warehouses – Care4Suffolk

Steering Suffolk Towards More Warehouses and Sprawl

Care4Suffolk — Tue, 12 Nov 2024 06:23:00 +0000

When the 2045 Comprehensive Plan draft came out, many people had the initial reaction that it was not actually about the needs of the people of Suffolk. Digging deeper into the plan and watching staff presentations about it has made it clear that the priority is actually for Suffolk to shoulder regional goals. Why has the City spent over three years, spending taxpayer money, tailoring its long-term growth plans to the needs of the Port of Virginia and the region?

Looking at the 2045 Plan’s steering committee might answer this question. It consists of selected individuals that are supposed to “help guide the process for and substance of the plan.” Of the 24 members, about half are either: not from Suffolk, have strong ties to development-focused regional organizations (such as Hampton Roads Alliance), and/or are in the real estate business. Nine members belong to at least one regional organization, with five of those currently or previously holding board or other leadership positions. One member is a Vice President with the Port of Virginia with his role listed as Port Centric Logistics. Another is a sitting council member representing the regional realtor’s association.

In addition, the person hired to manage the 2045 Comprehensive Plan previously worked as the Deputy Executive Director of the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission, with one duty being to develop a “program to increase the region’s inventory of shovel-ready economic development sites.”

Our Deputy City Manager who oversees the Planning Department (responsible for the creating the comprehensive plan), also has a strong regional background. He previously worked as Business Development Manager with the Hampton Roads Alliance and is on the Suffolk Division Board of the Hampton Roads Chamber.

We have nothing against these individuals personally or Suffolk being part of the broader Hampton Roads community. However, there is a problem when individuals are selected by the City of Suffolk to represent the citizens, but instead they prioritize regional goals. The Port of Virginia wants more warehouses and workforce housing, Suffolk has the land they need, and the objective of the 2045 Comprehensive Plan is clearly to make it available.

Suffolk residents provided plenty of feedback letting city planners and managers know that they don’t want a congested warehouse city. We’re already an important “regional partner” with our existing 21 million square feet of warehouse space (which we’re having enough problems handling.)

We are also a critical partner with the lakes of Suffolk providing drinking water to many in Hampton Roads. Previous comprehensive plans explicitly state the need to keep these areas low density to protect this precious resource. Now our planners want expansion of the most intense types of development further into our drinking water watersheds.

The deck has been stacked against Suffolk’s citizens’ right to control their future through the regional influence in this plan. Regional collaboration is one thing, but we should not be accepting the role of subordinate. We are asking City Council to be bold on November 20th by voting ‘no’ to adopting the 2045 Comprehensive Plan and keeping the focus on what is best for the current residents of Suffolk. You can let them know if you feel the same way at council@suffolkva.us.

Please sign Care4Suffolk’s petition asking City Council to oppose the 2045 Comprehensive Plan.

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.

How Much Will It Cost Us?

Care4Suffolk — Thu, 12 Sep 2024 02:12:29 +0000

The recent groundbreaking ceremony for the future 5-million square foot Port 460 development provides a good opportunity to remind Suffolk’s decision-makers about why a whole-city Fiscal Impact Analysis needs to be completed before a new comprehensive plan is approved.

After the August 21 City Council Meeting’s public hearing on the 2045 Comprehensive Plan, Mayor Duman made a few comments before City Council voted to delay final action on it. One statement (at Mark 2:59:50) was regarding the Fiscal Impact Analysis (FIA) that was supposed to have been completed:

“I’m not that concerned with a fiscal analysis for the whole city.”

He is not the only person on Council or city staff to feel that this FIA is unnecessary. (We wrote about Comprehensive Planning Manager Keith Cannady’s response in this article.)

However, a FIA is a very important piece of data for a city when considering growth. It details the expected revenue that different development scenarios will bring and the costs of services that the city will have to provide over time. Essentially, it tells you if certain types of growth will likely be: net positive – we make money; net neutral – we break even; or net negative – it will be a fiscal drain on the city.

Mr. Cannady offered two justifications for skipping this crucial step in the 2045 Comprehensive Plan. The first reason is that city planners aren’t changing Suffolk’s current growth approach (which is to just expand the growth area every five years with each new comprehensive plan update). The second reason is that he believes that the site-level FIAs conducted by developers for rezoning applications are sufficient.

A recent example of one of these site-level FIAs is the one provided by the developer (Matan Companies) for the Port 460 rezoning. If you read through the FIA they conducted here, you will see that they include figures for jobs created, tax revenue, and the money they will spend on road construction and improvements. You will also notice there is something missing: Cost of Services. This is the second piece of the equation that would include maintenance for roads, sewers, and storm water drainage, as well as costs for emergency services and other city services. A FIA should not just look at the one-time cost of these services at installation, it is supposed to include costs over time.

Matan claims that they will be spending about $27 million dollars on road construction and improvements. Only $8 million goes to improving existing roads and the remaining $19 million is to create 5 new public roads – which Suffolk and its taxpayers will have to continue to maintain indefinitely. Roads that have non-stop tractor trailer traffic traveling on them are not cheap to maintain! Leaving out the cost of services is NOT a minor detail. It is half of the piece of this puzzle.

