Development – Care4Suffolk

Eagles’ Nest Identified on Development Site

Care4Suffolk — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 21:38:08 +0000

A citizen of Suffolk recently spoke at City Council about bald eagles nesting on the old VDOT campus at 1700 N Main Street. This property is the site of a rezoning application (Riversbend) that City Council will vote on next month (after multiple delays). The developer, Ryan Homes, wants to build 500 homes on that property.

After hearing Erin Clemow speak, I decided to reach out to her to learn more about the eagles and how this development may impact them.

When asked how she first learned about the eagles, Erin responded, “I saw a Facebook post about the eagles in the vicinity of the site. I reached out to a neighbor from the Nansemond Gardens neighborhood on River Road to find out more about the eagles and where their nest is.” (This is the neighborhood across the river from the VDOT property.)

She said she also put up two posts on local Facebook groups, Suffolk 411 and Care4Suffolk, to see if anyone knew anything about these eagles.

“I started researching who I should contact statewide and looking for what I can do if I am able to find their nest, “ Erin stated. She added, “I was specifically looking for the proper protocol to handle that.”

The first person she spoke to was Troy Andersen with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services (FWS.gov). He provided her with the link to the nest mapper on the Center for Conservation Biology’s website, part of the College of William and Mary.

The above image shows the eagles’ nest as the yellow dot in the middle of two concentric circles. Those yellow circles are the buffers.

According to the Center for Conservation Biology, there are two buffers:

The smaller 330′ “primary buffer” is where human activities are considered to be detrimental to breeding pairs (e.g. residential/commercial development). The larger 660′ “secondary buffer” is where human activities are considered to impact the integrity of the “primary buffer” (e.g. construction, multi-story buildings, new roadways).

Below is an image of the parcel, for comparison.

You can see that the eagles’ nest with its buffers are within the northern half of the VDOT property.

Erin also spoke with Shaughn Galloway, another representative with U.S. Fish & Wildlife, Region 5. He shared a lot more information with Erin and provided her with the Northeast Bald Eagle Project Screening Form. She asked him what would happen if someone took down the eagles’ tree and he told her that authorities would be sent and someone would be going to jail.

During this time, Erin said that the nearby community pulled together and found the nest. She received photos and videos of the eagles and their nest. One neighbor pinned (or geotagged) the location to provide her with the exact tree.

Erin then got in touch with Bryan Watts with the Center for Conservation Biology at William & Mary. He told her that the geotag is key (meaning the longitude and the latitude of the tree). He also explained that they do flyovers to pinpoint nests.

“This was not an easy journey,” Erin recalls, “I was just a concerned citizen and I was dealing with professionals in the field. They were asking me questions that I didn’t really know the answers to, but they were very patient and worked with me to help me understand, and they clarified the process with me.”

Erin shared with me the type of information and documentation that these agencies were requesting. She said they wanted pictures of the eagles’ nest, although that alone wasn’t enough to show that it was an active nest. They wanted pictures or video of the eagles actually in the nest. One tell-tale sign of an active nest is if the eagle is bobbing its head, which means there could be young in the nest. Erin added that they were looking for other signs too, like whitewash on the tree, which she explained is eagle excrement accumulating on the trunk of the tree. Other indicators could be scattered fish carcasses and turtle shells which indicate the eagles are eating above that area. The most important part was getting the tree pinned.

“It was a crash course in eagles,” Erin said as she gently laughed. She added that she didn’t know much about eagles before all this began, but now she wants to share this with others. It is clear in speaking with Erin that she is very passionate about this and truly cares about the eagles nesting in Suffolk.

Erin continued, “I was just relieved that the nest is mapped and now I know the proper authorities will be involved in this in order to get permits.”

To clarify further, Erin stated:

“This is not about targeting Ryan Homes or any particular developer. It’s about making sure the public understands that these animals are legally protected. If they are living near the river on farmland that is later slated for development, that protection does not disappear. Any future property owner or developer will be required to address and comply with those protections.”

Erin shared that it is up to the developer to reach out to Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources (DWR) to get the correct permits in place. “Now that the nest has been formally mapped,” she explained, “there is no question that the nest is there. As I understand it, the nest is naturally protected, and the tree that the nest is in, is protected.”

Erin said that one of the reasons she spoke at City Council, and why she agreed to sit down and talk with me, is because she wants everyone to be aware. She wants to draw attention to the eagles, that they are protected, and to let everyone know (Council Members, Ryan Homes, and the public) that the eagles are nesting on that property and that nothing can happen to them without steep consequences.

Here’s a link to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s Bald and Golden Eagle Protect Act. It states:

The Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act (16 U.S.C. 668-668d), enacted in 1940, and amended several times since, prohibits anyone, without a permit issued by the Secretary of the Interior, from “taking” bald or golden eagles, including their parts (including feathers), nests, or eggs.

The Act provides criminal penalties for persons who “take, possess, sell, purchase, barter, offer to sell, purchase or barter, transport, export or import, at any time or any manner, any bald eagle … [or any golden eagle], alive or dead, or any part (including feathers), nest, or egg thereof.”

The Act defines “take” as “pursue, shoot, shoot at, poison, wound, kill, capture, trap, collect, molest or disturb.” Regulations further define “disturb” as “to agitate or bother a bald or golden eagle to a degree that causes, or is likely to cause, based on the best scientific information available, 1) injury to an eagle, 2) a decrease in its productivity, by substantially interfering with normal breeding, feeding, or sheltering behavior, or 3) nest abandonment, by substantially interfering with normal breeding, feeding, or sheltering behavior” (50 CFR 22.6).

In addition to immediate impacts, this definition also covers effects that result from human-induced alterations initiated around a previously used nest site during a time when eagles are not present, if, upon the eagle’s return, such alterations agitate or bother an eagle to a degree that interferes with or interrupts normal breeding, feeding, or sheltering habits, and causes injury, death or nest abandonment.

A violation of the Act can result in a fine of $100,000 ($200,000 for organizations), imprisonment for one year, or both, for a first offense. Penalties increase substantially for additional offenses, and a second violation of this Act is a felony.

Erin also shared the email that she sent to City Council. She said it was very important to her that they knew about the nest.

What touched me the most about Erin’s speech to Council is at the end, when she says the following:

“What a profound blessing it is to witness these majestic creatures nesting, hunting, and raising their young among us. They are more than wildlife; they are a reminder of resilience, unity, and the promise of renewal.

Suffolk deserves hope. Our citizens deserve it. And the presence of these eagles feels like a quiet but powerful sign that hope still lives here.”

Attachment:

Erin’s speech to City Council

Cluster Development

Care4Suffolk — Tue, 20 Jan 2026 04:40:31 +0000

The City of Suffolk touts Cluster Developments as a way to conserve environmentally sensitive areas, but is it just a developer give-away in disguise?

The idea behind a Cluster Development is to build homes closer together to free up more land for open space or to preserve wetlands. Normal city codes have regulations on minimum lot sizes and road frontage requirements. However, in a Cluster Development, many of those regulations are waived to allow a developer to build houses closer together.

If a developer has 100 acres and could normally build 300 houses on that land, this allows the developer to condense the housing portion and put those 300 houses on 70 acres and then leave 30 acres undeveloped. That all sounds reasonable and when seen in this light, it does seem to provide more open space.

However, if that same developer has 100 acres, but he would be prohibited from building on 30 of those acres of that land due natural impediments or because of local, state, or federal regulations, he would have to reduce the number of houses he could build. He would have 70 acres and he would have to abide by the city codes that dictate lot size and road frontage. He would not be able to fit those same 300 houses within that 70 acres with those restrictions and he would have to build fewer houses.

Cluster Developments allow the developer to use all the land that is part of the parcel to determine density, even if some of it can’t be built on. The city then waives the normal city regulations for lot size and road frontage. Thus, the cluster development allows the developer to build more houses than he would otherwise be able to build.

This happens a lot in Suffolk. It is happening with this Manning Road rezoning (Public Hearing on Wednesday at 6pm at City Hall). The developer has 113 acres, but that land has a railroad cutting off a huge chunk, it has a perennial stream, open water and wetlands. In all, there are 49 acres that the developer can NOT actually build on.

These are not 49 acres he is choosing to leave open. He has no choice because he can’t build within 100 feet of the water because it is a drinking reservoir and has a required buffer. This 100 foot buffer also follows the stream that bisects his property. In addition, he has no legal right to cross the railroad tracks that divide his property. In reality the developer has 64 acres that he can actually build on.

The city allows the developer to include the non-developable land in the calculation for density. Additionally, the city allows a density of 2.9 houses per acre for the residential zoning of RLM, which the developer is asking for in this rezoning request. The current zoning of A (agriculture) would only allow him to build at most 5 houses on the land. The total maximum number of houses that can be built on 113 acres at a density of 2.9 is 327 houses. He was asking for 300, but has since reduced it to 270 houses. But remember, he can only build on 64 acres. Those 270 houses will be squished onto those 64 acres at an actual density of 3.9 houses per acre!

