Weather at our Beautiful Brock Center overlooking the Lynnhaven Inlet and Pleasure House Point! Superlative Music from Lewis McGehee! (and Sandy Martin!) Great Food from Pollard’s and oysters from Ruby salts and First Landing Seafood! So Many Beautiful Raffle Prizes from our Neighborhood businesses and Neighbor Artists !

Thank you to everyone for making the Fall Fest 2024 a huge success! Thank you to all our neighbors for coming out! Thank you to our costume parade participants and the leader Emily Dorrance!

Special thank you to our many volunteers who dedicate their free time to make this all possible!! We couldn’t have done it without you!!

Thank you to all our neighbors who brought desserts and vegan food!

OPCL voted on the following motion:

Motion: I propose that the civic league take a stand on the rezoning of the Ocean Park Baptist Church property by opposing any change from R5D zoning as being against the stated bylaws.

Whereas: Article II – purpose states:
“The purpose of the OPCL as a nonprofit organization is to operate exclusively for the mutual beneficial interest of the Ocean Park community. The organization shall bring together at frequent intervals, residencts, business owners, property owners, and Ocean Park rescue squad representatives, who are interested in civic affairs, and through their joint efforts will promote good fellowship, betterment and improvement of the community with respect to beautification, recreation, sanitation, safety, and natural resource stewardship for the protection of property values of Ocean Park so it may continue and flourish as a community. The organization shall strive to inform residents of issues of neighborhood importance to provide a form for discussion of concerns and to promote participation in public affairs, including encouraging members to register and vote in all local, state and federal elections.” submitted this eighth day of August 2024 by Howard Weinberg 2064 Tazewell Road, member in good standing of the OPCL.

From the minutes of the September meeting: “The final vote was 35 for and 27 against. The motion is adopted.”
Video of the meeting will be available shortly.

After a long wait (huge thanks to former OPCL President and BAC commissioner Martin Thomas for advocating for this!), bike racks have been installed at select beach accesses!

Here is a thank you from our organizer Mary Faust to all those who helped at the PHP clean up on Saturday! Just when we think there can’t possibly be any more junk to be found: LOOK! The next clean up will be: October 12 !

From Mary:

 A few updates 

We look forward to a productive General Membership Meeting tonight, September 12 at the Brock Center. As always questions and comments are welcome: president@opcl.org. 

The meeting will begin at 7:00 pm so it would be appreciated if members would arrive in plenty of time to have their 2024 membership verified and receive their ballot if they wish to vote so that members can be seated and we can start promptly at 7:00 pm. 

Anyone who is uncertain about membership status should check it  as soon as possible-today so there is not a scramble to answer questions about status at the last minute. Contact Mike Dawe at membership@opcl.org . Membership renewals/ or joining  should best be done today so they are visible to Mike Dawe, Membership Chair.Renew or join: online  or come on Thursday at 6:30 to complete that transaction. The vote will be one ballot per household.

The meeting will be streamed on Zoom (click here for the link to register), though for this meeting we ask that only members join us. Your membership will be verified before you are admitted to the online meeting group. 

Members online will be able to send their support or not support vote in regard to the motion (see motion below) in a direct message in the Zoom Chat to Christy, OPCL Secretary. As always, we offer Zoom as a courtesy and cannot guarantee that all will work well! The best way to be sure your vote is counted is to attend in person. 

Members who wish to speak regarding this motion should sign up on the list when they check in and we’ll go in that order with each speaker having 3 minutes. We ask that speakers come to the microphone at the podium so that their remarks are clearly heard by all. ( it can be tough to hear in the room at Brock or online). The meeting will be recorded.

Motion under consideration: 

Motion:

I propose that the civic league take a stand on the rezoning of the Ocean Park Baptist Church property by opposing any change from R5D zoning as being against the stated bylaws.

Whereas: Article II – purpose states:
“The purpose of the OPCL as a nonprofit organization is to operate exclusively for the mutual beneficial interest of the Ocean Park community. The organization shall bring together at frequent intervals, residencts, business owners, property owners, and Ocean Park rescue squad representatives, who are interested in civic affairs, and through their joint efforts will promote good fellowship, betterment and improvement of the community with respect to beautification, recreation, sanitation, safety, and natural resource stewardship for the protection of property values of Ocean Park so it may continue and flourish as a community. The organization shall strive to inform residents of issues of neighborhood importance to provide a form for discussion of concerns and to promote participation in public affairs, including encouraging members to register and vote in all local, state and federal elections.”

 submitted this eighth day of August 2024 by Howard Weinberg 2064 Tazewell Road, member in good standing of the OPCL.

At the August meeting of the Ocean Park Civic League a motion was made from the floor against the Ocean Park Baptist Church Project.  Development of  church property was not and is not currently under consideration by the City of Virginia Beach. The previous project was indefinitely deferred by the Planning Commission at the request of the developer. It is unclear what future direction any development of the site may take. Residents who opposed the Ocean Park Baptist Church Project made a motion against the project based on the zoning change request in the now moot application. A majority present at the meeting voted to delay taking a vote in order to inform all residents in order to give everyone a chance to have a say. The motion  opposes the specific zoning without knowledge of what a potential application going forward might look like or a wider consideration of the zoning question. The motion will again be on the agenda at the Sept. 12 meeting and is included below.

Questions or comments?

Motion:

I propose that the civic league take a stand on the rezoning of the Ocean Park Baptist Church property by opposing any change from R5D zoning as being against the stated bylaws.

Whereas: Article II – purpose states:
“The purpose of the OPCL as a nonprofit organization is to operate exclusively for the mutual beneficial interest of the Ocean Park community. The organization shall bring together at frequent intervals, residencts, business owners, property owners, and Ocean Park rescue squad representatives, who are interested in civic affairs, and through their joint efforts will promote good fellowship, betterment and improvement of the community with respect to beautification, recreation, sanitation, safety, and natural resource stewardship for the protection of property values of Ocean Park so it may continue and flourish as a community. The organization shall strive to inform residents of issues of neighborhood importance to provide a form for discussion of concerns and to promote participation in public affairs, including encouraging members to register and vote in all local, state and federal elections.”

 submitted this eighth day of August 2024 by Howard Weinberg 2064 Tazewell Road, member in good standing of the OPCL.

On Tuesday, July 30 the committee met to review the pros and cons of the proposed Ocean Park Baptist Church project. We are particularly grateful to subject area experts from the City of Virginia Beach who attended and patiently, professionally and knowledgeably answered questions about the project application for a Conditional Use Permit, Zoning Code as it applies to this project, and the draft Staff Planner report. Thank you to Elizabeth Novak (COVB Staff Planner for the project), Carrie Bookholt (Deputy Planning Director) and Kevin Kemp (Zoning Administrator). We are also grateful to District 8 Planning Commissioner Holly Cuellar who also attended to listen to residents’ concerns and answer questions about the role of the Planning Commission. There are strong views on this application both for and against. Notes from the meeting are available.