rezoning – Care4Suffolk

What is Smart Growth?

Care4Suffolk — Tue, 11 Jul 2023 16:05:24 +0000

If you have been following rezoning applications lately, like the one for Lake Kilby Road, then you have probably heard the term ‘Smart Growth’. At the City Council meeting on April 19, 2023, there were people there wearing Smart Growth stickers to support the developer. Many of them were real estate agents there with the Hampton Roads Realtor Association (HRRA). HRRA’s Chairman of the Board mentioned Smart Growth while speaking on behalf of the developer, but did not say anything specific about it. Additionally, a new community group, Smart Grow Suffolk, was recently started. Care4Suffolk has been talking and writing about Smart Growth for months now and believes it aligns with many of our goals and objectives when followed appropriately.

You might be wondering, what is Smart Growth? Why is everyone talking about it? Why is it important?

Smart Growth is a network of government agencies, civic organizations, citizens, and businesses that share a common goal and theory that development should happen in a controlled, intentional manner that protects the health, safety, and economic well-being of the community. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was actually one of the founding members of this network and you can learn more about it on their website.

Smart Growth promotes the following ideas:

Invest tax payer money wisely in communities and conserve resources by reinvesting in existing infrastructure and rehabilitating historic buildings.
Design neighborhoods that have homes near shops, offices, schools, houses of worship, parks, and other amenities; giving residents the option of walking, bicycling, taking public transportation, or driving as they go about their business.
Incorporate a range of different housing types to make it possible for individuals and families at all stages of life to find a safe, attractive home they can afford.
Enhance neighborhoods and involve residents in development decisions, creating vibrant places to live, work, and play.
Creating a high quality of life that makes these communities economically competitive, creates business opportunities, and strengthens the local tax base.
Use local food sources to revitalize downtowns and neighborhoods, create economic opportunities, and improve human health and the environment.
Preserve open space, farmland, natural beauty, and critical environmental areas.

These are principles of Smart Growth and why Care4Suffolk supports it. It is also a huge part of why we oppose the Lake Kilby rezoning application. The Lake Kilby Road rezoning application wants to turn farmland zoned Rural Estate into high-density suburban sprawl. The proposed houses, by the developer’s own estimate, will cost $500,000 each (hardly affordable), and they will be densely packed homes in a community that the developer is intentionally not adjoining to the abutting neighborhood. These homes will require driving to and from every activity because they are not being built near any amenities and there is no bus stop nearby. The proposed development would be on a busy, narrow, ditch-lined country road, not suitable for walking or biking. It is not a smart investment for the city because the developer is proposing road improvements that do not even meet the state’s minimum for safety standards. It will add family homes in an area with already over-crowded schools. Additionally, this proposed development looks to build on land that contains wetlands, and will drastically alter an area that feeds our reservoirs and provides drinking water to so many in Suffolk and Hampton Roads. The Lake Kilby Road rezoning application fulfills NONE of the bulleted points that comprise Smart Growth, and in fact, it is incompatible with most of them.

Smart Growth is NOT about lining the pockets of a few developers and real estate organizations. It is NOT about encroaching on farmland with suburban sprawl. It is NOT about creating insular housing developments with no connection to the broader community. It is NOT about reducing the quality of life for communities by adding traffic, crowding schools, or destroying natural resources.

Care4Suffolk understands that development will happen and that development can be a positive change in a community and city. To make that happen, those making the decisions need to follow these Smart Growth principles and ensure that the development is positive for the community and will enhance the lives of those already living there. This Lake Kilby Road project is the antithesis of everything that Smart Growth stands for, and that is why Care4Suffolk opposes this rezoning application. A development that benefits only the developer and a few real estate agents is not a project that City Council Members or anyone who supports Smart Growth should ever consider supporting.

Download a pdf copy of "This is Smart Growth."

Lake Kilby: More Hazards to Come with Development

Care4Suffolk — Sun, 26 Mar 2023 16:10:17 +0000

On March 23, 2023, this van ended up in the ditch on Lake Kilby Road blocking traffic. Lake Kilby is an example of the many narrow country roads in Suffolk that do not meet the minimum standards set forth by VDOT (Virginia Department of Transportation).

