Suffolk’s city managers and planners want to start calling warehouse and industrial areas ‘Employment Centers’. You can find them as purple on the planning maps. While there is definitely employment going on in these places, they are trying to re-name them at the same time as they are trying to expand them for miles. (Interestingly, though, they are not trying to re-name commercial or office/institutional areas, which are also known to employ people.)
The City has spent the past two years working to revise its Comprehensive Plan. You may have heard about the ‘2045 Plan’ and some open house and town hall type events seeking public feedback. The Comprehensive Plan guides a city’s growth and development and includes boundaries for ‘Growth Areas’. Once these areas are put on the map and voted on by city council, this is where developers go and it becomes very easy for them to rezone and build what they want, regardless if the actual location is suitable or proper infrastructure is available. Most of us have witnessed this happening quite a lot in recent years.
Our city managers and planners are recommending very large increases to Suffolk’s Growth Areas. A 23% increase, actually, although there is no requirement to change the Growth Areas. In fact, for the 2035 Comprehensive Plan (under which we currently operate) there was a 0% increase to the Northern Growth Area and just 5% to the Central. Let that 18% difference sink in!
If you look at page 41 of the draft of the 2045 Suffolk Comprehensive Plan (available for public review and input at Suffolk2045.org), you will find the ‘Future Land Use and Growth Areas’ map. It shows both the new growth boundary lines that city management wants, as well as the new Land Use terminology they are proposing. You will see that purple is very prevalent; they are trying to expand where they want to allow warehouses, in both the new growth areas and in many parts of the current ones. We know from Planning’s January presentation to City Council about this map that the Port of Virginia is the driving force behind these recommendations. The Port is pushing for more warehouses.
Anyone who went to last year’s open houses or public meetings about this new Comprehensive Plan knows that expanding warehouse areas is the opposite of the feedback the city received. Purple is pretty, but on this map it means warehouses. And city managers and planners are putting lipstick on a pig by labeling it all ‘Employment Center’. (See also the ‘Future Land Use Types’ chart, page 44 of the 2045 Comprehensive Plan draft.) People are not fooled by re-naming these purple blobs on a map.
Let City Council know what you think about this new growth area: council@suffolkva.us
Michael D. Duman, Mayor
mayor@suffolkva.us
Phone: 757-514-4009
Lue R. Ward, Jr., Vice Mayor
(Nansemond Borough)
nansemond@suffolkva.us
Phone: 757-377-6929
Shelley Butler Barlow,
Council Member
(Chuckatuck Borough)
chuckatuck@suffolkva.us
Phone: 757-346-8355
Leroy Bennett, Council Member
(Cypress Borough)
cypress@suffolkva.us
Phone: 757-407-3750
Timothy J. Johnson, Council Member
(Holy Neck Borough)
holyneck@suffolkva.us
Phone: 757-407-0556
Roger W. Fawcett, Council Member
(Sleepy Hole Borough)
sleepyhole@suffolkva.us
Phone: 757-377-8641
John Rector, Council Member
(Suffolk Borough)
suffolk@suffolkva.us
Phone: 757-407-1953
LeOtis Williams, Council Member
(Whaleyville Borough)
whaleyville@suffolkva.us
Phone: 757-402-7100