Coastal Virginia homeowners must learn how to deal with an increasingly wet world
By Eric Hause
One of the advantages of living in Coastal Virginia is the prospect of owning waterfront property. With that prospect comes an understanding that waterfront today might be under water tomorrow.
Rapidly accelerating sea level rise, increasingly violent weather events, and land subsidence make Coastal Virginia one of the more at-risk locations in the world for frequent and severe flooding.
A Virginia Climate Center report in November 2025 calculated 100,000 Virginians live in homes less than five feet above the high tide line, and in 2024, approximately 15 percent of residents of Southeastern Virginia reported having experienced structural damage to their home from flooding in the past five years.
There also are more than 5,000 homes in Southeastern Virginia classified as repetitive loss properties—homes that have flooded and received federal insurance payouts multiple times.
Hampton Roads’ municipalities are scrambling to address the problem. Norfolk, which reports the highest frequency of flood days, has established an Office of Resilience to manage the $2.6 billion Resilient Norfolk Coastal Storm Risk Management (CSRM) Project that will essentially wall off the city from major storm surges.
Virginia Beach voters approved a $567.5 million bond referendum to fast-track flood protection such as a massive mechanical intervention—new tide gates and high-capacity pump stations that can force water out of neighborhoods even when the tide is high.
Portsmouth has adopted a “Protect, Adapt, and Move Away” approach to flood mitigation, driven by its geography as a low-lying coastal city with significant exposure to the Elizabeth River. The city’s efforts are formalized under the Resilient Portsmouth initiative designed to keep water out of key areas vital to the city’s infrastructure and economy.
The region’s seven cities have plans in place to address the issue. All take time and money.
In the meantime, waterfront property owners bear the brunt of climate change in terms of damage to their property and the associated financial implications.
Most waterfront homeowners in Hampton Roads bought their property years ago when engineered defenses such as bulkheads and rip rap revetments were installed. Many of those structures have outlived their effectiveness and require repair or replacement.
In these cases, understanding what options are available to homeowners can be a confusing morass of state and local laws, codes, and requirements.
Norfolk Realtor Jack Blake specializes in waterfront properties and says education is key for homebuyers. He’s also an environmentalist who just finished a five-year term on the Norfolk Wetlands Board, so he brings an educated consultative approach to his clients.
“In order to show a property, I have to have an agency agreement with the client,” Blake said. “At that point, I represent them in their interest only. I am not an expert. I’m not an attorney. I can’t give you legal advice. I’m not a geological engineer, but I can point out items of concern that we need to explore if you choose to move down this road.
“For example, many older waterfront homes in Hampton Roads have wooden bulkheads in need of drastic repair or replacement because they were built back in the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s. They were not meant to last. People buy the home thinking they can simply rebuild it. They can’t.
“I would like to see the regulatory agencies incorporate some sort of educational piece for anybody who buys on the shoreline,” he said. “I don’t think it needs to be mandatory, but [it] should be available to buyer[s] because you need to know what goes into replacing a failing bulkhead and the many complex regulatory processes that go along with that.”
For example, the Virginia Marine Resources Commission (VMRC), the primary authority for structures built over or on state-owned submerged land, requires a joint permit application for any construction, dredging, or filling in wetlands or waterways.
In addition, the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) oversees regulations regarding erosion and stormwater management, which apply to land-disturbing activities exceeding a threshold of 2,500 square feet in Chesapeake Bay Preservation Areas.
Local governments are tasked with enforcing the statewide regulations and might have additional, more stringent requirements, especially within designated Chesapeake Bay Preservation Areas.
To make things more complicated, Virginia Code § 28.2-104.1, enacted in 2020, mandates that VMRC “permit only living shoreline approaches to shoreline management unless the best available science shows that such approaches are not suitable.” Living shorelines use plants, sand, and sometimes limited organic or structural materials to control erosion naturally.
Obtaining a permit for a hard structure such as a bulkhead or revetment is now a greater burden on the property owner. If a hard structure is permitted, elements of a living shoreline must be incorporated where possible.
Those looking to buy waterfront property face additional barriers, the least of which is the price—anywhere from 25 to 45 percent more costly than a comparable property located off the water. Add in flood insurance required by the lender if the property is in a high-risk flood area, or if the loan is federally backed, or from a federally regulated lender, and the tab increases.
For waterfront property owners who want to make changes to existing structures or build a new one, legal consultation might be the most effective way to make sure they follow code regulations.
In addition, waterfront property owners have specific riparian rights, including the right to access the water and build a pier, but these activities are still subject to permitting and must not impede navigation or public use of state bottomlands.
Legal advice might also be needed in the event a property owner wants to exercise the property’s riparian rights, a package of five specific benefits available to waterfront property owners under Virginia law:
1) The right to enjoy the natural advantages conferred upon the land by its adjacency to the water.
2) The right of access to the water.
3) The right to build a pier out to the navigable part of the water.
4) The right for the size of your property to expand through a natural process called accretion or the natural process in which water deposits extra soil along the shoreline.
5) The right to make a reasonable use of the water as it flows past or washes up on the land.
Another key piece to know is that riparian rights can be withheld by a prior owner. A legal professional can help with due diligence in determining the status of a property’s riparian rights or conducting a riparian survey of a property to determine the extent of those rights, such as construction of a pier or dock.
In most cases, property owners looking to build or rebuild should first engage with their city and county’s planning and building departments to understand specific local zoning ordinances and permitting requirements.
VRMC habitat management staff can guide homeowners through the joint permit application process and advise on the feasibility of hard structures versus living shorelines.
A qualified marine contractor or an environmental consultant familiar with Virginia’s tidal wetlands and submerged lands regulations can help design a project and navigate the permitting process.
The ideal resilient waterfront home in Norfolk can be visited at the Elizabeth River Project’s Ryan Resilience Lab. The lab is a state-of-the-art structure that showcases how homeowners can protect both the ecosystem and humans as sea levels rise by incorporating replicable, environmentally sustainable design and construction. It is a global model for coastal resilience, designed to teach the world’s coastal residents and businesses how to respond as sea levels rise.
The Elizabeth River Project offers free tours of the house which incorporates continuous rain gardens that filter stormwater runoff, solar panels, and batteries that aim for net-zero energy consumption; a floating entry pavilion that rises and falls with the tide; and toilets that flush with 100% harvested rainwater.
While the Resilience Lab is the pinnacle of what the waterfront home of the future can look like, many lab features can be incorporated into any home. Blake sees those innovations as vital to the future of Hampton Roads housing.
“Your home, especially a waterfront home, is an investment,” Blake said. “Is it going to be worth what you paid for it when you go to sell it? The best way to ensure that it is: to adhere to all the codes and regulations that are designed to make your property resilient and resistant to flooding.”
Eric Hause
Eric Hause is a Norfolk-based writer and publisher. He has written for local and national publications including Our State Magazine, Coastal Carolina Bride, and National Geographic. He is the founder and publisher of Outlife757: Hampton Roads’ LGBTQ Magazine.