That 64 acres is about the same size as the neighborhood across the street. That neighborhood was rezoned in the late 1980s back when the city was concerned with large density on parcels that abut drinking reservoirs. That neighborhood has 76 houses with a density of around 1 house per acre. If this Manning Road parcel is rezoned, it would share a zoning category with the other neighborhood of RLM. However, the density differences are 1 house per acre in the old development versus 4 houses per acre in the new proposed development. The old neighborhood is NOT a cluster development. Which development will have more negative impacts on the environmentally sensitive wetlands and drinking reservoir?

The city knows that higher density negatively impacts the water quality of the drinking reservoirs, which in turn can negatively impact the health of the citizens. They know this and used to avoid this type of density. Those days are gone.

Now the city and the developers think they are fooling us by saying cluster developments help preserve environmentally sensitive areas. It isn’t true. It is allowing the developers to put higher density on these parcels adjoining these environmentally sensitive areas that nature and existing regulation would otherwise curtail.

It turns out, cluster developments are just another tactic to help developers at the expense of the environment and safety of the citizens.

Mayor Duman Claims Developers are Listening

Care4Suffolk — Fri, 16 Jan 2026 15:25:47 +0000

During the November 2025 City Council meeting, after the Manning Road Rezoning Public Hearing, Mayor Duman stated:

“It’s quite evident that the developers are listening. We are listening.” Then he goes on to talk about how “we have done exactly what we need to do” and how the developer is doing what he can do “to the extent that he is capable of doing what he can do and still be able to move his project forward.”

Is Mayor Duman seriously saying that this is the best we can expect from developers in Suffolk? Let’s review the Manning Road issues to see what we can expect from the city and the developer:

In 2022 the developer, Bob Arnette, provided a traffic study for Manning Bridge Rd instead of Manning Rd. The analysis stated:

And this:

If you are familiar with the site location on Manning Road, you know how ludicrous this statement is. This would mean all cars head south from the site on Manning Road and go the long way (about 4 miles!) to catch Holland Road 3 miles WEST of the Manning Rd/Holland Rd intersection.

This was approved by city staff!!

By 2024, he provided a new traffic study, but this one is also NOT for Manning Road. Instead, the developer used existing city data for the Grove Ave/Holland Rd intersection.

The developer has NEVER done a traffic study on Manning Road. Yet this traffic study was also accepted by the city.

He did have an engineer go out there and measure the road and it shows the same thing we have been saying for 3 years – the road is narrow! The lanes are well below the state standard and the developer’s plan is to slap some asphalt on the narrow shoulder, adding inches and in some cases a couple feet of asphalt. The road will still below the state standard. This will not expand the road space itself. It will just pave from ditch to ditch and guardrail to guardrail. There is no engineering report that actually states if that will make the road safer or if it is even feasible. Why is City Council even considering allowing a developer to make substandard improvements in exchange for a large development.

I guess this is the ‘listening’ that the mayor is talking about?

The school proffers have decreased by $1.2 million. In 2022, the developer was offering $1.9 million for Kilby Shores Elementary and $1.2 million for Forest Glen Middle Schools.

Now he is only offering $1.9 million for Kilby Shores and nothing for Forest Glen.

The City has recently come up with a ‘new method’ of determining school proffers – developers no longer need to count ‘uncommitted’ developments, which is any development that doesn’t have a submitted site plan.

Uncommitted houses have gone through the rezoning process, so they can be built by-right at any time just by submitting a site plan. These houses will be built at some point AND will impact our schools and roads, but by NOT counting them, the developer gets to save a lot of money. He is off the hook for the extra proffers, but that money will have to come from somewhere. It will be passed on to taxpayers.

Maybe THAT is the listening the Mayor is referring to?

This developer does NOT have a right to rezone this property. He took a risk and engaged in speculative development, which has the potential to make him a lot of money. If this doesn’t get passed, he can just sell his land like everyone else does when they no longer want the property they own. Sometimes when you speculate, you lose.

If this passes, everyone that lives on or off of Manning Road will be subjected to the tripling of traffic which will greatly increase the chance of a serious accident. It is already a dangerous road that has seen fatalities. Adding more traffic means there will be more accidents and more risk to the safety and lives for our family, friends, and neighbors, not to mention the 300 new families that will be added.

City Council can say NO to this project. It is perfectly reasonable for them to say that they value the rights of the current property owners to safely enjoy and live in their homes, and that the desire, not right, of the developer to make a profit is not a good trade-off for the city and its citizens. They represent us, not him.

If the developer, the city and City Council are actually listening then they will know that what we are opposing is a development that will predictably DECREASE the SAFETY of the current residents. If City Council truly represent the people, they will put our safety above the profits of the developer.

Suffolk’s Most Dangerous Road

Care4Suffolk — Thu, 13 Nov 2025 16:12:20 +0000

It isn’t an exaggeration to state that Manning Road is one of the most dangerous and deadliest roads in the City of Suffolk.

The number of accidents, injuries, and fatalities are tracked and the data is available on TREDS (Traffic Records Electronic Data System), one of Virginia’s most effective and innovative information technology tools in the nation to identify and address road safety concerns. The Virginia Office of Data Governance and Analytics has ADT (Average Daily Trip) data available on the Virginia Open Data Portal (most recent data for Suffolk is from 2022).

Below is a chart that shows the comparison of accidents on various roads in Suffolk.

Click on Image of Chart to Enlarge

Manning Road is the location of the proposed Lake Pointe development that will add 300 single family homes and an estimated 2,772 vehicle trips per day. This will bring the ADT from 1,600 to 4,372 trips per day, nearly tripling the amount of traffic.

The chart includes a comparison with Grove Ave because Grove Ave is the location of the traffic study that the developer used instead of conducting one for Manning Road. The developer, with the agreement from city staff, has stated that it is a reasonable substitution. The Grove Ave accident data is from Grove Ave, Northbrooke Ave, and all side streets within that neighborhood combined.

It is expected that busier roads will experience more accidents. Busy roads have much more traffic. To give us a better idea of the safety of a road, we can divide the average number of accidents per year by the average number of vehicle trips per year. This gives us a rate, in this case a very small number because fortunately most drives do not end in an accident. This rate allows us to compare busy main roads to more rural roads and to neighborhood roads. It is similar to how in baseball, they use a batting average instead of the number of hits a batter has had. The batting average is the number of hits divided by the total number of times the player has been up to bat. In this case, the comparison is the number of accidents in a year divided by the total number of vehicle trips.

If you want to know how much more likely it is to get into an accident on Manning Road versus Grove Avenue, you can take the Manning Road Accident Rate and divide it by the Grove Avenue Accident Rate:

Manning Road Accident Rate / Grove Avenue Accident Rate = Likelihood of Accident

0.0000223347 / 0.0000008934 = 25.0

A trip down Manning Road is 25 times more likely to experience an accident than a drive on Grove Avenue. Below is a Comparison Chart that compares the likelihood of an incident to occur on Manning Road compared to other selected roads in Suffolk.

Click on Image of Chart to Enlarge

What this data is telling us is that if you are a driver in Suffolk, you are more than twice as likely to get in an accident while on Manning Road than when you turn onto Holland Road. That seems counterintuitive because there are far more accidents on Holland Road than Manning Road, but there are also thousands more cars traveling on Holland Road every day. For every 1 driver on Manning Road, there are 20 drivers on Holland Road.

Manning Road is one of the most dangerous and deadliest roads in Suffolk. When you turn down Manning Road from Holland Road, you have just increased your chance of dying in a car accident by 20 times. You are 17 times more likely to die on Manning Road than Main Street and 11 times more likely than when driving down Bridge Road. Let that sink in.

When someone from the Manning Road neighborhood tells you that they live on a dangerous road – believe them. The facts support this. It is in fact one of the most dangerous roads in Suffolk.

When the Manning Road neighborhood tells you that this road is far too dangerous to add 300 houses which will almost triple the traffic – believe them. Approving this development is likely to result in more deaths.

There is no plan in the city’s CIP or 2045 Comprehensive Plan to make any improvements to Manning Road – nothing to make the road safer. This development would be about a mile south of the Holland Road/Manning Road intersection. That is a long way to go on one of the city’s deadliest roads. There are no sidewalks, no shoulders, and the lanes are narrow, too narrow to fit large vehicles. Until the city makes improvements to Manning Road to make it safer, no rezonings should even be considered, let alone approved.

This is about preserving lives. Residents of the Manning Road area already risk their lives driving this deadly road daily. The city must not compound this risk by tripling the traffic on Manning Road – one of Suffolk’s most dangerous roads.

Public Comment for Lake Pointe

Eryn Siegel — Fri, 17 Oct 2025 18:14:26 +0000

Edit: I did receive a phone call from a very helpful lady in planning and she has fixed the issue. My comments do now appear. But, I already went through all the trouble to make a post, so I am keeping this up for anyone who wants to check them out.

