Chesapeake Bay Preservation Area

The Chesapeake Bay Preservation Area (CBPA) Ordinance was first adopted by Isle of Wight County in November 1990, following the 1988 enactment of the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act by the Commonwealth of Virginia. The CBPA Ordinance includes development standards that help to limit impervious cover, preserve native trees and woody vegetation, and protect water quality in the Chesapeake Bay. Trees and vegetation intercept rainfall, absorb and filter pollutants, provide shade, offer wildlife habitat, and provide erosion control. Impervious cover creates a hard surface that prevents natural water infiltration and increases the rate of stormwater runoff, thereby speeding the rate of delivery of nutrients (fertilizers), sediments, and other pollutants into the watershed and ultimately into the Chesapeake Bay. The CBPA Ordinance attempts to balance the competing needs for environmental protection and development by promoting best practices in land use and preservation of native vegetation. The regulations are designed to preserve the natural environment to the maximum extent possible as land is developed.

Resource Protection Area (RPA) - includes tidal wetlands, non-tidal wetlands connected to water bodies or tidal wetlands, tidal shores, and a 100-foot-wide vegetated buffer area located adjacent to, landward of, and on both sides of those resources. The RPA serves as a buffer between activities on the land and the water. Buffer functions include minimizing soil erosion, intercepting and taking up nutrients, intercepting rainfall, slowing stormwater runoff, providing habitat and shade, and serving as a protective barrier for the waterways that drain into the Bay.
Resource Management Area (RMA) - that part of the Chesapeake Bay watershed that is not classified as an RPA.

To find out whether your property may be in the CBPA, try the Isle of Wight CBPA map.

RPAs are regulated waterbodies and associated corridors of environmentally sensitive land that lie alongside or near the shorelines of streams, rivers and other waterways which drain into the Potomac River and eventually into the Chesapeake Bay. In their natural condition, RPAs protect water quality, filter pollutants from stormwater runoff, reduce the volume of stormwater runoff, prevent erosion, and perform other important biological and ecological functions. In Isle of Wight County, RPAs include any land characterized by one or more of the following features:

Tidal wetland;
Tidal shore;
Water bodies with perennial flow, including streams, rivers, lakes and ponds;
Nontidal wetland connected by surface flow and contiguous to a tidal wetland or water body with perennial flow;
Other lands as may be designated by the Board of Supervisors and shown on the CBPA maps; and
A vegetated buffer area not less than 100 feet in width located adjacent to, landward of, and on both sides of the resources listed above.

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