Growth Areas – Care4Suffolk

Comparison of Suffolk’s Comp Plans

Care4Suffolk — Wed, 02 Oct 2024 16:35:09 +0000

Suffolk’s 2018 Comprehensive Plan was adopted in 1998 and was the first of three comprehensive plans adopted by the City. Currently, the City is working on the fourth iteration which is scheduled to be voted on by City Council on November 20th, after the election but just before Thanksgiving.

Care4Suffolk recently obtained a copy of the 2018 Comprehensive Plan. It is not available online, but we had a member go in and take photos of each of the roughly 700 pages of the document and accompanying appendices. We are hoping to provide the public with a copy online in the future.

With the new comp plan still under way, I thought this was a good opportunity to share some of the aspects of the first comprehensive plan, especially in light of the recent admission by a city leader that this new plan is about Suffolk’s role in supporting the Port of Virginia.

The 2018 Comprehensive Plan emphasized balanced growth, specifically about keeping the growth healthy and sustainable. There were no ‘market trends’ which seems to be a focus in the 2045 Comp Plan. The second major focus of the 2018 plan was an environmental theme with a lot of focus on protecting ground water, reservoirs, and rivers.

Another theme in the old plan is preserving rural character, including a focus on rural, agricultural land, and open space. This was an actual focus, not just lip service like it is in the 2045 Comp Plan, which does mention these ideals, but it is a low priority and is juxtaposed to the massive land use changes that contradict protecting rural areas.

Core revitalizing in downtown Suffolk with economic development made up the last major theme. Economic development included agriculture and tourism along with manufacturing, office, and commercial development. This is a huge contrast to the 2045 Comp Plan which focuses heavily on creating more warehousing space to serve the Port of Virginia.

The part that stood out most about the 2018 Comp Plan was the part where is stated:

“These key ideas are a result of an intensive two-year planning process. They reflect ideas from many citizens who attended and participated in many meetings and responded on public comment forms.”

What a contrast to the 2045 Comp Plan which did a great job getting public input, but focused on the ideas of the ‘other stakeholders’ (Port of Virginia and developers) over the vision of the citizens.

Another contrast between the original comp plan and the prosed 2045 plan – the original was based on a wealth of data. The 2018 Comp Plan contained a Fiscal Impact Analysis (FIA). Current city leaders are unconcerned with the fact that staff decided AGAINST doing the FIA, a frustration with citizens who are looking for fiscal responsibility from city leaders.

These pages are from Chapter 1of the 2018 Comprehensive Plan.

The 2018 Comp Plan also had a substantial amount of data on agriculture in Suffolk. One map included in the plan showed the soil conditions throughout the city.

This image is from the 2018 Comp Plan and shows the soil map – conditions of the soil throughout the city. The original map is completely in black and white. The green highlighted was done by Care4Suffolk to delineate the good soil land.

The green highlighted area represent good soil – suitable for farming. Compare the good soil map with the proposed growth areas in the 2045 Comp Plan highlighted in red. Please note that a lot of the red is actually from the current growth area under the 2035 comp plan, but the 2045 additional growth areas have been added as well to represent what will be the Growth Area if the 2045 Comp Plan is passed.

The growth areas will not stop there, however. The 2045 Comprehensive Plan contains language that allows for both utility solar and industrial projects that the City deems desirable, on agricultural lands outside the growth area. Additionally, in five years, the City will evaluate the comp plan again and can add additional growth areas if they chose. The City’s original growth area expansion in the February 2024 draft was even more extensive, but they pulled back on some of those areas due to public outcry.

The map below includes all the areas from the February draft and is telling of the City’s thinking about future growth. Each successive draft gobbles up more and more of that good soil area, chipping away at the agricultural industry in Suffolk.

How well the 2018 Comprehensive Plan was implemented, I can’t say. The2018 plan states itself:

“In some communities, the Comprehensive Plan is all but invisible, used for little else than as a reference point for contentious rezonings. It is often no more than the servant of the marketplace, simply ratifying the status quo. In other places, it is a rallying point for citizens and leaders who say, ‘this is the way we want our community to look!'”

I don’t want a comprehensive plan that’s sole purpose is to serve the needs of other stake-holders. I want a comprehensive plan that is of the people, for the people, by the people. The people have told the City what they want for Suffolk’s future – it is time for the City to start listening to us.

