What Are Working Waterfronts?
The Keep America’s Waterfronts Working Act of 2011, defines a working waterfront as:
real property (including support structures over and adjacent to the water or inland property engaged in significant water-related activities) that provides access to coastal waters or that supports commercial fishing, recreational fishing, businesses, boat building, shipping and rail yards, aquaculture, national defense, public safety, marine research, offshore energy production, or other water-related commercial, industrial, and recreational business.
Why are Virginia's Working Waterfronts important?
Download Virginia Working Waterfront Backgrounder (PDF)
Value ---
Virginia’s working waterfronts are of great historic, economic and cultural value.
Since the early 1600s, the bounty of Virginia’s coastal waters has sustained a rich culture of seafood harvest and cultivation. Toward the middle of the twentieth century, the Chesapeake Bay is said to have supported up to 9,000 fulltime watermen. In 2013, approximately 3,000 licensed commercial fisherman and aquaculture permit holders relied on access to Virginia’s working waterfronts.
Today working waterfronts continue to provide critical access to coastal waters for people engaged in commercial and recreational fishing, seafood processing, boat building, aquaculture and other water-dependent businesses.
Challenges ---
Unfortunately, they are disappearing. It’s time to find solutions.
Increasing demand for waterfront properties along Virginia’s coast has resulted in an increase in property values and higher costs for traditional water-front businesses. Because of these and other factors, Virginia is slowly losing its working waterfronts – an issue that may have long-term consequences for local economies, the environment, coastal culture and quality of life. A loss of Working Waterfronts in these areas constitutes a potential loss of jobs for watermen (e.g. fishers, shellfish farmers) and the agriculture industry (timber and grain barges); a loss of the identity of the region; and a loss of support industry jobs (boat building, transport, seafood processing, etc.).
What is the Virginia CZM Program doing to preserve Virginia's working waterfronts?
While threats to the viability of our working waterfronts remain, there is growing recognition of the problem and an expanding list of possible solutions. Nationally, coastal states and localities are using planning, zoning, land conservation and acquisition, tax incentives, public improvements and state and local regulations to help preserve their working waterfronts. In many cases these initiatives are the result of a coalition of groups with similar interests including industry associations, nonprofit groups and government agencies. For more visit the National Working Waterfronts Network website.
The Virginia CZM Program already has a significant investment in the restoration of key coastal resources such as oysters and underwater grasses which provide habitat for many commercial fisheries. The mission of the program is to both preserve these resources as well as to help ensure that the Commonwealth can continue to derive economic benefit from the sustainable harvest of these resources. It is now critical that the program focus on protecting the land-side infrastructure that keeps our coastal communities and economies thriving.
The Virginia CZM Program has been working with the Virginia Sea Grant Marine Advisory Service at VIMS to begin developing public policy designed to protect and enhance Virginia’s working waterfronts - as part of a Virginia Working Waterfronts Strategy funded through a CZMA Section 309 grant from NOAA.
Defining Working Waterfronts --- The first step in this strategy was for coastal regions - with a tradition of commercial fishing and other water dependent activities - to derive their own definition of a working waterfront. Accomack-Northampton, Hampton Roads, Middle Peninsula and Northern Neck planning district commissions started with the model definition developed at the national level - see the Keep America’s Waterfronts Working Act of 2011 definition provided above - and tailored it to capture additional details of their region.
Inventory of Working Waterfronts --- The next step in the strategy was to conduct an inventory of existing working waterfront sites within these planning districts. Tom Murray, Director of Marine Advisory Services at VIMS was the project lead. The inventories captured information about each site including: precise location (digital maps and photos); specialized support services; unique site features; and, in some cases, planning effort toward future transfer of site ownership. 
Engaging stakeholders --- In 2007, the Commonwealth hosted the first national Working Waterfronts Symposium in Norfolk, sponsored by the Virginia CZM Program. In March 2013, the third national symposium was held in Tacoma Washington. Results and presentations from these symposiums can be viewed on the National Working Waterfront Network website.
In February 2014, Virginia CZM and its partners followed these symposiums with the first Virginia Working Waterfronts Workshop.
For more information on Virginia CZM's working waterfront preservation efforts contact:
Beth Polak
Coastal Planner, Virginia Coastal Zone Management Program
804-698-4260
Beth.Polak@deq.virginia.gov