Port of Virginia – Care4Suffolk

Rector Dismisses Claim of Port-Centric Plan

Care4Suffolk — Tue, 03 Dec 2024 19:47:38 +0000

Care4Suffolk has been watching the 2045 Comprehensive Plan process closely over the past couple years along with other city happenings and land use related issues. By observing and gathering information from various council meetings, work sessions, staff presentations, and the comp plan draft itself, we formed the opinion that much of the 2045 Plan is geared towards prioritizing the needs of the Port of Virginia.

During the November 20th City Council Public Hearing on the 2045 Comprehensive Plan, Councilman John Rector (Suffolk Borough) read a very lengthy, prepared lecture focused on dismissing citizen comments and concerns as emotional and hyperbole. One of the main things that seemed to bother him was that “one of the citizens groups” sent an email to council members asking them to vote “no” on the 2045 Plan because it focuses on the Port’s needs more than it reflects citizens’ input.

Mr. Rector attempted to shoot down this claim about the Port by telling everyone how many times the words “Port of Virginia” or “warehouse” appear in the 2045 Plan draft as compared to words like “rural” and “agriculture.” It’s interesting that he thinks a simple word count would be what a citizens group would base its claim on.

Speaking up to City Council and sharing ideas publicly are not easy things to do, so as a group, Care4Suffolk makes every attempt to look at the bigger picture and tie various pieces of information together. This is how we came to our conclusion about the Port’s influence in the comp plan.

During the January 17, 2024 City Council Work Session council received a comp plan update presentation from Keith Cannady as a precursor to the first draft coming out in February. We noticed that four of his slides were the same ones we had seen presented at the April 2023 City Council retreat. They pertained either directly to the Port of Virginia or to warehouse space comparisons. It really caught our attention when Mr. Cannady said this:

“Another major driver, and this is somewhat unique for this particular plan update, is really an historic investment in the Port of Virginia and growth in container traffic at that facility and really changing the dynamic for the state and for the region in terms of economic development and opportunities.”

He goes on to remind council members that they had this conversation at the retreat “trying to set the stage for what this plan, and what we, would ultimately recommend.”

The rest of Mr. Cannady’s briefing covered the new growth area boundary options they had considered and then what they were actually recommending. At this point he stated:

“Investments at the Port were creating opportunities for Suffolk; consider that as we looked at the growth area boundaries.”

Care4Suffolk actually wrote an article about this work session back in February: Port or People: What is the City’s Focus?

Since the 2045 Plan draft was shared in February, Mr. Cannady has included the slide below in multiple presentations. Clearly, they are looking at the Port as a key opportunity for Suffolk, despite the public’s negative view of warehouses. (Highlighting residential and utility scale solar as development opportunities are topics for another day.)

We also saw that city staff are labeling Suffolk as a “Port Centric Partner” during the March 20, 2024 City Council work session presentation about the Route 460 road improvement project funding.

Councilman Rector may not have liked or agreed with what we had to say, but we based our recommendation on two years of listening and observing along with the 2045 Plan draft itself, definitely not emotion.

He chose to ridicule two out of the thousands of public engagement comments as a means to dismiss our claims that the 2045 Plan is not prioritizing citizen feedback. Cherry picking a couple of comments is intellectually dishonest. The bottom line is that those thousands of comments show that people do not like warehouses or the loss of rural character. City staff’s own public engagement summaries say as much.

Key Takeaways from the first set of public engagements from May – Oct 2022, p. 18, 2045 Comprehensive Plan draft

Key Takeaways from the second round of public engagements from January – March 2023, p. 19, 2045 Comprehensive Plan draft. Importantly, these were the series of public engagement sessions that were held throughout the city and were well attended.

Care4Suffolk has been reiterating the public desires that the city itself collected and summarized. These are not themes that we projected on the public – the public has already shared these with the city. The city is choosing to ignore these to push forward the goal of supporting the Port of Virginia with more warehouses and accelerating growth – expressly against the wishes of the citizens.