Lake Kilby is a road with lanes that are 8′ wide and with no clear zone. A clear zone, defined by VDOT is “used to describe the unobstructed, traversable area provided beyond the edge of the through traveled way for the recovery of an errant vehicle.” Lake Kilby Road is designated as a minor collector road and should have a minimum of 11′ lanes, but recommended 12′ lanes where trucks or farm equipment use the road, and an 8′ clear zone. (Source: VDOT Road Design Manual)

This is right where a developer wants to put a 200+ housing development that was just recommended by the Suffolk Planning Department and the Suffolk Planning Commission. The developer is proffering to widen the road in front of this proposed new development, but only to 10′ lanes and no expanded clear zone. This doesn’t meet the minimum required by the state. The lawyer for the developer, Grady Palmer, stated last Tuesday at the Planning Commission, “We understand, that’s not standard. We wish we could do standard, but we can’t do standard. But 20 feet, and the way I think about this as a lawyer, can two school buses pass each other safely on 20 feet of pavement. I think the answer to that question is yes.” ( Source: Planning Commission Meeting video mark 2:39:34-2:39:55)

The developer would only be widening Lake Kilby in front of the development, so it will still only be 8′ lanes in parts, but it will add about 100 new students. So these school buses which are about 8′ wide (source Virginia Public School Bus Specifications) still have to traverse these narrow lanes. Even in front of the development, with only 10′ lanes and not meeting minimum clear zones, should something unexpected happen (inclement weather, farm equipment, vehicle loses control, etc.) there is no place for the school bus to safely veer off. Instead of a Stanley Steamer van, that could be a school bus ending up in a ditch.

The city can NOT accept sub-standard improvements. The developer is in business to make money and making the roads wide enough to safely accommodate the traffic is not something they are willing to do. We as citizens should not be forced to accept road improvements that do not meet the minimum standards. If the developer will not fix them to the minimum standard, then they should not be allowed to develop there. Our safety and the safety of our children is not worth it.

This issue isn’t done yet!

This comes before City Council on April 19. Email City Council (email: council@suffolkva.us) and tell them you do not want this approved. We as citizens can come together and let them know what we want for our city.

Inconvenient Truth: There is No Housing Shortage

Care4Suffolk — Mon, 13 Mar 2023 21:57:31 +0000

Suffolk Citizens:

Last week a regional real estate association distributed a letter to its Suffolk members asking for their attendance at the March 21 Planning Commission meeting to support the approval of a rezoning request on the commission’s agenda. As there are currently only two rezoning requests on the agenda, only RZ2021-00018 (Lake Kilby Road) proposes the development of family homes and can be the subject of the letter.

RZ2021-00018 proposes rezoning 87 acres of land from Rural Estate (RE) to Rural Medium (RM) density and the development of 4.4 homes per acre. In previous proceedings, the application met with citizen opposition, citing level of service deficiencies for already overcrowded schools, inadequate road conditions, and concerns over stormwater runoff causing flooding.

This letter was sent out by a regional real estate association to its Suffolk members.

The letter raised the following points, which must be refuted:

The realtor stated Suffolk has limited housing inventory and without continued lots, we cannot sustain future growth, and the commission must approve RZ2021-00018 in order to have homes available in the community.

This cannot be further from the truth. According to Movoto.com, there are over 800 Suffolk home listings and compared to last year, the days on the market have increased 37% from 46 to 73 and 7% of listings have experienced price reductions. The 2035 Comprehensive Plan set growth for residential units to 522 per year. The current residential pipeline has 7,480 housing units approved but not yet built, which accounts for 19-years of projected population growth. Additional rezoning is unnecessary to maintain housing inventory and the Planning Commission must focus on the development of land already zoned for residential development. The cover e-mail for the letter showed some realtors are interested in continuing the rapid sales seen over the past couple years, citing 800 new construction homes were closed on last year, significantly higher than the growth set by the 2035 Comprehensive Plan.

According to the realtor, a limited inventory will drive up the cost of homes, making it unaffordable for young and average families.

According to Movoto.com, the median cost of a home in Suffolk is $412K. The city statistics show an average household income of $81K. Even with a good credit score and 20% down payment, young and average families cannot afford to purchase the proposed homes, which are forecasted to sell for an average of $500K. There are many factors making home buying unaffordable, such as inflation and interest rate increases, which reduce the purchasing power of a young or average family, and is not eliminated with zoning changes.