I wrote a public comment for the Lake Pointe rezoning (RZN 2024-00013 – formerly Ellis Farm) and submitted it to the city for it to be included in the published public comments. I attached my comment as a pdf document, as I have many times before. This time the pdf was not included. Instead, there is a link that takes me to jot form (website) and asks me to log in. I do have a call and an email into the city, but just in case they can’t get this resolved, I want to make my comment public. I pulled together a lot of data on the road safety and I want to make sure people have access to it. Below are my comments and the accompanying documents:

To Suffolk Planning Commissioners:

The location of RZN 2024-00013 Lake Pointe (formerly Ellis Farm) at 464 Manning Road is not a suitable location for this project.

There are serious concerns that a development of 300 homes, in this location, will exacerbate road safety conditions that are already a daily hazard for those in the Manning Road community, putting citizens at additional risk for harm and their lives in jeopardy.

There are several issues when it comes to the Traffic Impact Analysis submitted by the developer for the Lake Pointe rezoning. The study focused solely on traffic and failed to mention the many geometric design insufficiencies of Manning Road. The study also failed to provide remedies for these safety concerns. Additionally, the traffic study failed to analyze traffic on Manning Road, and instead used a different road which is wholly dissimilar to Manning Road.

Hazardous Conditions on Manning Road

There are grave concerns regarding the safety of Manning Road. Since 2020 there have been 87 reported accidents on Manning Road, including 52 injuries, and 2 fatalities.

On October 1, 2021, a pedestrian was struck by a car on Manning Road and killed. On February 21, 2020, a man died when his truck hit a downed tree on the causeway. A man died when his vehicle, driving down Manning Road on December 30, 2011, ran off the road, hit a ditch and rolled over. Another man was airlifted to the hospital when on May 9, 2014, his truck overturned in a head on collision.

Ask anyone that lives on Manning Road or the surrounding area and they will tell you about times their cars were side-swiped by large vehicles traveling the opposite direction, about being run off the road by a vehicle that could not fit in its lane, or an accident caused by lack of visibility on this rural road.

According to Mayor Mike Duman, during his pre-council meeting on Facebook Live on Sept 16, 2022 (mark 29:48), “Manning Road… yeah, Manning Road’s pretty much a nightmare. I can’t drive it. I can’t drive Manning Road sober, nevertheless if I had a beer.”

Manning Road is a narrow, winding country road. It originally functioned as a rural secondary road. According to the 2035 Suffolk Comprehensive Plan, “many existing roadway segments located within or adjacent to the focused growth area boundaries were originally built as rural secondary roads. These facilities generally have narrow lanes, little or no shoulders and open ditches for drainage. Right-of-way widths may be as narrow as 40 feet. Even though the two lanes provided may be considered adequate for capacity purposes, the geometric configuration of these facilities is not adequate for serving existing or forecasted traffic volumes as the surrounding landscape changes from a rural to suburban and urban character.”

The Suffolk 2045 Comprehensive Plan removed this language from the new plan, but it still admits that: “It is still common for the roadways in the rural sections of the City to have narrow road widths, narrow-to-no shoulders, and open drainage facilities adjacent to the travel ways.”

Also note that Virginia ranks 15th among U.S. states with the highest number of fatalities on rural roads, according to a 2019 report from TRIP, a national transportation research group. The Suffolk 2045 Comprehensive Plan looked at 5 years worth of crash data in Suffolk, between January 1, 2019 – December 31, 2023, and found that there were a total of 48 fatalities during that five year stretch. Two of those fatalities were on Manning Road.

The causeway through Speight’s Run Reservoir is susceptible to flooding during hurricanes and storms. This prevents residents (this would include any at the Lake Pointe development) from heading north on Manning Road. Manning Road can flood about 2 miles south of the proposed development as well and on Manning Bridge Road, the next closest intersection south of the proposed development. This area has a lot of water in and around it. With heavy rains, not only does Speights Run Reservoir overflow, but these supply streams south on Manning Road and on Manning Bridge Road can overflow onto the road, trapping residents.

The causeway has other safety hazards. It curves causing limited visibility and has numerous trees that hang dangerously over the road. These trees can, and have, come down onto the road during storms. One incident resulted in the death of a resident. Due to the reservoir’s unique nature of being owned and maintained by the City of Portsmouth, but located within the City of Suffolk, Portsmouth often neglects the required maintenance of this area. Overall, this causeway is a hazardous stretch of Manning Road. It is also located between the proposed development and Holland Road (the closest main intersection). Manning Road has no sidewalks and nowhere for pedestrians to walk safely.

Another area of concern is the intersection of Wilkins Drive and Manning Road (approximately one tenth of a mile from the Holland Road/Manning Road intersection). Mostly, drivers traveling to and from the proposed development would enter Manning Road either from Holland Road or Wilkins Drive. Wilkins Drive T-junctions with Manning Road right at the apex of a curve on Manning Road. This severely limits the visibility from Wilkins Drive as vehicles try to enter Manning Road at this location. The lack of visibility, combined with the narrow lanes, no shoulder, and ditches right along the edge of the road, makes for a dangerous intersection.

Geometric Design

The City of Suffolk classifies Manning Road as a collector road with a “purpose of providing access between arterial highways and local streets”. To function as a collector road, the design standards, according to VDOT Road Design Manual, require that the road lanes should be a minimum of 11 feet with shoulders. VDOT recommends 12 foot lanes in agricultural areas. The adjacent property is active farmland. Currently, lanes on Manning Road are only about 8 ½ feet wide and the shoulders are dirt with drainage ditches (3 feet deep) within 2 feet of the road surface. There are no clear zones (4 to 10 feet of unobstructed paved shoulders) on either side of Manning Road as required by VDOT criteria. There are numerous existing trees, telephone poles, mail boxes, and other items within this required clear zone. With an existing lane width of 8½ feet, most commercial trucks do not fit within the lanes, as most commercial trucks are 9 to 10 feet wide. Fire department vehicles and other first responder vehicles are also 10 feet wide, making them too large to fit in their lane on Manning Road.

Manning Road is designated a collector road, but its geometric design is severely under any state standard and therefore can NOT safely accommodate the additional traffic of a large development like the one in this application.

Please see attached diagram entitled: Diagram of Minimum Safety Standards for a Collector Road drawn by one of our engineers to demonstrate the geometric design of Manning Road compared to the geometric design standards for collector roads based on state standards. The difference is extreme. See also UDO appendix D – Typical Sections for Suffolk’s minimum requirements.

Traffic Impact Study

The traffic study provides no data on Manning Road, neither at the site of the proposed development, nor at the Manning Road/Holland Road intersection. All data comes from the Holland Road/Grove Avenue intersection just down the road on Holland Road from the Manning Road/Northbrooke Avenue intersection.

From the traffic study: “Current traffic volume data for the existing Manning Road intersection were not available. City staff provided September 6, 2022 turning movement counts for the Holland Road and Grove Avenue intersection. As the Grove Avenue signal shifts to the new Manning Road / Northbrooke Avenue intersection, it was agreed that shifting these traffic volumes to the new intersection was a reasonable assumption.”

The problem with using the Grove Avenue data is that Grove Avenue is the entrance to a residential development area with the only entrances/exits being Grove Avenue and Northbrooke Avenue (see attached map). You can see the neighborhood circled in yellow on the map entitled Comparison of Manning Road vs Grove Avenue. Now compare it to the map at the bottom of the page. That same neighborhood is still circled in yellow (at the top), but you can now see the full length of Manning Road. In addition, major intersections have been circled in red. On the Grove Avenue & Northbrooke Avenue map, those intersections are the Grove Avenue/Holland Road (Rt 58) intersection (the one that had the traffic study data) and the Northbrooke Ave/Manning Road/Holland Road (Rt 58) intersection which has recently been completed by the city to align Northbrooke Road and Manning Road. You can see on the Manning Road map how extensive Manning Road is, measuring almost 10 miles and having major intersections at Holland Road (Rt 58), Manning Bridge Road, Copeland Road, and Mineral Spring Road. Manning Road is classified as a collector road because other roads feed into it as it feeds into an arterial highway (Holland Rd).

The speed limit on Grove Avenue is 25 mph. On Manning Road, it starts at 25 mph but by the time it gets to the proposed development location, it is 40 mph. Grove Avenue and Northbrooke Avenue are residential streets about 22 feet wide. Manning Road is a rural road that averages 16-17 feet wide.

However, the traffic impact study never addressed the traffic capacity on Manning Road itself. Nor does it address the fact that the geometric configuration of Manning Road is inferior to that of Northbrooke Avenue or Grove Avenue, both of which have wider lanes. Since January 2020, Manning Road has had a reported 87 accidents, with 52 injuries and 2 fatalities, Grove Avenue and Northbrooke Avenue experienced only 3 accidents with 3 injuries (no fatalities) for the entire neighborhood combined. There are definitely differences between these roads.