Maybe sometime soon, instead of chiding concerned residents, Mr. Rector will use his speaking time to explain why he thinks this new plan is actually needed and what is so good about it.

CONFIRMED! Suffolk’s Future is to Serve the Port

Care4Suffolk — Sun, 29 Sep 2024 19:48:46 +0000

Care4Suffolk has talked a lot about how the 2045 Comprehensive Plan does NOT reflect the citizen’s input. We have also pointed out how this plan prioritizes the Port over the people and seems to have the goal of turning Suffolk into a dry port to serve the needs of the Port of Virginia.

We have heard city staff and some city leaders defend the 2045 Comprehensive Plan numerous times since the draft came out in February. They say that not everyone is going to get what they want, that the plan is “just a plan” and that nothing is set in stone. They keep pushing back on citizens’ concerns, and have only minimally adjusted course. Since June, staff has added new slides to each presentation to further justify more warehouses. Why are unelected city staff and commissioners so determined to resist the citizens and cater to the Port?

They are treating the whole thing like a negotiation, but instead of negotiating between groups of Suffolkians, they are negotiating between the citizens of Suffolk and “other stakeholders”. This plan is clearly about the Port of Virginia – the other stakeholder – and Suffolk’s agricultural land that can be turned into warehouses to supply the Port’s needs. This is exactly the opposite of the public feedback that the citizens are continually providing the City.

Finally, we have had a city representative admit clearly what this 2045 Comprehensive Plan and projects like Port 460 are all about. At the conclusion of the August 20, 2024 Planning Commission public hearing about the 2045 Comprehensive Plan, Planning Commissioner Johnnie Edwards laid it all out in no uncertain terms:

Planning Commissioner Johnnie Edwards discussing the Planning Commission retreat he attended with a presentation given by the Port of Virginia. (mark 3:55, clipped video from the Planning Commission meeting, August 20, 2024.)

“We are the future of the Region. And we have to start acting like we are the leader of the Region. Because guess what? Those other big cities, they don’t want to be leaders. And someone said in the room, ‘It should be Suffolk’. Well this is where it starts. Because you know what? The port is coming, and it’s going to be great – it’s going to change us forever. And we need to start capitalizing, because the whole world is trying to come to our area. And this plan, in my personal opinion, is the beginning. So yes, it’s time to vote and send this on to City Council.”

There you have it. After a presentation by the Port of Virginia, a Planning Commissioner now clearly understands why this 2045 Comprehensive Plan is so important – it is needed for Suffolk to lead the region in supporting the Port of Virginia.

This is the vision that Planning Commissioner Edwards buys into. What do YOU want Suffolk’s future to be? The City’s future is in our hands. We can do nothing and Suffolk’s agricultural lands will be turned into even more warehouses or we can take a stand together.

Please sign our petition opposing the 2045 Comprehensive Plan and go out and vote now or on November 5th. Make your voice heard or be prepared to watch Suffolk become the warehouse capital of Virginia.

Voting and Election Information: https://www.suffolkva.us/773/Registrar

American Association Virginia Chapter Annual Conference: “Revolutionary Planning” with keynote speaker, Stephen A. Edwards, CEO and Executive Director of the Virginia Port Authority.

Regional Influence to Turn Suffolk into a Dry Port

Care4Suffolk — Wed, 31 Jul 2024 13:17:56 +0000

Suffolk’s City Council is about to vote on the new 2045 Comprehensive Plan. This plan focuses on economic development centered around the Port of Virginia. It prioritizes Suffolk’s “opportunity,” with its vast land mass, to serve regional needs by allowing for more warehouses.

A Comprehensive Plan is supposed to serve the needs of a city’s people, with the State of Virginia mandating that:

The comprehensive plan shall be made with the purpose of guiding and accomplishing a coordinated, adjusted and harmonious development of the territory which will, in accordance with present and probable future needs and resources, best promote the health, safety, morals, order, convenience, prosperity and general welfare of the inhabitants, including the elderly and persons with disabilities.

