A fine line between York County and Poquoson

Answer likely coming soon to boundary riddle

It’s not easy to push the boundaries if you’re not sure where they are.

The Poquoson City Council will hold a public hearing next week about clarifying the exact location of a short stretch of its southwestern boundary with York County. In most places, the line will only change by a few feet, if at all, but for some property owners, parts of their parcels once in Poquoson will become part of York County.

The boundary in question follows a winding route from the Northwest Branch of the Back River to the Westover Shores neighborhood in Poquoson.

County and city officials are not completely sure of the location of the old boundary, which dates to 1952, when Poquoson became an independent town and, later, a city.

The line between the two localities “was created in the early 1950s with a vague description and two concrete monuments that could not be located by surveyors” last year, said Poquoson planner Thomas Cannella, who worked with York officials on finding a solution.

“Nobody knows where the old one was,” then-County Administrator Neil Morgan — who retired on Dec. 31 — told the York County Board of Supervisors at its Dec. 19 meeting. “It’s one line on our maps. It’s another line on Poquoson’s maps.”

This uncertainty has caused some confusion for property owners whose land straddled the line. Morgan told supervisors that a York County citizen recently wanted to build a shed or fence on a specific part of his yard but did not know if that portion was in York or Poquoson. Thus, the property owner was unsure

which jurisdiction’s zoning regulations to follow.

There are about 20 property owners who have a portion of their parcel in York and another portion in Poquoson, Morgan said.

Poquoson also fielded several other inquiries about clarifying the boundary, Cannella said, prompting planners to find a solution. So York and Poquoson officials devised a boundary that followed the property lines of existing parcels wherever possible, placing about 15 firmly in one jurisdiction instead of two.

For the residents in The Woods of Tabb, a neighborhood that adjoins the boundary, the clarified boundary will remain where most property owners suspected that it lay, said Jim Kirby, president of the homeowners’ association there. But for six or so properties south of his neighborhood, the old boundary likely divided the parcels in half.

“It’s a good-faith measure on the part of both entities to get some of those landowners’ situations straightened out,” Kirby said.

Some properties remain astride the boundary because drawing the line around them would have been impractical, Morgan told supervisors.

Very little will change with the adjustment, according to Cannella, and the clarification will help city and county staffers field questions. “We do not anticipate any sort of major disruptions or major changes,” he said. “Creating and clarifying a new boundary is beneficial to the citizens and staff of both localities.”

Drawing a new boundary must follow a specific procedure that is prescribed by state law. If Poquoson City Council accepts the clarified boundary, the matter will then go before the York County Poquoson Circuit Court to verify that policymakers followed proper procedures. The court will then issue a final approval.

York County’s Board of Supervisors approved the adjusted boundary Dec. 19. Now it’s Poquoson’s turn.

Citizens who wish to view a map of the proposed new boundary may do so in the conference room of the city manager’s office at Poquoson City Hall — 500 City Hall Ave. Cannella said that he is available to answer questions about the boundary clarification and can be reached at 757-868-3040.

The Poquoson City Council will hold a public hearing on the matter at 7 p.m. Monday.