The realtor put forth that to build schools, roads, and other infrastructure, we need growth to collect real estate, personal property, and sales taxes.

Growth requires additional city services, which are currently stressed. The city is struggling to maintain an adequate level of service for schools, roads, stormwater runoff, and other infrastructure to support current communities, and cannot meet levels of services for additional development already in the pipeline. The city’s planned infrastructure improvements are years out. The Unified Development Ordinance (UDO) requires the level of service to be concurrent with the impact of development. The city needs to take a pause on rezoning additional land until development in the pipeline is met with adequate levels of service. As we add more citizens, we will add additional stress to the already overstressed infrastructure.

This was the cover email sent out by a regional real estate association to its Suffolk members.

The realtor’s cover e-mail related that the association knows the importance of “Smart Growth”, supporting rezoning in Suffolk for new communities, and calls out that CARE4Suffolk is opposing rezoning because the organization does not want more communities built in Suffolk.

According to the EPA, “Smart Growth” approaches include conserving resources by reinvesting in existing infrastructure and involving residents in development decisions. It stresses the importance of balancing health, schools, taxes, traffic, the environment, economic growth, and fairness in development decisions. Similarly, the CARE4Suffolk mission supports responsible growth, where the citizens of Suffolk will receive the level of service expected to maintain our quality of life. We understand the importance of growth and change and want it to occur responsibly with the city ensuring the infrastructure is in place, including schools, roads, and public utilities, prior to rezoning and development. We also want to preserve our wetlands and the areas around our reservoirs, which serve as our drinking water, and a precious resource for all of Hampton Roads.

The letter showed some realtors value having additional homes to produce sales as a higher priority in Suffolk than having safe roads and adequate school capacity. The city must consider the needs of all citizens and not merely some developers and realtors who stand to profit from irresponsible development. CARE4Suffolk calls for the city to take a pause on rezoning until there is a reduction in the pipeline and the city’s infrastructure can provide adequate levels of services as laid out in the UDO and the Comprehensive Plan. To learn more about this rezoning request, click here.

Dr. Sherri L. Johnston
Executive Director
CARE4Suffolk.org

Public Hearing Items Available

Care4Suffolk — Wed, 08 Mar 2023 17:17:00 +0000

The City of Suffolk has recently implemented a new process for significant land use projects. The planning department now uses the threshold of the 100s (100+ homes, 100,000+ sq. ft. for commercial uses, or 100 acres) to determine if an application will require additional time.

This new process, for any rezoning application or conditional use permit that meets one of these threshold, or if it is deemed significant by the Planning Director, allows extra time for both the Planning Commission and the City Council to review these significant land use applications. It adds an additional 30 days above the previous requirements. Prior to implementing this new process, whether a request was for in-home daycare permit or a enormous warehouse, the same amount of time to was given to both. Often, the first time the Planning Commissioners would be seeing the plans would be just a few days before they were expected to vote on it. The new process gives both voting bodies a longer chance to look at the plans and analyze the request. This is a very positive change and CARE4Suffolk is excited to see it in action.

Additionally, the city is now providing citizens all the information on each rezoning and conditional use public hearing item. This is a plus for both the public and the planning department. Previously, when you saw a blue sign, you had to call the city to find out what is going on. This was time consuming for both the city employees and residents. Now, with a click of a button, you view and download all the available information. CARE4Suffolk applauds the efforts of the city to make the process more transparent and accessible to the public.

Note: The link to the city’s site with the rezoning and conditional use/public hearing items is now available on our main menu under Rezoning Concerns.

Future Growth on Lake Kilby Rd?

Care4Suffolk — Mon, 06 Mar 2023 18:15:05 +0000

Last October a developer requested to rezone a parcel of land right on Lake Kilby Road (RZN2021-00018). The developer wished to rezone the land from agricultural to medium density residential and build a housing development of 225 homes on 106 acres of farmland.

The development in the request would be built just south of a development called Pitchkettle Farms. Pitchkettle Farms is zoned low residential density and has 112 houses, some with half-acre lots. To secure the support of the Pitchkettle Farms HOA, the developer agreed to ask for a variance, which was another item on the October Planning Commission agenda.