If, in fact, the average daily trips (ADT) on Manning Road equals that of Grove Avenue, as the traffic study states, Manning Road currently experiences 1,600 trips per day. The study also states that a development with 300 single family detached homes will generate an additional 2,772 daily trips. That will increase all trips on Manning Road to a daily total of 4,372. That may be within the normal limits for a collector road, from a traffic standpoint, however, that is an increase of almost three times the amount of traffic that Manning Road currently experiences. How will that translate when we consider safety. Instead of 87 accidents over the next five years, will we see more than 200? Will that result in 100 injuries and 6 deaths? This is the reality that the residents of Manning Road will experience if the City rezones this land to allow 300 homes. These will be our family members, friends, and neighbors involved in these accidents. Is the City of Suffolk ready to sacrifice these residents in the name of development?

Proffers and Planned Improvements

The traffic study mentions road improvements. The developer’s plan is to widen Manning Road at the site of the project to add two additional lanes that will allow for left turns and right turns into the existing Springfield Neighborhood and the proposed Lake Pointe neighborhood. The developer is offering no proffer to improve Manning Road north of the development for the one mile to the closest main intersection (Holland Road).

The City has no plan to improve Manning Road and it is not in the Transportation Master Plan for any improvements (a plan that is designed as a long-term, 20-year plan) which means there will be no funds available to make Manning Road safer for citizens. Widening Manning Road, including the causeway, to meet VDOT minimum standards, would require cooperation from the City of Portsmouth and the Army Corps of Engineers, because the reservoir has the added complication of being part of the protected wetlands.

The 2045 Comprehensive Plan states: “Transportation improvements are needed to accommodate growth and the continued train, truck, and car volumes that pass through Suffolk, but transportation improvement needs exceed funding.”

Additionally, the UDO states:

SEC. 31-601. – ADEQUATE PUBLIC FACILITIES.

Subsection (a)

(4) To ensure that adequate Public Facilities needed to support new development are available concurrent with the impacts of such development;

There is no plan, nor funding, to fix the design problems with Manning Road in order to safely accommodate the additional traffic that the development will bring, and thus Manning Road will not meet the ‘adequate public facilities’ needed to support this large development.

Conclusion

Manning Road has a long history of serious accidents and fatalities, including the segment of road from the site of this proposed project to the nearest main intersection. This is not hypothetical; people have died driving on this road. This development will put significantly more traffic on Manning Road, increasing these incidents, and putting more lives in danger.

Manning Road does not meet the state design standard for a collector road, despite its designation. The developer is only planning to fix the stretch of road directly in front of the development, but that leaves a mile of hazardous road to the next major intersection. The City has no plan for improvements. For these reasons, Manning Road does not meet the ‘adequate public facilities’.

Development can be positive for the city and for communities. However, development without ensuring there is first infrastructure in place can be devastating. If the rezoning and development is allowed to move forward before updating Manning Road to meet minimum state road design standards from the site of the project to the main intersection with Holland Road, there will be a huge negative impact on the community; substantially more traffic, more accidents, and more fatalities. If the City approves this rezoning request, it will be risking the safety and lives of those that live in and around Manning Road.

School Proffers

Care4Suffolk — Mon, 18 Aug 2025 01:54:04 +0000

Residential rezoning applications may contain a proffer of a certain dollar amount that is promised to the city to help pay to “expand school capacity.” This is voluntary and the applicants are not required to include it. Proffer amounts can vary, but there is a standard formula that is traditionally used. Hopefully, this article will shed some light on the school proffers: what they are, what they aren’t, and why sometimes this works out to be a bad system for the citizens, particularly the school aged ones. The proffers listed in the current Riversbend rezoning application will be used to provide a relevant and timely example.

To start with, school proffers are only offered if the new residential development will add students AND if the added students will cause the corresponding schools to exceed their capacity. The proffers are not for other schools in the system that are overcrowded. They are only for the impacted schools that those new homes will be zoned to attend.

School proffers are not used to make updates to an existing school, unless it is an expansion to allow for added capacity. The school may really need a new HVAC system or upgrades in technologies, but that is not how the proffers are to be used – the state is very clear on this.

It is also worth mentioning that school proffers are made in today’s dollars, but the city doesn’t receive the money until a home is built and the city has issued a certificate of occupancy. If the rezoning application was filed in 2022, approved for rezoning in 2023, but is not built until 2028, the amount of proffers are in 2022 dollars, with no increase for inflation. Additionally, if the city builds a new school in 2026 and increases capacity before those 2028 homes are built, the developer can go back to the city and get the proffers removed because there is no longer a need to increase capacity.

Student Generation

Let’s look at how school proffers are traditionally calculated. First, we have to calculate the student generation of the project. Below is the table that is used to determine how many students a given residential development will produce:

This table is found in Suffolk’s UDO (Unified Development Ordinance) under SEC. 31-601. – ADEQUATE PUBLIC FACILITIES, table 601-2. Single-family homes (whether attached, detached, townhomes, or duplexes) all are considered to produce students at the same rate. Multi-family units, like apartments, are considered to produce students at a slightly lower rate. The rate is an estimate. When a developer is building, they have no way to know exactly how many students any given home will have. The city uses an average of aggregate data that gives a good approximation. Over time these are reassessed because they do change (just like families used to average more children per family than they do today.) The City examined this most recently in the 2021 Student Yield Analysis.

As you look at the chart, you will notice that elementary school, middle school, and high school all have a different rate. That is because there are 6 years of elementary school (grades K-5), three years of middle school (grades 6-8), and four years of high school (grades 9-12). The actual rate is about 0.03 students per grade. So the elementary school is 0.03 x 6 = 0.18 and that’s where the rate comes from.

Let’s look at Riversbend’s student generation. This development is a little more complicated because it is proposing both single-family homes and condos (which would fall under the multi-family/other category.) These condos are specifically designated as age-restricted for owners that are 55+ years old.

Above is the Riversbend Proffers and #1 states that they will be limited to HUD standards. Interestingly, HUD Standards do not eliminate the possibility of students living in the home. That is, HUD does not prohibit them, and in fact, it only requires one person in the home to be 55 years old AND it only requires it from 80% of the households. Twenty percent of those 168 condos, or about 33 of them won’t require the age restriction under the HUD standard. And with only one person needing to be 55 years old, it is conceivable (and even likely) that at least some of the homes may have children living there. Some parents with school-aged kids are 55+ years old. Additionally, some grandparents are the guardians of grandchildren. Below is the text of HOPA (Housing for Older Persons Act), as passed, and the basis for the HUD standard.

The Riversbend fiscal analysis states that the condos won’t add any students to the schools, but considering that they are using the HUD standard, they can’t actually guarantee that.

What I have done is calculate what the student generation rate is with no students coming from the condo (not probable) and with the rate expected from multi-family homes (also not probable). Somewhere in the middle lies the answer.

This first table shows the generation rate for the single-family homes only. Notice that the generated numbers from the developer are very different from mine. The developer’s fiscal analysis does not show how they came up with these numbers, but I will show you how I did.

There are 329 single-family homes. We both agree on that at least. Using the Generation Rates from 601-2, we calculate the following student generation:

#SFH (329) x Elementary School (ES) rate (0.18) = 59.22, round to the nearest whole student = 59 ES students

We repeat this for the Middle School (MS) and High School (HS):

329 x MS rate (0.10) = 32.9., rounded to 33 MS students

329 x HS rate (0.13) = 42.77, rounded to 43 HS students

The developer landed on 19 students per school. How did the developer come up with the same number of students for each level of school? At any rate, his calculations are way off and I stand behind my calculations.

If we repeat this process, but this time include the condos as if they will generate students at the same rate as other multi-family homes, then we get the following:

I applied the same formula as I did to calculate the single-family numbers, but used instead the lower rate for multi-family. I do acknowledge that the age-restricted (55+ years) condos will likely generate fewer students than the multi-family rate, but that it also will not be zero. This is an example where it would be good to have a more specific rate that accounts for the variance.

Subtract By-Right Student Generation

If the current zoning of a property would already allow the developer to build a certain number of houses by-right, then those students get subtracted and don’t count as part of the student generation in the school proffers.

For instance, if a developer wants to rezone 100 acres, from RE (Rural Estate) to RC (Residential Compact), the RE zoning designation already allows the developer to build, by-right (with no rezoning necessary) at a density of 0.30 for a total of 30 houses. Those 30 houses are already expected to generate 5.4 elementary students (using the SF rate of 0.18 for elementary school). If the land is successfully rezoned to RC, now the developer can build at a density of 7.3 homes per acre, for a total of 730 units. This would most likely be multi-family or some combination of multi-family and single-family units. Let’s just assume they are all multi-family to simplify this example (using the rate 0.16 for multi-family homes). Now the development is expected to generate 730 x 0.16 (generation rate) = 116.8 students.