If the focus is supposed to be on the general welfare of the inhabitants, why is the City tailoring its long-term growth to the needs of the Port of Virginia and regional goals?

This regional focus becomes clearer when you understand that the person hired to be in charge of the 2045 Comprehensive Plan had previously worked as the Deputy Executive Director of the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission, since 2016, with one of his duties being to develop a “program to increase the region’s inventory of shovel-ready economic development sites.” This new 2045 Comprehensive Plan also emphasizes shovel-ready projects in Suffolk.

In addition, the Deputy City Manager in charge of the Planning Department (the department responsible for the creation of the 2045 Comprehensive Plan), has a strong regional background as well. He previously worked as Business Development Manager with the Hampton Roads Alliance, an organization that “represents 14 localities who, with the support of nearly 100 private sector investors, govern and resource the organization and its regional economic development efforts.” His regional connection doesn’t end there. He is a member of Hampton Roads Chamber, “the premier pro-business organization serving the region to build the best climate for businesses to thrive”. He is not just a member, he is also on their Board for the Suffolk Division. Additionally, he became a part of their ‘Signature Program’ as part of the LEAD Class of 2015 alumni. This nine-month exclusive program is designed by the Hampton Roads Chamber to “promote servant leadership to create momentum for positive change across our region’s seventeen communities through extensive networking and collaboration.”

The Hampton Roads Chamber, as part of their legislative agenda, promotes regional and public-private collaboration to support economic development, support site-ready funding, and “continue investment in businesses and transportation networks that support the expansion of the Port of Virginia.” The Port of Virginia happens to be one of the ‘Strategic Partners’ of Hampton Roads Chamber, as well as the Hampton Roads Alliance. There is a huge overlap in the goals of these regional partners, and they all support one another.

Hampton Roads Chamber State Legislative Priorities 2024

Now let’s look at the Steering Committee, the volunteer committee selected to “help guide the process for and substance of the plan”. There are 24 members of this committee and about half of them are either: not from Suffolk, have strong ties to these regional organizations, and/or are in the real estate business. Nine Steering Committee members are also members of at least one regional organization, with five of those members currently or previously holding Board positions or other leadership positions. Half the committee may have vested interests that may not align with Suffolk residents. One of these members is a Vice President with the Port of Virginia with his role listed as Port Centric Logistics. The deck has been stacked against Suffolk’s right to control its future, through the regional influence in this plan.

We have nothing against these individuals personally, or against these organizations. We are not against business, nor are we against Suffolk being part of the broader Hampton Roads community.

The problem comes when individuals are hired/selected by the City of Suffolk to serve the people of Suffolk, and instead of serving the citizens’ needs and wants, they prioritize regional goals. The Port of Virginia needs more warehouses and workforce housing, and Suffolk has the land to build it. This is the view of these regional organizations and these are the major themes and objectives in the 2045 Comprehensive Plan. But do the citizens of Suffolk want their city to become a dry port? They do NOT, and they provided plenty of feedback for the City during this Comprehensive Plan process to let the City know what they do want – the City just chose to ignore it. The City is not fulfilling its legal requirement to focus “on the general welfare of the inhabitants”.

We documented previously about the 2045 Comprehensive Plan and public feedback. The City received 7,500 responses with the categories below. The plan not only doesn’t fulfill these needs and wants of its people, it is contrary to many of them.

The plan has a heavy emphasis on economic development which sounds good in theory, yet the City decided against conducting the previously planned Fiscal Impact Analysis and it has delayed the much needed Master Transportation Plan. Both of these would have provided solid data to shed more light on the economic impact of this huge growth in both warehousing and suburban sprawl that is coming with this 2045 Comprehensive Plan. The City chose not to do them, but then claims without data, that this will be good economic growth for the City.

Data was presented from March 20, 2024 City Council Work Session Packet, p. 69.