Good city planning practices require an interconnectivity of streets. So new neighborhoods built next to established neighborhoods connect by way of connection stubs. When Pitchkettle Farms was approved, it included the required connection point to join any future development.

The developer requested this a variance to normal city planning requirements because the Pitchkettle Farm neighborhood was, understandably so, not excited to be connecting to a new development with twice the number of homes, all of whom could be using their main street, Pitchkettle Farm Lane, to access Pitchkettle Road. Who wants to add that much traffic to their small neighborhood street?

However, there are many good reasons to make sure in city planning that roads connect. It reduces traffic congestion, provides continuous and more direct routes, increases safety for pedestrians and bicyclists, improves EMS vehicle access and response times, improves quality of utility connections and increases efficiency for public services like school buses and trash collection. For all of these reasons, the variance request was denied, and rightfully so.

Above is the original plan for the proposed development. Each yellow box represents a lot. At the top of the graphic, there is a row of lots, and in the middle of that row, there is a yellow line separating two housing lots. That line is where the neighborhoods should be connected by city standards.

The variance was requested to appease the Pitchkettle Farm HOA and gain their support for the new development. When the variance was denied, the HOA President no longer supported the new development. The developer has a long history of looking for support from HOA boards from neighboring developments. To get their support this time, he has redesigned the development so that the neighborhood barely connects (just a small little corner!) Thus he is hoping to avoid the issue altogether.

Above is the new plan. You can see a wedge piece of land removed from the top portion, so that it now has only the slightest connection with Pitchkettle Farms (north of proposed development), presumably to connect in with their public utilities, but avoid the road connectivity that the city requires.

The new development would be 204 houses on 87 acres of farmland.

When I sit here looking at the new plan, two questions spring to mind. The first is, what is the developer’s plan with that wedge slice of land? I notice the houses don’t follow the road all the way to the exit. Could it be that he plans to continue that road in the future? If so, he will likely be required by the city to connect the wedge piece to both developments, and there is plenty of room for a road to make that connection and to throw a couple dozen more houses there as well.

My second question is what happened to the road from the first plan in the northeast portion. That road was designed to connect to the commerce park area (already rezoned!) but there is a cul-de-sac in the new plan. Will that stay a cul-de-sac or will that connect to the commerce park? In case you are curious, areas zoned commerce park in Suffolk, by right, can contain: offices, office warehouses, or research and development facilities.

Above is a rendering of what could be in-store soon for those on Lake Kilby Rd. Lake Kilby Rd is a narrow country road, with flooding issues and large trucks that are unable to safely pass other traffic (see here and here.) In addition, both Elephant’s Fork Elementary and King’s Fork High School (the schools for this new development) are already overcrowded, without the added 204 houses this would bring.

Is this what we want to see for the future of Suffolk? Hundreds of houses pack on small parcels of land, with inadequate public services to provide for the citizens? If we do nothing, this is likely what we will see just down the road. If you want to stop this, join with CARE4Suffolk and help us let the city know we do not want this.

Important Information

Planning Commission Meeting, Tuesday, March 21 at 2pm at City Hall is at 442 W. Washington St.

Sign our petition to let the city know what you think.

Email the City Planning Department direct – planningemail@suffolkva.us

Email City Council direct – council@suffolkva.us

Call City Planning – 757-514-4060

To receive email updates, please complete this form.

Update Lake Kilby Road Rezoning Request

Care4Suffolk — Fri, 03 Mar 2023 15:43:10 +0000

The blue rezoning signs should be popping up any day now on Lake Kilby Road. The Planning Commission public hearing for the Lake Kilby/Lake Cohoon Road rezoning effort (RZN2021-0018) is only a few weeks away (March 21st, 2pm at City Hall). We need as many people as possible to attend this meeting (wear a blue shirt!). They will vote to recommend approval or denial and City Council will take this into consideration when they make the final vote on it in April.

We still have an online petition that will get printed out and shared with the city. Please check out the link, sign it and pass it along! We appreciate comments on the petition, too!