The parcel was already expected to generate 5.4 elementary students, so this can be subtracted from the 116.8 elementary students to arrive at 111.4 added students, just for the elementary school.

Currently, the zoning for the old VDOT parcel is B-2, which is General Business zoning. B-2 is not expected to have any student generation, so for the Riversbend project, there is no by-right student generation to subtract.

School Impact

Let’s now look at how they determine school impact, which requires looking at each school level individually. Each residential parcel in the city is zoned for a specific elementary school, middle school, and high school. Each rezoning application identifies which schools serve that parcel.

If a development will add students to the elementary school, BUT that school is not at capacity, they don’t have to pay any proffers. For example, if a development will add 20 elementary students, but the elementary school that this development is zoned for has the capacity to absorb all 20 students, then no proffers are needed.

It might be the case that a development will add 20 students to the elementary school, but the elementary school can absorb only 5 students. That school is under capacity by 5 students. The remaining 15 students will cause extra strain to the school’s resources because they don’t have enough space for them. The developer can offer proffers to “expand capacity” for just those 15 students.

School Pipeline

Unfortunately, this all gets more complicated. The developer may not be the only developer looking to build in the area. In Suffolk, this is actually quite likely. Let’s make up an example to illustrate how this works:

Let’s take elementary “School A.” Five years ago, School A had a total capacity for 500 students, but only 475 students were attending. School A had the ability to absorb 25 more students. Five years ago, “Development X” was approved and these new homes will feed into School A. It is estimated that Development X will add 40 students. Development X proffered for the extra 15 students that it will add ABOVE School A’s capacity. Then two years ago “Development Y” was approved. It was estimated to add 30 students to School A. The developer for Y proffered for the full 30 students, because Development X was already in the pipeline – already rezoned and expected to be built and add to the student capacity.

In Suffolk, the RESIDENTIAL PIPELINE DEVELOPMENT report is updated periodically to keep track of all the developments that have been rezoned, how many housing units are left to be built, and which schools each will feed into. It is a 4 page document with about 100 developments listed on it. You can find the March 2025 document here and below is a small sample of what it looks like:

This spreadsheet shows how many total housing units can be built in each development. It even breaks it down as single-family detached, single-family attached, or multi-family.

It also shows if the development is committed or non-committed, meaning, has a site plan been approved or not. Sometimes construction can begin within a few months of the rezoning and sometimes there is no movement forward with the development for years or even decades.

The chart also shows how many units, if any, have been built so far. It then lists the remaining housing units and the percent remaining for the whole development. Lastly, it lists which schools each development is zoned for at each level.

In the specific example of the Riversbend project, the schools are: Hillpoint Elementary, Kings Fork Middle School, and Kings Fork High School. This rezoning hasn’t happened though, so it doesn’t appear on the list. However, Riversbend is like “Development Y” in my previous example, with many developments approved ahead of it that are already slated to generate a lot of students.

I used this pipeline report to figure out how many students will be generated for the same schools. First, I selected just the developments that impact the same schools that Riversbend will impact. It is more complicated than you might expect. Some of these developments only share a middle school with the Riversbend development, others share just an elementary school. Some even share all three of the schools. I had to look at each school on its own.

This chart below is my own creation. Any errors/omissions are my own mistakes (please feel free to let me know if you find any errors: care4suffolk@gmail.com).

In this chart, I have included every development currently on the city’s pipeline that shares at least one school with the proposed Riversbend development. Then I list the remaining housing units yet to be built, categorized by either single-family attached/detached/townhome/duplex or multi-family/other to match it with the student generation rates (way back from early in the article: table 601-2). Then, I multiplied the number of remaining units (by type) to its corresponding rate (by type). That number is the student generation expected from each of those developments for each of the schools Riversbend is zoned for. Some of the numbers are zero (0) because that school is not one of the same schools that Riversbend is zoned for. (I told you this was complicated.) You will also notice that some of the numbers are fractional (77.34 for example). I did not round to the nearest whole student because I am adding a large number of data points together. At the end, I will round to the nearest student. This will make it easier if anyone wants to check my math.

School Capacity

The next step is to figure out what the capacity of each school is, how many students are already expected to add to that capacity, and then, finally, how many students above capacity the Riversbend development will add, if it gets approved.

It turns out that a report with most of the needed information is already available:

In the above City of Suffolk Residential Pipeline Development, School Capacity from March 2025, we can easily find each school, its capacity, how many students are currently attending, and the projected enrollment.

Below is my chart with the schools of interest, their capacity, current enrollment, projected capacity from the pipeline and then total enrollment with pipeline PLUS the addition of Riversbend.

If you compare, you will notice that the city’s numbers don’t match mine. Let me explain why. First off, all the capacities do match, because I took my school capacity numbers and enrollment numbers from the city’s chart. The current capacity percentages match, too, just slightly different rounding.

However, the city has significantly lower pipeline additions (projected enrollment). Where I have 306 expected students to be added by the pipeline to Hillpoint Elementary School, the city only has 96.1 expected. For Kings Fork Middle School, I have calculated 246 students from the pipeline, the city 76.5. For Kings Fork High School, I have 275 and the city only 101.6.

These are significantly different calculations, but I can explain the difference. The City of Suffolk has decided that if a development has been rezoned BUT is not committed (no site plan), they just don’t count the students that the non-committed development will generate. The city staff’s reasoning is that it might never be built. But because these developments can actually be built by-right, at any time. For planning purposes it is irresponsible to exclude these. Let’s look at a couple of examples of non-committed developments that the city is ignoring in their calculations.

Godwin Park, approved in 2020, will have 700 housing units when the project is completed, with an estimated 15 year time frame. As of the March 2025 pipeline, 12 homes have been completed with 131 homes in the committed category. Now this development was approved with the stipulation of building it in phases. Approved during the covid epidemic, it was probably slowed down initially, but building has definitely begun. However, if you are only counting committed developments, this one will only add another 119 homes, with 569 homes in the non-committed category. That is a LOT of homes to NOT count. And there is no legitimate expectation that they won’t eventually be built. Godwin Park will feed into all three Riversbend schools: Hillpoint Elementary School, Kings Fork Middle School, and Kings Fork High School.

Another example is Lake Kilby (now called Tillman Run). All 204 homes that were part of the rezoning application dating back 2022 (approved in 2023) are still in the non-committed category, yet they are likely to break ground on that development within the year. These 204 homes are not counted in the pipeline from the city. This development will feed into both Kings Fork Middle School and Kings Fork High School. Again, this development just recently went through the rezoning process and is working on a site plan now. Why is the city NOT looking to add these homes to understand the demand on the schools?

There are no dates listed in the Residential Pipeline Development report, so there is no way for someone looking at the report to readily know how long ago a development was approved. Because these developments have all been rezoned already, at any time a non-committed development could become a committed development. It is irresponsible to NOT include these homes while calculating school capacity. If each new developer only has to look at developments under construction, then some developers will pay less in proffers, as their impact will be evaluated to be lower than it will actually be when built. Maybe that is by design, but it is not good practice.

In my chart, I include all homes, committed and non-committed, and just subtracted out the ones already built (because presumably those students are already registered in the schools). If you look at my chart, you can see that each school is already set to be well over capacity by the time each already approved development gets built. They will be over capacity by very large amounts.

Hillpoint Elementary School is already at 108% capacity and with the pipeline, it will be at 150% capacity. That means for each classroom designed to accommodate 30 students, the school staff have to figure out where to put the extra 15 students! Add in the conservative estimate of Riversbend single-family homes only, and that jumps to 159% capacity. If we then look at what happens if the condo homes end up generating students – because that is a distinct possibility – we end up with capacity at 163%. How can the city and City Council, in good conscience, allow schools to be filled at 163% capacity. How are teachers expected to teach, students expected to learn, and all the other staff expected to adequately serve 1169 students in a facility designed for 777 students?

Below is my chart that shows the percent capacity of the schools if the condos also generate students:

Proffers

Now we get to the money. The city does not dictate a certain amount of money that is set for each student, instead it is based on the level of school that child is in. The State of Virginia went and took a look at state-wide data and they distilled the amount of money to be proffered based on location, the square footage of schools, and some other complicated aspects. The exact details on how it arrived at this average escapes me, but it becomes a pretty straight-forward calculation based on the level of school.

Proffers per student per level are as follows:

Elementary School = $35,900.55/student

Middle School = $42,065.60/student

High School = $59, 402.09/student

I plugged these values in to a spreadsheet to calculate what proffers SHOULD have been offered by the Riversbend developer:

Whether you are using the conservative estimate or the higher one, the range is between $6 to $9 million. The Riversbend developer is not actually offering cash proffers. Instead, he has offered a trade. Below is the proffers statement again, but this time with the school proffers highlighted:

Here is what I can’t figure out. The developer’s fiscal analysis clearly stated that it had calculated the number of students generated to be 57. However, $4,708,322.87 divided by the 57 is equal to $82,602.16 per student. That is considerably higher than the high school amount (which is highest of the 3 school levels) of $59,402.09. That’s $23,200 more per student. They aren’t actually planning on paying that though. They are going to trade it for an old building they claim is valued at $6,270,000.

