Elizabeth Burrows and Jeremy Rawlinson bought their house in Park Place in April 2020.
After meeting as students at Old Dominion University, the couple rented around Norfolk, including Ghent and Colonial Place, before purchasing the house at 31st Street and Llewellyn Avenue.
“It was affordable, a great size, plenty of stuff in walking distance,” Burrows said. “So just a good location.”
They were also attracted to the vacant lot next door, home to a southern live oak with a canopy that sprawls across the lot and the busy Llewellyn thoroughfare.
“From the get-go, I was thinking eventually, if someone buys the lot to try to put a house on there, that tree will get cut down,” Rawlinson said.
He and Burrows wanted to buy the city-owned lot: Norfolk could collect tax dollars and conserve limited green space in the neighborhood.
But it wasn’t that simple. Over the next six years, the couple went back and forth with the city, to buy the plot or prevent it from being developed. They felt stymied and disheartened by what seemed like ever-shifting rules.
Earlier this summer, the city put the property up for auction. The winning bidder would be required to break ground on a single-family home within nine months.
Burrows said they didn’t want to give up.
“We see what happens every time a house gets built in our neighborhood, and they just clear-cut everything and then plant a tiny little tree in the front that's going to take over 100 years to ever approach what that tree is right there.”
Last week, in response to questions from WHRO, the city said the property has been removed from auction “so it can be evaluated further.” It remains city property.
The case highlights Norfolk’s challenges in balancing its goals for building housing and preserving nature.
Navigating a municipal maze
Norfolk has owned the 31st Street lot, about a tenth of an acre, since 2006, according to city records.
Burrows and Rawlinson started trying to buy it immediately after moving in.
They sent an unsolicited offer letter, but were told Norfolk was entering a moratorium on sales of city-owned residential property while officials finalized a new disposition policy.
The couple checked in periodically. In April 2021, a year after their first attempt, they were told the city was working on an exception to the moratorium for residents who want to purchase a small lot adjacent to their property.
“You are on the list of people we are hoping to accommodate,” an analyst with the real estate office said in an email to Burrows.
That never came to fruition, and the moratorium continued to be cited as an obstacle.
Meanwhile, the couple saw other vacant lots in the neighborhood sold to developers.
“It just felt like a slap in the face,” Burrows said.
Rawlinson later filed a public records request, seeking a copy of the moratorium policy. Norfolk’s records department responded that “no such ordinance was ever actually enacted.”
Over the years, the couple tried pleading with council members and communicating with officials across city departments. They filed an unsuccessful injunction request with Norfolk Circuit Court to prevent the city from selling or altering the property.
City spokespeople did not answer WHRO’s questions about the residents’ concerns, except to say the lot was removed from auction. But they said the objective of Norfolk’s lot auction programs is “returning residential vacant properties to productive use through a transparent, accessible, equitable and streamlined process.”
The city hopes to help residents build wealth through homeownership and diverse housing opportunities, building on the work of community advocates and organizations, spokespeople wrote.
Challenges with urban trees
A few months ago, Burrows and Rawlinson reached out to the resident-led Norfolk Tree Commission.
Chair Liz Paiste was intrigued. She said she sympathizes with Norfolk’s need for housing, but this tree seemed worth saving.
"It's an important goal to increase the housing in our city. I understand that, and I respect that,” she said. “But I also think we have these competing goals with the green space.”
The tree commission advises the city on its plans for protecting and expanding greenery. For example, Norfolk wants to achieve 30% urban tree canopy by 2040, meaning 30% of land in the city would be covered by trees. It’s currently at about 26%.
Live oaks are a keystone species in Virginia.
“It is one of the most valuable trees you can put into the ground,” Paiste said.
A single live oak can support food and shelter for more than 2,000 species, such as blue jays, hummingbirds and caterpillars. Their roots sequester climate-warming carbon and help absorb water. Plus, their huge canopies provide shade for residents.
Of about 94,000 public trees that the city cares for, less than 2% are live oaks, Paiste said.
She went to assess the tree on 31st Street.
The only way to know a tree’s age for sure is to cut it down and count the rings. But she input measurements into a calculator used by arborists, which estimated the oak is around 191 to 238 years old.
“It is definitely an old tree,” Paiste said. “In fact, I was thinking with America's 250, this tree is almost the same age as our country.”
That’s still centuries shy of the oak’s potential lifespan.
The property also has a roughly 100-year-old American elm, which is relatively rare after Dutch elm disease wiped out much of the species in the mid-20th century.
Paiste said one of the commission’s goals is to ensure tree cover is equitable in Norfolk.
Though nearly reaching the 30% canopy target is impressive, she said, “it’s not evenly distributed.”
Park Place, for example, is a historically Black community impacted by the legacy of discriminatory housing policies such as redlining.
It does not have as many trees as some wealthier neighborhoods nearby, such as Ghent and Larchmont – especially historic trees with canopies that shade an entire street.
Adding and preserving canopy in vulnerable neighborhoods can help reduce the impacts of heat and flooding, Paiste said.
The spot on 31st and Llewellyn sits at a notoriously flood-prone intersection. Burrows has taken countless videos of cars stalling in floodwaters that stop just shy of the property. She worries if the lot were paved and trees uprooted, those waters would spill over.
Moving forward
In April, Rawlinson was one of multiple ROTC cadets who took down a shooter at ODU.
The incident, which drew national attention, led to praise of heroism from city officials, said Rawlinson, who is a lieutenant in the Virginia National Guard. Afterward, however, when he sought help from those officials to save the tree, he felt ignored.
He believes that keeping the lot green will benefit everyone. He’d love to see a project to support the community, such as a rain garden, perhaps even a memorial garden dedicated to Lt. Col. Brandon Shah, who was slain during the ODU shooting.
In the meantime, the couple treasures time spent gazing at the tree, walking under its shade and listening to and watching its many inhabitants.
“This tree has been here through the 1800s, World War I, the Roaring ‘20s, the ‘60s, and all the history that's happened,” Rawlinson said. “We are doing what we can to advocate for it.”
For now, the auction sign has come down, and the tree sits as sturdy as ever.