A developer is requesting to rezone 87 acres on Lake Kilby and Lake Cohoon Roads from Rural Estate to Residential Medium Density to allow for 204 cluster style homes. Rural Estate allows for 1 house for every 3 acres. Residential Medium zoning allows for 4 houses per acre.

Local residents oppose this rezoning because our narrow, rural roads are already crowded and dangerous. According to VDOT, our impacted roads see about 1,200 vehicle trips per day. This proposed development would bring more than 2,000 additional daily vehicle trips. That number does not include delivery trucks and other service-related vehicles.

The public schools for this area are overcrowded. Elephant’s Fork Elementary is already at 110% capacity. It is listed as a school with most needs and has a poor facility condition per the Joint School Board Presentation. Kings Fork High School is at 104% capacity.

City Council has already approved more than 7,400 housing units across Suffolk that have not yet been built. We don’t need anymore new residential units in Suffolk.

This rezoning effort will go before Planning Commission for consideration 21 March 2023 at 2 PM.

Please help stop this rezoning by attending on March 21^st and by signing this petition!

Thank you!

Important Contact Information

City Hall is at 442 W. Washington St

Email the City Planning Department direct – planningemail@suffolkva.us

Email City Council direct – council@suffolkva.us

Call City Planning – 757-514-4060

To receive email updates, please complete this form.

Lake Kilby Rezoning Update

Care4Suffolk — Tue, 31 Jan 2023 02:10:50 +0000

Lake Kilby rezoning request (RZN2021-00018) is set to be heard at the Tuesday, March 21, 2023 Planning Commission meeting at 2:00pm at City Hall. We will be mounting an opposition to this rezoning request. Please plan to attend to show your support for CARE4Suffolk and wear your blue CARE4Suffolk shirt (or any blue shirt). If you would like to help in other ways, please email care4suffolk@gmail.com.

Update of Lake Kilby Rezoning

Care4Suffolk — Tue, 22 Nov 2022 18:16:00 +0000

It sounds like things for the Lake Kilby Road rezoning are about to start back up. The developer has re-submitted a modified application to Planning. Hopefully we will know more details before the end of the week. In the event Planning accepts the changes, the earliest the application would go back to the Planning Commission would be Tuesday, December 20th at 2pm. We know this is the holiday season and the afternoon meeting time is tough, but PLEASE pencil this in on your calendars and plan to be there. We will send out more updates once we know for sure if it is happening on the 20th.

What can you do until then:
– Please sign our petition. If you already have, share it with others.: https://tinyurl.com/stop-lake-kilby-rezoning

– Contact the city Planning Division and let them know your concerns: PlanningEmail@suffolkva.us or 757-514-4150.

– Attend the City Council meeting on 7 Dec, 6pm. Let’s make our concern as visible as possible before the planning commission meeting. If you would like to speak, but aren’t sure what to talk about, please let us know and we will help you draft some talking points and get signed up to speak. Even the shortest statements are helpful.

Please help keep the conversation and information flowing!

Safety Issues on Lake Kilby Road

Care4Suffolk — Sat, 29 Oct 2022 07:38:00 +0000

Lake Kilby Road is like many rural roads in Suffolk. It has narrow lanes (about 8 feet wide), no shoulders, and deep ditches just off the side of the road.

These narrow, rural roads can not handle the traffic that currently drives up and down them every day. They are certainly not ready for large developments, like the one the developer proposes for Lake Kilby Road and Lake Cohoon Road. A development like that will triple the traffic volume on this country road.

The citizens need to stand together and let City Council know that we do not support this kind of development when the infrastructure is not in place to handle it. To find out more, please check out our page on the Lake Kilby rezoning concern.

Opposition in a Box

Care4Suffolk — Fri, 28 Oct 2022 11:40:00 +0000

The Ellis Farm rezoning request has not gone before the Planning Commission with a public hearing yet, but CARE4Suffolk is ready when that day happens. In early September, when neighbors of Ellis Farm realized that a developer applied for rezoning of the land with the intention of building 300 houses, they gathered together to form a group to oppose this rezoning and came up with a plan of action.

When rezoning signs get posted by the city, there are only two short weeks for citizens to learn about the rezoning, gather information and research, and if they oppose the rezoning, it does not leave them much time to make a plan to oppose the rezoning. CARE4Suffolk would like share what we did to prepare for the Ellis Farm opposition.

