Character Districts

Character districts are the City’s updated approach to planning, replacing the traditional adopted land use plan. Character districts focus on the outcomes and attributes of complete communities rather than on specific land uses. Complete communities provide employment, housing, recreation, and businesses for residents with a mix of land uses and a variety of housing types. Particularly, Character Districts highlight the envisioned mix of uses, open space, amenities, and street network and mobility across the City.Character districts were created based upon parcel boundaries. Existing right of way was excluded from most character districts. The Conservation Character District was based upon data. It includes lands that are already under protection by the City, State, Federal Government, non-profits, etc. such as State and Federal conservation lands, properties owned by the Nature Conservancy and other nonprofits, land zoned C-1 conservation district, wetlands mitigation sites, FEMA buyout properties, backup City water supply parcels, tidal wetlands, and the Intracoastal Waterway. It also includes the outstanding and very high quality Ecological Cores and Natural Land Network corridors as identified by the VA Department of Conservation and Recreation. There are currently eleven different types of Character Districts in Chesapeake, represented by a 2-3 letter abbreviation. Character District codes with domain description: Note: Domain decriptions will not be included when downloading CSV and shapefiles from the OpenData portal. CC – Community/Regional Commercial CON – Conservation EC – Employment Center FO – Fentress LSN – Low-scale Neighborhood MSN – Mid-scale Neighborhood NC – Neighborhood Center PP – Production and Processing RP – Regional Park RUR – Rural UMU – Urban Mixed Used The Character District layer includes the following fields listed by alias with the field name in parentheses, and a brief description at the end. Note: Source Field Alias will not be included when downloading CSV and shapefiles from the OpenData portal. Source Field Alias: Calc Acres, Field Name: (calcacreage), Description: Acreage determined using calcuate geometry functionality Source Field Alias: Character District, Field Name: (LandUse_2045), Description: Character District of area; domain applied for the 11 different Character Districts Source Field Alias: Historic Char District, Field Name: (Historic), Description: previous Character District Source Field Alias: Date Changed, Field Name: (Date_Changed), Description: date the Character District changed Source Field Alias: Comments, Field Name: (Comments), Description: brief reason why the Character District changed This layer will be updated periodically following the adoption of Small Area Plans or other actions by City Council. Character Districts were adopted by City Council as part of the 2045 Comprehensive Plan update on January 20, 2026.