We are not against warehouses, in general, and it is good to work with our neighboring cities, to a point. But don’t we have enough warehouses? We already lead the region, with Suffolk being home to one-third of all warehouse space in Hampton Roads. We have more than our fair share. Warehouses have negative impacts that can not be ignored. They bring truck traffic and pollution, and they add little to the local economy compared to other industrial and commercial development. Additionally, warehouses do not help develop the sense of community that citizens are craving – people don’t want to live near them because they are big, ugly, noisy, polluting, and cause road headaches and safety concerns with truck traffic. Lastly, these warehouses will be built on what is currently farmland. It is some of the most fertile farmland in the state, and once built over, it will be destroyed forever.

Suffolk has long been a regional partner in both agriculture and with our water. The lakes within Suffolk provide drinking water to many in Hampton Roads. Why must we put both of these in peril: one to be destroyed to build warehouses, and the other polluted by the proximity of this growth to the watershed. Why don’t we get a say in how we participate in the region instead of the region dictating to us?

It is high time that the City staff and leaders are reminded that they work for the citizens, and they do not have the right to pass this 2045 Comprehensive Plan which goes directly against the wishes of the public.

The 2045 Comprehensive Plan goes to City Council on August 21 at 6pm in City Hall. Let’s hope that Mayor Duman remembers what he said about City Council at this year’s State of the City:

“Together these outstanding individuals share a total of 82 years of public service. Together they work tirelessly to provide unparalleled representation of their constituents. Collectively as a council, we work cooperatively with one goal in mind, and that is, to serve our citizens. It is a privilege to work with them, and beside them, as we do the people’s work.”

Please let Mayor Duman and City Council know that you oppose the 2045 Comprehensive Plan by signing our petition. Share with your neighbors, friends and family in Suffolk.

Servants of the Port

Care4Suffolk — Tue, 25 Jun 2024 13:59:46 +0000

The May 1st joint Planning Commission/City Council work session on the 2045 Comprehensive Plan concluded with uncertainty and a clear discomfort with the size of the proposed new Growth Area and the amount of land designated for “Employment Centers” (and identified by the color purple on the land use map).

Future Land Use Map June 18, 2024. No longer distinguishes between current and future Growth Areas, so the added Growth Areas have been circled in red by us.

During the recent June 18th Planning Commission Work Session about the 2045 Comprehensive Plan Draft, there was the impression that despite a reduction in the proposed Rt. 460 Growth Area, the amount of purple on the maps is still making people nervous. Planning and city management spent a lot of time trying to provide some assurance about this and presented some new twists on justifying more “Employment Centers.”

Comparison of warehouse development over time.

One new tactic was to give sort of a history of warehouse development, showing that the current industrial areas have been built out over time. It seemed they were trying to demonstrate that some of the purple areas within the current growth areas aren’t new and that we need more to support the Port’s needs. What this part of the presentation really demonstrated was how much warehouse space Suffolk already has! We already know we have the most in all of Hampton Roads: 21,683,290 square feet!

Data was presented from March 20, 2024 City Council Work Session Packet, p. 69.

There was also a pie chart to compare the percentages of the Future Land Use Types as they are recommending them. It seemed that they wanted to show that because Rural Agriculture and Parks & Open Space are the highest in percentage versus other land use types, the purple “Employment Centers” are insignificant–nothing to worry about!

Land Use by acreage - demonstrates that small percentages of intense development can have huge impacts on infrastructure and quality of life.

However, there was no clarification that a lot of land in the Rural Agriculture category are areas that used to fall under the land use types of Forestry and Wetlands, including the Great Dismal Swamp. Another point they never mention is that just because land falls in an agriculture category or zoning, does not mean it’s actually tillable land that can be farmed.

What is really telling with the pie chart though is that it really demonstrates that small percentages of intense development can have huge impacts on infrastructure and quality of life. Most people see and feel this everyday here now (except some city planners and managers, apparently!)

We may have a lot of open space, but our current growth areas are struggling under the recent growth and it seems city planners’ only answer is to continue letting that bleed out into our unprepared rural areas.