However, the building they are trading is valued at most $3.8 million, according to the City of Suffolk’s own assessment (see above). It is unclear from the city’s site if this one building is the only “improvement” being referenced on that site. Usually improvement values include things like a home, detached garage, out-buildings, etc., and there are about 30 other buildings on this property. At MOST this building is worth $3.8 million, but it could be worth significantly less.

The developer states that he had it appraised at $6.27 million, but this is the same developer that can’t figure out the student generation for the development. He may not be the most reliable source.

In the end, the amount of school proffers that should be offered for Riversbend is between $6 to $9 million, well above the estimated $4.7 million. There is a huge shortfall in school proffers here, especially when the city is receiving it in the form of an over-valued building.

In the end, the developer is trying to make the best deal for himself. I can’t blame him, it’s his job. It is the city’s job to make sure that the citizens, even the young, school-aged ones, receive a good deal, and that requires the city to start expecting developers to pay their fair share of the cost of the development. It is also the city’s job to recognize when the process isn’t working. Continually rezoning and ignoring the previously rezoned projects is putting a strain on our schools and students, and failing to adequately plan for the future.

Suffolk’s Leadership Lacks Vision

Care4Suffolk — Tue, 13 May 2025 19:36:40 +0000

Last year, Care4Suffolk talked about the lack of vision in the 2045 Comprehensive Plan which was still in the planning process at the time. The plan had no stated vision, but a read through the draft left no doubt that regional goals and efforts to support the Port of Virginia were at the forefront of the design. At the time, we were frustrated that the City failed to use the public feedback that they obtained to form a vision more in line with public desires.

It turns out that this lack of vision is very much still a reality for the City of Suffolk. We scoured the pages of the City’s website to find the official City of Suffolk’s Vision and/or Mission statements. It turns out, we as a city, don’t have one. Maybe that is part of the problem when we look at the interactions between the City and its citizens. There are competing interests and there is nothing documented to actually direct efforts, and hold leadership accountable to following an agreed upon direction. They do what they want, we tell them we don’t like it, and nothing changes.

Many think vision and mission statements are meaningless fluff, but in actuality, businesses, organizations, and yes, even municipalities use the vision and mission statements to help guide long term goals and set priorities.

A vision statement is simply a short statement, usually just a sentence or two, that describes what a long-term goal or direction they want to be working towards. A mission statement is also usually only a sentence or two and it describes the objectives the organization is working towards.

Here are some examples:

To create a better everyday life for the many people.

– IKEA Vision Statement

To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete* in the world.

*If you have a body, you are an athlete.

– Nike’s Mission Statement

Our mission is to be a relentless force for a world of longer, healthier lives. As we move into the second century of our work, we are advancing health and hope for everyone, everywhere.

– American Heart Association Mission Statement

What we did discover during our search is that many of the departments within Suffolk’s local government have their own vision or mission statements. Here are a few we found:

Strive for excellence in education, celebrate diversity, and be committed to students, staff, and the school community.

– Suffolk Public Schools

We work to provide law enforcement excellence and public service through partnership with our community.

– Suffolk Police Department

The City of Suffolk Department of Public Utilities is committed to ensuring a quality of life for our valued customers by providing water and sanitary sewer services in a safe and efficient manner.

– Suffolk Department of Public Works

When a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request was made to obtain the City’s Vision and/or Mission Statement, the City sent us this:

You might recognize this as the giant banner that greets everyone as they enter City Hall. The thing is though, it isn’t about the City in general. In fact, right after it says Vision for Suffolk, it follows with the words “Suffolk City Council”. So is it Council’s Vision or Suffolk’s? It is unclear. It is also unclear how much public input was incorporated. Was the public involved at all? If not, then it definitely doesn’t represent the citizens or the City as a whole.

It’s also not a vision statement – it is way too long. At 327 words, and multiple paragraphs, it misses the mark to be a statement. Additionally, it doesn’t talk about what Suffolk wants to achieve. In fact it reads like a cheesy tourism excerpt detailing how awesome Suffolk is. That’s like asking what’s your vision for the future and you answering about how great your current job is. It misses the point of a vision statement entirely. Where does Suffolk see itself in the future?

Here are some examples:

The mission of the City of Charlotte is to ensure the delivery of quality public services and promote the safety, health and quality of life of its citizens.

– Charlotte, NC

The City of Richmond’s vision is to be a welcoming, inclusive, diverse, innovative, and equitable city that ensures a high quality of life for all residents. This includes creating a vibrant community that is a great place to live, work, learn, play, visit, and raise a family. The city aims to be a beautiful, well-functioning, and safe place that is affordable and accessible to everyone.

– Richmond, VA

To preserve and enhance the quality of life of the citizens of the City of Charleston.

– Charleston, SC

Note that many cities incorporate “quality of life” in their vision or mission statements. It’s the residents of that city that matter. The focus is its people, and the rest is there to support making the quality of life a reality.

Contrast that with Suffolk’s version – in all 327 words – it fails to mention ‘quality of life’ at all.

Out of 8 targeted areas, half of them mention fiscal and economic development concepts, even under the targeted area that is titled: LEISURE, HEALTH, AND WELLNESS. It follows with:

Implement programs and services designed to improve the health, economic and social wellbeing of citizens.

Why does their economic focus need to also appear in Leisure, Health, and Wellness? The answer is that Suffolk’s City leadership is intently consumed by the concept of economic development. Not the actual fiscal soundness of economic development. If that were a concern, they would incorporate fiscal analyses in the running of the city – they don’t. The focus is truly on the development part of economic development.

Somewhere along the way, our City turned into an agent for development. It isn’t even development for the betterment of the citizens. That rarely comes into play. It is simply the idea that development = money = good decision. All this despite the City never actually obtaining real data on the fiscal feasibility of specific developments. It is just stated as a maxim and anyone who questions the fiscal soundness of a development is categorized as a NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) or anti-development. The closest thing that the City of Suffolk has for a vision is to develop. It’s not about the people at all.

Rector’s Development Disconnect

Care4Suffolk — Mon, 12 May 2025 17:37:32 +0000

“As you ride around the city, we’re 430 square miles of nothing but needs. And, um, we’re doing our best to try to keep the bandaids on the wounds that are open and prevent other wounds from occurring.”

This was the comment made by Councilmember Rector during the FY26 Budget public hearing on April 16, 2025. It’s definitely not a ringing endorsement of the management of Suffolk!

There seems to be a disconnect from some of our City Council Members. Who does Councilmember Rector think is responsible for all these “needs” and “wounds”? And how does he think we can “prevent other wounds” if we just keep forging ahead with the unchecked growth?

The City has been pushing for rapid development over the last decade or more. “Economic Development” is now almost a sacrosanct phrase. We are supposed to accept any and all development without concern for the long-term impacts, fiscal or otherwise. They don’t even provide supporting data that supports that these “Economic Development” opportunities will provide positive fiscal impacts. We are expected to take them at their word and not question the rationale.

Some City Council Members have consistently justified rezoning prime farmland (a limited natural resource), approving large projects on insufficient roadways and in overcrowded school zones – all in the name of “economic development.” There is a certain fear of missing opportunities and disappointing developers that overrides citizens’ concerns and wishes.

Mr. Rector’s choice of words about the budget seem especially obtuse in light of some comments he made at the March 5, 2025 City Council meeting, expressing concern about “competition” from other counties and keeping “our foot on the gas” with regards “economic development opportunities.” As a matter of course, these “opportunities” are not specified.

“… there are a lot of areas that are part of the Hampton Road Alliance that are very, very eager to accept economic development and one of the newer members is New Kent County. And I can promise you that once the 64 corridor, between Williamsburg and Richmond, gets completed, New Kent County is going to be in a strong position to compete with Suffolk, and some of the areas for some of these economic development opportunities. So we need to keep our foot on the gas.” [Emphasis is ours.]

Oh no! You mean somewhere else might try to compete with Suffolk for the label “Warehouse Capital of Virginia”? Let them. We have enough warehouses and do NOT need any more.

We have warehouses being built without committed tenants. Speculative housing developments are being sold to (and by) the City as necessary “extra rooftops” to attract economic development. The new 2045 Comprehensive Plan is designed around this whole speculative concept!

The real disconnect comes when some City Council members talk about the problems around Suffolk. They will acknowledge there are problems, but act like the cause is out of their hands and say there is just not enough money for everything. This is pretty much what Mr. Rector expressed in that first quote.

Traffic, road improvements, over-crowded schools, drainage and storm water management issues are some of the most common concerns. Many of these go unfixed until they’re at a point of critical mass, often getting that way because of new development that exacerbates existing problems. Who does City Council think is allowing this to happen?