Comprehensive Plan Survey

Care4Suffolk — Mon, 01 Apr 2024 18:11:47 +0000

If you haven’t done it yet, complete the survey for the 2045 Comprehensive Plan draft before the April 8th deadline. It is available online, or if you prefer a paper survey, email care4suffolk@gmail.com and we will get you a copy.

If you aren’t familiar with Comprehensive Plans, they are used by cities to guide development. Virginia requires them and cities have to review theirs every 5 years. This 2045 Comp Plan will go before Suffolk’s City Council sometime this summer and, if approved, take effect immediately. The city has been soliciting feedback from citizens at various points in the process of developing the new plan.

The Comp Plan states where and what type of development will happen in Suffolk by creating “Growth Areas.” There are some huge changes in this plan, including a growth area expansion of almost 25%. The City also wants to increase industrial development (like warehouses and distribution centers) by about four times the area currently zoned for them. If you thought the roads were packed with tractor trailers now, just wait!

This survey provides your last opportunity to suggest changes to the comp plan, before it goes through the process to City Council. The survey is long, consisting of three parts. The first is the interactive map. It provides what will be the Future Land Use and Growth Area map. You can click anywhere on the map and a window will pop up with a list for you to select what type of land use you think it should be. There is also space to write a comment.

The second part has a series of Actions. These are the main objectives and actions that the city wants to implement. You have to select “View Actions” under each one in order to read the details and see where you can write a comment on them and select whether you support the action or are concerned. There is no option to object, but you can write that in the comments.

The third part is demographic information and is pretty straightforward.

There are two major issues that stand out in the Action section. The first is under the Land Use and Growth Management section. There are a lot of statements that are designed to align zoning to the Future Land Use map, which is very different from what we have now. Currently, most of the land they want to add in the expanded Growth Area is zoned for agriculture. Including this agricultural land in the Growth Area, combined with many of these new Actions, will make it easier for the developers to get this land rezoned. That is concerning considering the huge expansion of the growth area and how much of it is designated for the Future Land Uses of ‘Suburban Neighborhood’ and ‘Employment Centers,’ which is the city’s new term for industrial. That’s where warehouses and distribution centers will be built.

The other thing that stood out was the contradictions present in the ‘Objectives’ and ‘Actions’. The City states in a variety of ways that it wants to preserve farmland, protect open spaces, increase access to natural spaces, and protect the watershed, waterways, reservoirs, and environmentally sensitive areas. These all sound great, except they want to expand the Growth Area into these exact areas. The best, cheapest, and easiest way to do all of this preserving and protecting is to NOT expand the growth area and NOT label them for future suburban residential and industrial land uses.

Expanding growth area by almost 25% and the need to protect these natural resources are at odds. If the city truly cares about our farmers and wants to protect our water and environment, the city just needs to remove the new additions to the growth area. It is really simple. It won’t cost us anything. Remove the growth areas for the benefit of Suffolk.

Purple Lipstick on a Pig

Care4Suffolk — Sun, 10 Mar 2024 23:47:38 +0000

Suffolk’s city managers and planners want to start calling warehouse and industrial areas ‘Employment Centers’. You can find them as purple on the planning maps. While there is definitely employment going on in these places, they are trying to re-name them at the same time as they are trying to expand them for miles. (Interestingly, though, they are not trying to re-name commercial or office/institutional areas, which are also known to employ people.)

The City has spent the past two years working to revise its Comprehensive Plan. You may have heard about the ‘2045 Plan’ and some open house and town hall type events seeking public feedback. The Comprehensive Plan guides a city’s growth and development and includes boundaries for ‘Growth Areas’. Once these areas are put on the map and voted on by city council, this is where developers go and it becomes very easy for them to rezone and build what they want, regardless if the actual location is suitable or proper infrastructure is available. Most of us have witnessed this happening quite a lot in recent years.

Our city managers and planners are recommending very large increases to Suffolk’s Growth Areas. A 23% increase, actually, although there is no requirement to change the Growth Areas. In fact, for the 2035 Comprehensive Plan (under which we currently operate) there was a 0% increase to the Northern Growth Area and just 5% to the Central. Let that 18% difference sink in!