Slide explaining new secondary use of Employment Centers.

Another curious new effort to improve the image of “Employment Centers” is to allow for a new “secondary use” of vacant “Employment Center” buildings (of which there should be none if the need is so great!) This new use is labeled “Compatible Adaptive Reuse of Existing Employment Center Buildings.” It’s simple! The intent is to “Allow for the adaptive reuse of existing vacant buildings to non-employment center uses that are compatible with adjacent uses, building characteristics, site design and facility location. Such uses may include but are not limited to: indoor or outdoor recreation, public gathering and places of assembly. “(Page 50)

The City’s idea is to keep the land use ‘flexible’ by allowing almost any type of non-residential use to go there. This completely contradicts the ‘predictable’ part of the planning they say they are trying to accomplish.

Halfway through the 30-plus slide presentation, there was a somewhat bizarre attempt to focus on talking about Smart Growth. (Actually, not really talking about it so much as just using the phrase.)

We have yet to see one time where anyone who brings up Smart Growth actually explains what it is or specifies any Smart Growth principles they may be referring to. It’s especially odd considering that when you search for the phrase “Smart Growth” in the 2045 comp plan draft it comes up zero times. (Even in the 2026 and 2035 Comp Plans it only comes up a handful of times, and mostly about school facility planning.)

One of the main Smart Growth principles is to contain development where infrastructure is already in place. Two city planners mentioned Smart Growth and then proceeded to talk about extending water, sewer, and road improvements into current agricultural lands, so that they are ready for development which will make them more attractive to developers to build there. That is NOT Smart Growth, that is sprawl!

With each new meeting, the City presents information that addresses what they see as our (the public’s) main concerns. However, they are missing the crux of the issue. The citizens of Suffolk already told the City in the 7,500+ unique comments what we want. Overwhelmingly, people are fed up with the handling of development in the last decade. Instead of actually LISTENING to the citizens, they pat themselves on the back for gathering the comments, and then go on to do more of the same. It is not what we asked for and it isn’t what we want. According to the City Planner giving the presentation, not everyone will be happy with the plan, which is true, but there are clearly other ‘stakeholders’ more important to them than the citizens. The City is intent on making Suffolk a servant of the Port over the wishes of the people.

Slide showing the public comments the City received throughout the process.

Please sign our petition to urge City Council to vote ‘NO’ to the new 2045 Comprehensive Plan.

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

Port or People: What is the City’s Focus?

Care4Suffolk — Tue, 06 Feb 2024 01:11:05 +0000

The Comprehensive Plan provides the framework that guides the development of the City of Suffolk for the next several years. Over the last year, the city has been actively seeking community input to help guide what this new plan will look like.

Community Engagement sessions and Open Houses were held throughout the city and during these, the collective voice of the citizens was clear: people were frustrated with traffic and didn’t want any more warehouses. Time after time, the residents from all areas of Suffolk expressed concern that their quality of life was being negatively impacted by warehouses and the heavy truck traffic that comes with them.

Above is a photo from the June 15, 2023 Open House that Suffolk hosted to interact with the public about the proposed plans and obtain feedback. In this snapshot, you can see that the green dot stickers (given to the public to express their opinion) are placed on the ‘thumbs down’ side to show their disapproval of more warehouses in Suffolk.

Fast forward to the January 17, 2024 City Council Work Session: Suffolk’s 2045 Comprehensive Plan Lead Planner, Keith Cannady, gave a presentation about the new Comprehensive Plan draft that included Planning Staff’s recommendations for Growth Area expansion. He touted the opportunities that the Port of Virginia provides. He stated that the Port of Virginia is “changing the dynamic for the state and the region in terms of economic development opportunities” and that this is a “major driver of what’s happening here in Hampton Roads.” He claimed that Suffolk is considering “opportunities that the Port provides as we consider Growth Area boundaries.”