Our own Public Works Department has declared our inability to pay for road improvements, stating that we need state or federal funds, for which we only qualify if the situation becomes severe. Attempting to shift this paradigm doesn’t seem to occur to anyone. Instead, they follow the old formula of more unchecked growth to increase tax revenue, which is NEVER enough.

So why are some so determined to stay in this stale, tired old cycle?

Is it possible that some on City Council just can’t connect that the former (extensive rezoning) is the reason for the problems we are experiencing with the latter? Their decades of rezoning for “economic development” and more rooftops has made the situation worse, not better. The citizens recognized this during the 2045 Comp Plan public engagements. The main thing citizens wanted was for the City to slow down its growth so that the infrastructure can catch up.

What we need is a responsible local government that will actually use the brakes sometimes when it comes to development in order to allow time to fix our roads, schools, and storm water problems, and establish higher standards for what we want for our City.

We need City Staff and Council Members who are brave enough to break the cycle of dependency on new development. Just because regional entities and developers keep telling Suffolk how lucky we are to have them, doesn’t mean we have to accept everything they send our way. This strategy has not worked and Suffolk needs to use its leverage to focus on higher-quality growth. Most importantly, we need growth that does not worsen any “wounds.”

Decisions Without Data

Care4Suffolk — Thu, 13 Mar 2025 16:05:03 +0000

When the first draft of the Suffolk 2045 Comprehensive Plan was published about a year ago, Care4Suffolk raised the flag about the missing Fiscal Impact Analysis (FIA). Our concerns were brushed off and we were told it wasn’t necessary. City Council went on to adopt the comp plan in December of 2024 with big changes and without a public hearing or public notice.

This is all old news, so why do we bring it up? The answer is because the City’s lack of concern about the fiscal analysis is very relevant right now.

Just last week, City Council approved the annual Capital Improvements Program (CIP) and this week our real estate assessments will be mailed out. How much the City receives in revenue, and what it pays in services and capital improvements, is at the very heart of an FIA.

(For context, land valuations for Suffolk residential properties are up over 6% this year and the ten year outlook for capital improvement costs has reached $2 billion–an increase of $1billion from a few years ago).

Back on May 1, 2024, City Council and Planning Commission held a joint meeting about the draft of the 2045 Comp Plan where they heard a presentation by city staff. (You can read more about it here.) It was at that meeting that Comprehensive Planning Manager Keith Cannady assured council members and commissioners that the City didn’t need to do a FIA for the comp plan because they are done at the “site level” for individual developments during rezoning requests. He also said that the City’s current fiscal analysis tool needs work, so it isn’t a useful tool at the moment. Additionally, he stated that since the City wasn’t considering changing its growth strategy, a FIA for the comp plan wasn’t necessary.

As a counterpoint to Mr. Cannady’s argument that FIAs are conducted at the site level, we did a FOIA request and received a copy of the FIA that was done for the Port 460 Project. A fiscal impact analysis is supposed to show the revenue that a development will generate and the costs of services that the development will require. However, this site-level FIA was done by the developer and did not contain the required costs of services portion. The City can not accurately understand if a development will be fiscally net negative or positive in the long-run without the essential costs of services component.

Port 460 was arguably the largest rezoning request in Suffolk in years, yet staff recommended approval and City Council voted to approve it without an accurate idea of what the costs of the project would be for the City in the long-term.

We do know that there was also no FIA done for the 2035 Comprehensive Plan (adopted in 2015). We know, via another FOIA request, that the original Request for Proposal (RFP) and the contract for the 2045 Comp Plan (signed in early 2021), included the task of updating the fiscal impact tool and a Fiscal Impact Analysis, considering multiple growth models, to be completed during the plan’s development. City staff at that point (late 2020) clearly knew that the fiscal impact tool needed to be updated and understood that it is typically used as part of a comprehensive plan process.

In May of 2022, a group of city staff and comp plan consultants held a Land Use Workshop, one of the three main purposes of which was to “determine fiscal model objectives and data needs.”

In September 2022 the comp plan steering committee meeting apparently included quite a lengthy presentation about the role of a Fiscal Impact Analysis in the comprehensive plan. We obtained, via FOIA, the attendance list for this and other steering committee meetings:

The slide presentation from this meeting was available on the 2045 Comp Plan website and most of it is about the FIA and its importance in both the comprehensive plan process and in aiding city staff with evaluating development.

Below are some slides from that presentation:

This slide, Fiscal Impact Analysis: Understanding Costs and Revenues, covers what a FIA is and why it is important – will the revenue generated by new growth be enough to cover the resulting services and facility demands? This is a very important question that city staff and City Council should be asking, not just during the comp plan process, but also during each rezoning request. If development requires more services or capital improvements than the development will raise in revenue, the shortfall has to be covered by the city – paid for by taxpayers.

In this next slide, Role in Suffolk Comprehensive Plan, a key talking point was how a FIA can be used in the comp plan process to see how changes will affect revenues and costs for city services and infrastructure. We know that the contract included comparing three development models for the comp plan, so that the City could compare different models on a fiscal level. By the time of the draft release, the staff had decided not to consider any other growth models than what it’s currently using.

In this slide, What Types of Questions Can Be Answered?, we can see how land use policies and development patterns affect fiscal impacts. It is clear that staff was presented with the idea that different types of growth models have different fiscal impacts.

This slide, Capacity of Infrastructure, contains a real life example from Champaign, IL and the two model types it was comparing. Champaign was comparing “Growth Within the Service Area” and “Growth Beyond the Service Area” and the fiscal impact analysis showed that “Growth Beyond the Service Area” created a $50 million difference in additional capital infrastructure costs. It costs more money to extend into areas that lack infrastructure, like roads, water, sewers, storm water drainage, etc. versus building within areas that already contain many of these services. Suffolk’s “managed growth approach” for decades has been to extend growth areas into predominantly agricultural areas, which tend to lack the essential infrastructure needed for large residential neighborhoods and non-residential uses. This method of growth can be more expensive than growing within existing infrastructure, yet the City chose not to consider other growth options.

Fast forward to that May 2024 joint meeting, and Council Members Johnson and Butler Barlow, along with Commissioner Baur, all asked the city planner questions about the FIA. They wanted to understand why it wasn’t done.

Mr. Cannady’s response is below:

“The original RFP, and this was November of 2020, actually recommended that the city evaluate the different growth strategies that could come out of this process, for their fiscal impacts. In other words, if we picked something very different from the growth management approach that we’re following, it would be good to evaluate that new alternative for its fiscal impact. As this plan developed, we realized we were gonna stick with our basic growth management approach, so it didn’t really make sense to evaluate something that we weren’t going to seriously consider.”

– Mr. Keith Cannady, Joint Session of the Suffolk City Council and Suffolk Planning Commission, May 1, 2024

According to Mr. Cannady, the FIA is only necessary if the city wants to change its growth strategy. However, the current approach was never fiscally evaluated in 2015 when the 2035 Comp Plan was adopted, so we don’t know if the strategy that’s been used for at least a decade is even fiscally sound.

The comprehensive plan is the single most important piece of policy for the City. It is a 20-year, long-range plan that guides all future development in Suffolk and city staff chose to be willfully ignorant to the fiscal impacts of this growth strategy AND refused to consider any other models for comparison.

Later he adds:

“I think what we wanted to make sure is that you all understood what we recommended several months ago, and have been recommending actually for quite a while, the way to go forward with the fiscal impact analysis. I think there was some concern that, ah, we took out a step that we should have taken. Ah, that we um should have had this analysis done because it was in the RFP. Ah, and I don’t believe that’s the case. I believe we made a good recommendation based on the ah plan that was developing, um, and the strategies and priorities that we needed to set going forward. I think it would have been, frankly, a waste of our time and our money to evaluate options that were essentially all the same.”

– Mr. Keith Cannady, Joint Session of the Suffolk City Council and Suffolk Planning Commission, May 1, 2024

In the video above, we here Mr. Cannady talk about recommendations. This was not a recommendation as Mr. Cannady characterizes it. City staff that made the unilateral decision. When Care4Suffolk spoke with most of the City Council members and Planning Commissioners, not a single one said to us that they were aware of the removal of the FIA from the comp plan process, despite several of these individuals being on the comp plan steering committee. It was also surprising because the Planning Commission, according to Virginia state law, was the body responsible for leading the comp plan process.

Instead of listening to the expert advice that was already budgeted for and following the contract to analyze three different growth methods for their fiscal benefits and burdens, City staff decided to simply continue its current “strategy”– a strategy that is known to potentially increase costs. These are the kind of decisions that can cause budget shortfalls down the road, requiring taxes to be increased. Knowing this, staff still felt that the fiscal impact analysis would be, as Mr. Cannady said, “…frankly, a waste of our time and our money”.