If you look at page 41 of the draft of the 2045 Suffolk Comprehensive Plan (available for public review and input at Suffolk2045.org), you will find the ‘Future Land Use and Growth Areas’ map. It shows both the new growth boundary lines that city management wants, as well as the new Land Use terminology they are proposing. You will see that purple is very prevalent; they are trying to expand where they want to allow warehouses, in both the new growth areas and in many parts of the current ones. We know from Planning’s January presentation to City Council about this map that the Port of Virginia is the driving force behind these recommendations. The Port is pushing for more warehouses.

Anyone who went to last year’s open houses or public meetings about this new Comprehensive Plan knows that expanding warehouse areas is the opposite of the feedback the city received. Purple is pretty, but on this map it means warehouses. And city managers and planners are putting lipstick on a pig by labeling it all ‘Employment Center’. (See also the ‘Future Land Use Types’ chart, page 44 of the 2045 Comprehensive Plan draft.) People are not fooled by re-naming these purple blobs on a map.

Let City Council know what you think about this new growth area: council@suffolkva.us

Michael D. Duman, Mayor

mayor@suffolkva.us

Phone: 757-514-4009

Lue R. Ward, Jr., Vice Mayor

(Nansemond Borough)

nansemond@suffolkva.us

Phone: 757-377-6929

Shelley Butler Barlow,

Council Member

(Chuckatuck Borough)

chuckatuck@suffolkva.us

Phone: 757-346-8355

Leroy Bennett, Council Member
(Cypress Borough)
cypress@suffolkva.us
Phone: 757-407-3750

Timothy J. Johnson, Council Member
(Holy Neck Borough)
holyneck@suffolkva.us
Phone: 757-407-0556

Roger W. Fawcett, Council Member
(Sleepy Hole Borough)
sleepyhole@suffolkva.us
Phone: 757-377-8641

John Rector, Council Member
(Suffolk Borough)
suffolk@suffolkva.us
Phone: 757-407-1953

LeOtis Williams, Council Member

(Whaleyville Borough)

whaleyville@suffolkva.us

Phone: 757-402-7100

Sacrificing Suffolk’s Natural Resources

Care4Suffolk — Fri, 01 Mar 2024 18:07:04 +0000

Suffolk’s city managers seem eager to sacrifice the city’s natural water resources in the name of development. For decades, previous city administrations have implemented planning strategies designed to limit development within our watersheds and adjacent to reservoirs. This does not appear to be a concern for our current managers when you look at the Growth Area expansions they recommend in the 2045 Comprehensive Plan draft, for which they are responsible. These expansions will allow heavy development into large swathes of our watersheds and the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Area (CBPA).

Suffolk has two Growth Areas (Northern and Central) that were outlined in the first Comprehensive Plan in 1998 after the State of Virginia mandated such plans. These growth areas were expanded upon in the two revised plans that followed in 2006 and 2015. There is no requirement to extend or expand these areas, just to review the Comprehensive Plans every five years “to determine whether it is advisable to amend the plan” (Virginia Code Section 15.2-2230).

Previous city managers and planners chose to expand the Growth Areas in small, fragmented increments around the edges of the original boundaries. It turns out, there was a very good reason for this:

“In addition to the two Growth Areas, a key component of the growth management strategy is to designate a third large area of the City as a rural conservation / low density residential area. This area allows a lower density of residential development that is designed as a method of protecting the region’s water supply reservoirs that Suffolk hosts.” (2035 Suffolk Comprehensive Plan, p. 30, bolded for emphasis)

In the 2045 Comprehensive Plan draft, the paragraph on the “Growth Areas Over Time” states that “As part of the Suffolk 2045 plan, the growth areas were again reconsidered and it was determined that growth should continue to be focused inward with a limited number of areas identified for expansion.” City managers SAY “inward” and “limited”, but then they also want to extend the Growth Area by 23%–all within the watershed and CBPA. How is 23% expanded growth limited?

Compare these outward extensions to the CBPA map below. It’s almost as if Suffolk’s leaders are determined to eventually turn the whole CBPA into one massive Growth Area.

Planners are even telling us that as long as they determine land to be in the Growth Area, they don’t need to worry about natural resources: “This plan seeks to identify new opportunities to maintain the conservation of natural resources outside of the Growth Areas” (p.25, emphasis added). Are they really only concerned with our natural resources outside the Growth Areas? How many opportunities do we get to conserve natural resources? What happened to the old opportunities inside the Growth Areas? What will happen five years from now when they review the Comp Plan again and decide to extend the Growth Areas even farther?

