NORFOLK -- Homes on Corprew Avenue are just 70 feet from the tracks where The Tide's light rail trains will run beginning in May.
With the promise of noise and glow from trains running past her home at night, Ruth Maturo, 82, says she now wishes she'd never moved here.
"Is one little old lady going to fight them?" Maturo asked with a laugh.
She might benefit from landscaping along the line to give her privacy from the trains.
13News discovered one home will get exactly that.
As part of an agreement the Hampton Roads Transit governing board signed this week, the city will pay at least $15,000 to landscape the backyard of the official residence of the Norfolk State University president, planting "mature (tall) trees and fairly large shrubbery in keeping with a suitable design for an executive residence."
After a year, the president has the option of having the city pay for a "retractable swimming pool enclosure."
Both are on a list of benefits for NSU included in the agreement made public this week.
In exchange, NSU allowed HRT to take some of its land for a park-and-ride lot and other easements.
HRT and the city will also pay for storm water drainage enhancements at NSU near the light rail line.
Also on the list: paying to relocate and reconnect the satellite dish of WNSB, the campus radio station.