The City staff, at some point during this process, decided that we, the taxpayers, don’t need or want choices for future growth in our city. There was a plan developing and those ‘strategies’ and ‘priorities’, that Mr. Cannady alluded to, made looking at alternatives unnecessary, possibly even inconvenient.

Maybe we can garner some insight from Mr. Cannady’s explanation below:

“I think one of the things that we were concerned about, um and I think the city is concerned about too, is um when it comes to those larger employment center types of uses, we realized that we just didn’t have room within the current growth area boundary to be a part of that growth opportunity that this region has. And so when we put some options out that we thought would allow us to do that. And that one, [Rt] 460, was one of those corridors. I don’t disagree with you that’s a significant change in land use and expansion of the growth area, but we felt like to take advantage of um that opportunity that the city has um providing an area that’s in a good location, you can effectively, cost effectively extend utilities to it and capture some of those economic development opportunities, was something we all needed to think about, recognizing that there are some trade offs there.”

– Mr. Keith Cannady, Joint Session of the Suffolk City Council and Suffolk Planning Commission, May 1, 2024

There’s that word: “Regional.” We keep hearing this over and over again. There are regional interests pushing to build here and to do that, the City of Suffolk has to expand its growth areas and drastically change land use. Mr. Cannady actually is in agreement that these changes are significant, which is in direct contradiction to his previous statement early in the meeting that we didn’t need to do the FIA because we weren’t really changing anything.

Let’s recap: Suffolk has had a growth strategy to expand its growth areas into agricultural areas. The City’s fiscal analysis tool has not been fixed in many years, so fiscal impacts of all development over this time period were not adequately evaluated. Staff had the opportunity to look at the costs of this growth, as well as compare it to some alternative growth methods, but decided it wasn’t ‘worth the time or money’. Staff stated the reason the growth areas need to be drastically expanded is for ‘economic development opportunities’.

How can staff, with a straight face, seriously say that it is NOT in the best interest of the City to analyze cost benefits and burdens, but then use the excuse that this is being done for economic development? That is essentially saying that we don’t need data about the money, but we are doing this for more money.

Decisions about taxpayer money should ALWAYS be based on data.

There is no data to support that the enormous growth laid out in the 2045 Comp Plan will be a net positive fiscal opportunity for Suffolk. This could just as easily be a boondoggle that burdens us with infrastructure costs for decades (like the latest $2 billion ten-year CIP!) Mr. Cannady doesn’t know, we don’t know, and no one knows, because staff chose NOT to do the fiscal analysis.

The City staff, who work on behalf of the citizens of Suffolk, didn’t want to look at what this development model will cost Suffolk residents, nor consider any alternatives that might be better for the taxpayers.

A large portion of the citizenry is not happy with the current development model the City is using. During the comp plan public engagement sessions, the majority of citizens specifically asked to slow development down, so infrastructure can catch up. But instead, growth will be accelerated with the 2045 Comp Plan. We are paying more in taxes, but our quality of life has deteriorated. Traffic is worse, more roads need repairs and improvements, storm water is a recurring issue, our waterways are ‘impaired’, and many of our schools remain over-crowded. As evidence of citizen frustration, last November, the council member in charge of the comp plan was voted out of office and the mayor barely made it back into office, receiving only one-third of the vote and winning by only about 100 votes.

Maybe the reason why our costs are going up and our quality of life is going down is because this growth model isn’t working. Maybe all the development that the City has been approving for a decade or more is costing more money than it’s generating in revenue. Maybe the FIA would have shown this. If the FIA showed a negative fiscal impact, that would have been very inconvenient for those that want to implement these Regional goals (read more about regional goals here and here.)

Let us be clear: – it isn’t that the City can’t know what all this development will cost taxpayers, it’s that the City chose to NOT know.

City leadership needs to acknowledge that they have been making huge land use changes without complete fiscal data. Those who are responsible for these poor decisions need to go. Suffolk can NOT continue to force the taxpayers to foot the bill for bad development decisions.

2024 Comprehensive Plan Timeline

Care4Suffolk — Mon, 18 Nov 2024 06:54:26 +0000

Nov 2020

Request for Proposal sent out by Suffolk’s Purchasing Division for “Review and Update of the 2035 Comprehensive Plan”

Jan 2021

Proposal received from Planning Next

July 2021

Contract executed between City of Suffolk and Planning Next (ACP/Greene & Associates, LLC)

Dec 2021

Vision and Goals to be completed; first payment executed

Plan contains no vision statement nor any goals

April 2022

Scope of Work Refinement: change of land use approach to “focus on trends or expectations about future development” verses “incorporating an entirely new, detailed scenario analysis.”

Added additional 25% above the cost of the original scope of work

Workshop and focus group attendees & meeting “minutes”

May 2022

Staff Land Use Workshop, including attendance by the Vice President of Tischler-Bise to discuss the Fiscal Impact Analysis

Several one-time, 1.5 hour focus groups held about different topics; focus group attendance ranged from 4-11 people.

Summer 2022

Fiscal Impact Analysis mentioned in emails between Planning NEXT and city staff

Planning staff attend various city events with a booth about comprehensive plan

Nov 2022

First public engagement gathering organized by Care4Suffolk

This was the original completion timeframe according to proposal

Feb/Mar 2023

City-organized public engagement sessions (one per borough with 2 in the Suffolk borough)

June 2023

City-organized three open-houses and included a “dot” board activity

August 2023

Fiscal Impact Analysis removed from Scope of Work to be completed after comp plan approval

Nov 2023 – Jan 2024

City Council Work Session presentations by Planning Department

All Growth Area expansion options presented to City Council in January

Feb 2024

Release of 2045 Plan draft; start of online survey

Mar 2024

City-organized three open-houses (summary of public input)

May 2024

Joint Planning Commission/City Council work session to discuss the 2045 draft

Reduction in Growth Area recommendations

Need expressed for transportation plan

Planner Keith Cannady stated that no Fiscal Impact Analysis needed because current growth strategy is being continued and because it is done at the site level rezonings

Public hearings delayed (TBD)

Rountree Property advertised on VEDP website and Yes Suffolk as being in the 2045 Comp Plan Growth Area although the plan had not been approved yet

June 2024

Planning Commission Work Session presentation

Reduction in Growth Areas

Other changes made, only 3 briefed

Lengthy Economic Development briefing on warehouse development

Land use pie chart added

All departments present slides

New “smart growth” label appears on some slides, but with no actual discussion of smart growth

Addition of Utility Scale Solar as a use for Rural Agriculture land; this was not briefed during the work session

July 2024

Planning Commission voted to recommend approval of the 2045 Comp Plan

City Council received a work session update after Planning Commission had already voted

August 2024

Changes made to plan AFTER Planning Commission vote

Map changed due to “a number of landowners”

Planning Commission has to have a “do over” vote because the city failed to provide the legally required public notice

Planning Commission Johnnie Edwards gives a speech stating that Suffolk is strategically important to the Port of Virginia and that the 2045 Comp Plan is the start of Suffolk serving the regional goals of the port.

Planning Commission again votes to recommend approval of the 2045 Comp Plan

City Council votes to table the vote on the 2045 Comp Plan until Nov 2024

Mayor Duman stipulates that Council needs to have the Master Transportation Plan in their hands to be able to vote on the comp plan

More new slides from Economic Development

Pie chart

Removal of “smart growth” from slides, changed to “focused growth”

Al Moore states that staff are already working on Master Transportation Plan it will be a “solid” by Nov 20

FOIA request for already completed parts of Master Transportation Plan

Sept 2024

Second FOIA request for any additional completed parts of Master Transportation Plan

One memo from May 2024 provided

Ground-breaking for Port 460

2025 Legislative Agenda presentation to City Council

Rt. 460 Project construction phase increased from $47 million to $65 million

Master Transportation Plan on Sept 24th joint City Council/School Board meeting agenda

Email from Lewis to Moore expressing confusion as to what is expected

Despite being on the agenda, the Master Transportation Plan was not discussed at meeting

Oct 2024

Comp Plan submitted to VDOT for review (Oct 2)

City Council Work Session (Oct 16)

No Master Transportation Plan, just VHB briefing and outline

No real changes to accommodate citizen concerns

Mayor Duman states that the comp plan should reflect what the recent State of the Region report says about needing more housing in Hampton Roads and Keith Cannady assures him that the 2045 Plan “provides a strategy for that.”

Update email sent out with misrepresentation of what City Council wanted in August for Master Transportation Plan (Oct 31)

Addition of an Master Transportation Plan page and project diagrams into Ch. 4—AFTER work session & AFTER submission to VDOT

Nov 2024

Kevin Hughes sends an email to City Council informing them that the Master Transportation Plan is now in Chapter 4 of the comp plan a week after it was already updated as such on the 2045 website

City Council Nov 20th Work Session agenda posted and includes a 2045 Plan update presentation even though council is supposed to be voting on it that same evening