Virginia Beach is building 21 flood projects that voters chose to pay for

Virginia Beach voters authorized the city in 2021 to borrow up to $567.5 million for 21 flood protection projects. The plan was intended to compress work that could have taken roughly 40 years into about a decade. Before the vote, the city expected to raise real estate taxes to repay the bonds. Instead, the City Council set aside about 4 cents of the existing real estate tax rate, nearly $32 million a year, for flood protection. By 2024 the program’s estimated cost had passed $1 billion because of higher material and labor prices.

The projects include tide gates, pump stations, larger drainage pipes, deeper canals and new places to store stormwater. Residents do not apply for anything; protection reaches each area as its projects are completed.

By late 2023, the city had finished a small retention pond at the former Bow Creek golf course, drainage work in Windsor Woods, new Lake Pleasure House outfall pipes and preparatory drainage work at Cape Henry. The Windsor Woods tide gate, which can block high tides and create storage space in Lake Windsor before storms, was completed in December 2025. Major construction remains ahead; the city broke ground on the Windsor Woods, Princess Anne Plaza and The Lakes Mega Bundle in September 2026 and schedules its completion for summer 2031.

Councilmember John Moss helped drive the referendum. The City Council unanimously put the borrowing question on the ballot. Mayor Bobby Dyer publicly supported it and directed city staff to draft it. Voters approved it with 72.72% of the vote.