Our first step was to contact the city and learn all we could about what the rezoning is, what the plan for the property is and where in the rezoning process it is. Next, as neighbors we started to connect with one another about this. We were emailing each other, calling, and bringing it up in conversation as we ran into each other. One of our neighbors organized a meeting to bring everyone together to figure out what we can do to stop the rezoning. She reached out to our city council member as well.

At our first community meeting at the house of one of our neighbors, where around 20 people attended, we discussed what our options are and let everyone have a chance to share their thoughts. The meeting was about 5 days before the scheduled Planning Commission meeting, so there wasn’t a lot of time. We decided to focus on two main areas of concern: overcrowded schools and traffic/safety on Manning Road. We asked for volunteers to speak before the city and two volunteers offered their help with research and writing. With this group of five, we worked the weekend to prepare the speeches and documentation to be delivered to the city the following Tuesday. We had an online petition gathering scores of signatures daily. We also had several people outreaching to the broader community to gain more support. Our plan was to have as many community members show up to the Planning Commission meeting as possible, and when our first speaker asked for anyone present who opposes the Ellis Farm rezoning to please stand up, our group would stand en masse. Our outreach was done through social media, emails, phone calls, and the monumental task of delivery flyers up and down Manning Road and the surrounding communities. We asked community members to ask their friends, family, and neighbors is Suffolk to join us.

As it turned out we were able to gather a crowd of about 50 people. We all showed up early to City Hall but the developer got wind of our opposition and requested the item to be tabled. The public hearing for the Ellis Farm was tabled for 30 days. At first we were all very disappointed and frustrated by this, but in the end it worked in our favor. Thirty days gave us a lot more time to prepare. We jumped right into preparations for the next Planning Commission meeting. One member of our group began getting t-shirts printed. Another started a website. We also decided to organize our volunteers into teams to better spread out the workload. In addition, our researchers grew in number and they had more time to perfect our arguments against rezoning. Our outreach team continued to deliver flyers, make calls, and post online. In addition, we held a series of public meeting inviting anyone in the community to come and bring a friend, to learn more about what we were planning.

CARE4Suffolk’s Blue Binder with each argument in opposition to the rezoning and each piece of documentation in its own labeled tab.

“Opposition in a Box”: This banker’s box contained eight blue binders from CARE4Suffolk, one for each Planning Commissioner, along with a thumb drive with a digital version.

From our first Planning Commission meeting we learned that emailing our substantial documentation, which was then printed by the city, and provided to the Commissioners, was not the best format to provide our detailed arguments opposing the rezoning. One member came up with the idea to organize our research into binders. Our research and writing team began to prepare these. We sorted our binders into sections, with each argument in opposition and each supporting document having its own tab to quickly reference. We duplicated this is a digital format. The week before the October Planning Commission meeting, all of our documents were due to be handed into the city. One member boxed up eight binders into a banker’s box and attached a thumb drive with the electronic version, and then delivered it to the city. We have dubbed this our “Opposition in a Box”.

By the end of the thirty days, our membership had multiplied and we began to make contacts with other Suffolk residents who were experiencing rezoning issues of their own. We began to collaborate and to share information and resources. The Lake Kilby group was scheduled to appear before the Planning Commission at the same time and their rezoning plight shared so many issues with our Ellis Farm rezoning. We decided to coordinate. We attended each other’s meeting and we shared our binder with them as well as our strategy. Our rezoning got pulled from the agenda by the developer, so we did not end up having our public hearing, but we were happy to be able to join forces with Lake Kilby and stand for them, as they were prepared to stand for us, to oppose the irresponsible rezoning on Lake Kilby Road. We are excited that the Planning Commissioners voted against recommending the Lake Kilby rezoning. We hope to persuade them to vote against rezoning Ellis Farm when we get a chance to have our public hearing.

If you are facing a rezoning request near you, and you have concerns about its impact, feel free to use any of our strategy to help your cause. Here is a link to our digital binder. It shows our arguments in opposition and the research we collected, and how we organized it all. If your rezoning concern is in Suffolk, consider completing our Rezoning Concern Form to let us know more about it.