Below are some of the Growth Area slides presented at this City Council Work Session. The corresponding written descriptions reflect what was explained verbally by Mr. Cannady while discussing the slide.

(We apologize for the poor quality; these were screenshot captures from the online work session which were not high resolution to begin with.)

Northern Growth Area Option Slide

The current growth area is within the dark blue border. The only option (Option A) presented for Northern Growth Area expansion is the area within the greenish border. This is the Nansemond Parkway area and would connect the Northern and Central Growth Areas. According to Planning it is “logical” to combine the two and use the railroad as the boundary.

(There is an “Opportunity Area” along I664 that will be discussed at City Council on Feb 7th.)

Central Growth Area Options Slide

There are 5 options being considered for expansion of the Central Growth Area. The current Central Growth Area is within the dark purple borders.

Option B: within the yellow border; expands the current growth area all the way to the city/county line along Rt. 460. The other boundaries would be the Western Branch Reservoir and “a wetland area that forms a logical boundary” to the south.

Option C: within the blue border; expands from the yellow border south to the railroad line and includes the Lake Cohoon area.

Option D: within the green border; expands west on 58 from the Centerpoint & Westport Commerce Parks down to Chapel Road.

Option E: within the red border; extends down 58 to Buckhorn Road.

Option F: within the orange border; extends north up Rt. 10/32, including Sack Point Road and up to Kingsdale Road.

Recommendation Slide:
The Planning Department is recommending that Suffolk incorporate Options A, B, D, and F into the 2045 Comprehensive Plan.

Breakdown of Future Land Use within Growth and Opportunity Areas:

Future Land Use Slide
The City is considering changing/adding new land use categories, listed in the map key on the left side and signified by the solid-colored rectangle. Currently, there are only six or seven land use categories.

Central Growth Area Future Land Use Slide
Within the borders of Option A (within the lighter green border at the top right), Planning is recommending land use categories for residential development.
For the Central Growth Area, Planning is recommending these land use categories:
Option B: residential development to the north of Rt. 460 and “employment center” to the south all the way to the city/county line.
Option D: “employment center” to the north of Rt. 58 and residential to the south up to Chapel Road.
Option F: residential on both sides of Rt. 10/32 all the way to Kingsdale Road.

While making it clear that Suffolk is prioritizing the Port of Virginia, Mr. Cannady provided only vague comments as to the opportunities that justify expanding the Growth Areas to such a great extent. Some of his reasonings were:

Rt. 460 and 58 corridors offer “what we believe are significant economic development opportunities in that area.”
Coming south (of Rt. 460) “to a wetland area that forms a logical boundary for that corridor and would allow us to capitalize on some of the options that are out there.”
Option D “looks to take advantage of some of the opportunities going west out of Rt. 58.”

The recommended Growth Area expansion will total almost 17 sq mi, increasing the current Growth Area (from the 2035 Comprehensive Plan) from about 74.5 sq mi to a total of about 91.5 sq mi. That is an increase of about 23%. That is a lot of growth!

While we expect a certain amount of Growth Area expansion, it hasn’t been made clear how enlarging them to such a great extent specifically benefits the City of Suffolk and its citizens. How much economic benefit will Suffolk see with port expansion growth? This question is not answered.

Adding huge swathes of land (light purple on the Future Land Use map) designated as Employment Centers (warehouses), doesn’t happen in a vacuum. We all want Suffolk to have a vibrant economy, but all those warehouses come at a cost to citizens. They bring truck traffic, higher road maintenance costs, and pollution, as well as destroy forever fertile soil that makes up our agricultural economy, which is itself an economic powerhouse generating $462 million of direct and indirect economic impact for the City of Suffolk. In no uncertain terms, development of warehouses is to the detriment of agriculture in Suffolk. This may be what the Port of Virginia wants, and what the Planning Commission wants, but is it what the people of Suffolk want?

These recommendations go counter to public feedback during the Community Engagement Sessions and Open Houses. Was the city genuine in its efforts to include its citizens in this process? From this presentation, it doesn’t seem like it.