The increase in truck traffic and the construction of giant warehouses in Suffolk is about to get a whole lot worse. In the new Comprehensive Plan coming out this year, our city managers have expanded the current Growth Area by about 25%. Much of that growth is to accommodate development that will benefit the Port of Virginia and turn Suffolk into a “dry port.” A dry port is an inland area of support for a sea port. To prevent bottlenecks at the Port of Virginia and to facilitate the movement of goods by rail and truck, the port wants to expand support infrastructure, and they are eyeing the wide-open spaces of Suffolk.
Developers are eager for this as well as they anticipate taking less expensive agricultural land – which is level, mostly cleared, and cheaper – and turning it into warehouses and housing developments. The city claims that this will bring economic growth to Suffolk, but are they right?
We discussed the cost of services in proportion to tax revenue in a previous article. Housing developments do not make money for the city – they cost money. They cost more money in services (roads, schools, emergency services, etc.) than they produce as tax revenue.
Warehouses do bring jobs, which is important, but we already have a lot of warehouses in Suffolk. According to a City Council Retreat presentation last year, Suffolk currently has more than 21.6 million square feet of warehouse space. That data is from 2022, so that doesn’t include the 5 million square feet of the Port 460 project that has since been approved by City Council.
The ‘Employment Centers’ on the Future Land Use Map (light purple areas) in the draft comprehensive plan are where warehouses can be built once this draft passes. Currently, land that is zoned industrial is where warehouses can be built. The new ‘Employment Center’ areas will be about 4x the size of current industrial zoned land, allowing for the building of roughly four times as many warehouses.
Suffolk currently leads the Hampton Roads area in amount of warehouse space. If Suffolk quadruples its warehouses (which it could do with this new Land Use Map), then we could have a whopping 106,700,000 square feet of warehouse space, bringing the Hampton Roads total to 173,412,705, beating out all the other areas compared at the City Council Retreat.
There is a reason this was a focus at the City Council Retreat last spring. This is the vision of the city managers and some City Council members. They want Suffolk to be home to this huge amount of warehouses. They want Suffolk to be a dry port.
They say this brings in jobs and diversifies the economy. But is that true? Remember when malls were all the rage and cities around the country were building them throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s. Most of the malls today are struggling because times change. Do we want to be so invested in warehouses that when market forces change, we are stuck with big empty buildings not easily converted into anything else?
We will have destroyed our fertile farmland to make way for these warehouses and we can never get that back. We aren’t saying ‘no to warehouses’, we are saying ‘no more warehouses’. We have enough! Our roads are clogged and unsafe as a result of the ones we have. We need to focus on other industries, medical, office, and retail businesses. We need to focus on Downtown Suffolk and not continue this sprawl.
Let City Council know what you think about Suffolk becoming a dry port.: 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
We moved to the rural area 20 years ago from the city to get back to our roots. We do not appreciate the city going behind our backs on wanting to dig a sand pit which will affect everyone’s well water and environment. The city has already doubled our taxes in the 20 years and taken away our rights of owning more than 5 acres of agricultural.