At the October 18th City Council Work Session, Kevin Wyne, Director of Planning and Community Development for Suffolk showed a series of maps with colored lines drawn on them to show the difference between the 30, 60, 100 and 500-foot setbacks. The City stated that it couldn’t require a 500-foot setback because of ‘regulatory taking’, which basically means that because too much of the land would be required for the setback, the owner would not be able to use the property. 

So why just stick with 30 feet because 500 isn’t plausible? What about the other options of 60  or 100 feet? There was no mention of those distances or if they would be considered ‘regulatory taking’. There was no talk about why regulating a residential property to a 45-foot setback ISN’T ‘regulatory taking’ but increasing warehouse setbacks IS? 

Instead of taking the feedback from the citizens of Suffolk into consideration, the City has listened to developers. The revised text amendment does not increase the buffers, which would protect Suffolk citizens’ quality of life. In fact, according to the UDO, M-2 zoning required 50-foot minimum side and rear setbacks. The new warehouse text amendment is just 30 feet. Did citizens just lose 20 feet of the previously required buffer? Why is the city even considering lowering it to 30 feet?

They also removed other aspects that had been in the draft, but presumably were objectionable to the developers. For instance, the draft version applied to public property, residential, agricultural, conservation, and recreational uses, and the public roadway network. The modified version removes conservation uses and agricultural uses.

Initially, it required pulsing back-up alerts for yard trucks and forklifts, which is a less noisy alert than the usual high-pitch beeping sound. Now this is just a recommendation, not a requirement. 

There was also a requirement for truck/cab parking and stacking space dimensions of 14 feet x 75 feet. Now it is 12 feet x 60 feet. 

Something else to note, is that the amendment only requires one parking space for every 10 bays/doors. There is a new warehouse complex set to be built across from the Amazon fulfillment center in Northgate Commerce Park that will have 150 bays, but only needs to have15 truck parking spaces available. Truck drivers are required to take breaks after certain driving times. Where are they supposed to go? Nobody wants them to risk driving while tired, both for their safety and everyone on the roads with them. 

The City already acknowledges there is a problem with truck cabs parking on city streets and private lots. City Council Member Johnson asked the Planning Department, how do other areas deal with this? “Trucks are out of control,” Johnson stated, adding that it is getting to be a bigger and bigger problem. The City attorney says that we can’t require more amenities from the developers. City Council Member Fawcett’s solution was to just put up “no parking” signs. That may solve the problem of them parking on public streets, but it doesn’t provide a safe place to rest before they start driving again. 

None of this addresses the real problem, which is that the Suffolk City Council has been rezoning land for years to allow for these warehouses and distribution centers with no plan in place to accommodate the traffic or the disruption to the citizens’ quality of life. This text amendment is a minimal effort that will do very little to offset these impacts. Instead of using it  as a chance to help mitigate the negatives that come with warehouse development, the City has once again bent to the will of the developers and made this amendment toothless. The problems of road congestion, truck parking, noise and accidents will continue to get worse, unless the City decides to listen to its citizens over developers.