Suffolk is blessed to have all the water resources that it does. But this means that its land use must be planned extremely thoughtfully and with more limitations than other places. Perhaps not every opportunity or development is suitable for a place that has so much to protect. Having open land does not mean that land is not already serving a purpose.

Statements and actions from our current 2035 Comprehensive Plan show that this concept used to be understood:

Why are the current Suffolk city managers willing to sacrifice our natural resources to developers when decades of previous planners understood the unique and valuable resources we are fortunate to have here. They need to understand they work for the people of Suffolk, not for the developers. They need to stop this drastic expansion into the watershed and CBPA and focus on preserving this valuable resource before it is too late.

Let City Council know what you think about this new growth area: council@suffolkva.us

Michael D. Duman, Mayor

mayor@suffolkva.us

Phone: 757-514-4009

Lue R. Ward, Jr., Vice Mayor

(Nansemond Borough)

nansemond@suffolkva.us

Phone: 757-377-6929

Shelley Butler Barlow,

Council Member

(Chuckatuck Borough)

chuckatuck@suffolkva.us

Phone: 757-346-8355

Leroy Bennett, Council Member
(Cypress Borough)
cypress@suffolkva.us
Phone: 757-407-3750

Timothy J. Johnson, Council Member
(Holy Neck Borough)
holyneck@suffolkva.us
Phone: 757-407-0556

Roger W. Fawcett, Council Member
(Sleepy Hole Borough)
sleepyhole@suffolkva.us
Phone: 757-377-8641

John Rector, Council Member
(Suffolk Borough)
suffolk@suffolkva.us
Phone: 757-407-1953

LeOtis Williams, Council Member

(Whaleyville Borough)

whaleyville@suffolkva.us

Phone: 757-402-7100

Is the City of Suffolk listening to its Citizens?

Care4Suffolk — Fri, 16 Feb 2024 14:45:09 +0000

As required by Virginia State Law, the City of Suffolk is in the process of reviewing the current Comprehensive Plan and preparing to make changes. Obtaining public feedback is an important part of the process and the Planning Department staff began doing so in 2022 by setting up booths with comment cards at various public events (like Peanut Fest). On November 17, 2022, Care4Suffolk initiated the first public forum style meeting between the City of Suffolk and the general public. After that, the city scheduled 8 town hall style “community engagement sessions” in early 2023. There was one session held in each borough, with two in the Suffolk borough. City staff asked specific questions and took notes on comments from the crowd. There were also 3 open house events in the spring of 2023 during which people could share their thoughts via “thumbs up” and “thumbs down” poster boards, sticky notes, and paper surveys. During this time, the survey was also available online for people to share thoughts on the same questions.

These fliers were distributed to solicit public opinion to include in the 2045 Comprehensive Plan.

In a recent write-up about Suffolk Planning Staff’s recommendations for increasing our Growth Areas to focus on supporting the Port of Virginia, we commented that it didn’t seem like the public was actually heard regarding what direction the City should go. We provided an example of a display board from one of the open houses that demonstrated people’s dislike for warehouses. However, that was just one small example. Many of us attended multiple meetings and open houses and heard a lot of disappointment about how Suffolk has handled growth and development.

Via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Request, Care4Suffolk acquired a consolidated list of all comments either submitted online, written on comment cards, or annotated by staff at the community meetings. The comment list consists of 332 pages and just under 5,500 comments. If you scroll through the document, you will hear overwhelmingly from the citizens of Suffolk that there has been too much development and it is happening too fast.

Yet, despite thousands of comments from citizens, 9 engagement sessions, and 3 open houses, it looks like the professional planners in our city are trying to expand the growth area by more than 23%. They clearly aren’t listening to us, so who are they listening to? They’ve spent a lot of time and money to obtain public feedback, but the results of that feedback are not represented in this proposal, so what was the point? Is the City of Suffolk listening to its citizens?

Additional sources:

Summary Memo
Preliminary Results, Round 1 Public Engagement
October 26, 2022
Summary Memo
Preliminary Results, Winter 2023 Community Engagement
March 17, 2023
Summary Memo
Preliminary Results, June-July 2023 Community Engagement
July 31, 2023