We don’t know the answer to how much Port 460 will actually cost taxpayers, because the developer didn’t provide the data and the city didn’t ask!

The City didn’t require an independent third party to conduct or review the fiscal analysis for this huge and impactful project – they simply took the word of the developer as they do with any other ordinary rezoning application.

Is it fiscally responsible to just trust that a developer won’t omit, distort, or fabricate data on a project worth hundreds of millions of dollars? The Mayor himself stated, as he presided over the Port 460 rezoning hearing, that he didn’t believe the accuracy of the claim from Matan when they said that they would be creating 9,000 jobs. He stated:

“I agree, you know, that the number of jobs projected seems pretty high to me. I mean, I’m telling you. I’m… you know… I guess anybody can do a study, but I don’t know where we are getting 9,000 jobs from. I mean, but I’ll take 2,000.” (Source: City Council Meeting, September 21, 2022, at mark 2:08:05)

To rely solely on these site-level FIAs goes against recommendations by experts that a FIA be done during the comprehensive plan process. If the growth approach we have been following is not making the City money, then we want to change it. If there is another way to grow and we can make money and not pave over our farmland, we want to know that, too. Suffolk seems to be blindly going down the path it has been following for decades, but with no data to prove it is a good path.

We go into great length explaining the importance of the FIA and documenting expert opinions in this article. Importantly, the FIA for a comprehensive plan is not conducted by a developer, but instead as a collaboration between the city staff and the comprehensive plan contractor. We shared all of this information with the Mayor and most City Council members. A quick summary is that this FIA allows the city to analyze multiple growth build-out scenarios (3 scenarios were originally a requirement of Suffolk’s contract for the FIA). It can offer comparisons over small or large areas and allow the city to consider the fiscal impacts if certain land is developed as residential or industrial or simply left as agricultural. Our city leaders chose NOT to look at any data on any scenarios. Not only are they skipping this step for this 2045 Comprehensive Plan, it was not done for the 2035 Comprehensive Plan either, which was adopted back in 2015.

The city has been doing decades worth of this type of growth based on no fiscal analysis.

Mayor Duman says he’s not concerned with the FIA. But Suffolk’s citizens ARE concerned. The City is putting the 2045 Comprehensive Plan on hold to complete the Master Transportation Plan, which is very much needed and may demonstrate the need for a lot of expensive projects.

We have been asking since April to hold off on the plan until city staff provides a proper fiscal analysis, as originally required, for the growth that they are proposing. If development in this new comprehensive plan will be so beneficial for the citizens, then there shouldn’t be an issue proving it with an actual FIA. This plan and any future developments should be denied until we know how much it is going to cost us – the taxpayers.

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.

Voice of the People

Care4Suffolk — Sat, 20 Jul 2024 17:15:47 +0000

The City of Suffolk is on the verge of adopting the new 2045 Comprehensive Plan. This plan just got approved by a vote of 7-1 by the Planning Commission and it now heads to City Council for a vote on Wednesday, August 21 at 6pm at City Hall.

This plan is NOT in the best interest of the residents.

Please sign our petition opposing this plan and read on for more details.

The City received more than 7,500 responses from citizens telling the City what they want for the future of Suffolk. The responses were documented and then summarized, and you can read those here.

The key themes from the public’s responses are in the chart below along with whether the City has a plan to deliver based on the 2045 Comprehensive Plan:

WHAT THE PEOPLE ASKED FOR:	2045 COMP PLAN TO DELIVER
Small town feel	NO
Downtown Investment	NO
Open Space and Parks	NO
Well planned development	NO
Fix traffic issues	NO
Safe, walkable communities	NO
Invest in public transportation, trails, and rail	MAYBE
Well planned economic development	NO
More amenities	MAYBE
Affordable housing	MAYBE
Limit warehouses	NO
Preserve agriculture	NO
Engage public about their wants and needs	NO

Using all the public feedback, the City could have developed a vision for Suffolk that the people could get behind. However, the 2045 Comp Plan has no vision. With the demand from citizens to invest in downtown, the City could have focused economic development on downtown, but instead, they are carving out new areas for even more warehouses (we already lead Hampton Roads in warehouses!) Instead of limiting warehouse development to existing space and fixing our traffic problems, the 2045 Comprehensive Plan will exacerbate these problems, destroy the open space and farmland people want to preserve, and ruin that small town feel that Suffolk has.

People want to live in communities that are safe and walkable. The push for more warehouses is driving the housing market’s need for higher density housing, and builders want to build where it is cheap and easy (namely on agricultural land), so they can maximize their profits. The City could have focused on community building and infill development close to downtown, but instead we are going to get more of the same suburban sprawl that is NOT walkable, and it will devour more agricultural land. The City keeps allowing these huge suburban neighborhoods and thinks that just because they put sidewalks there, that makes them walkable.

The people of Suffolk value the open spaces and farmland in Suffolk. Farmland is a finite resource that once gone, is gone for good. Getting rid of the land that grows our food is terribly short-sighted. The city pays lip service to preserving agricultural land, but it stipulates that it will preserve it only OUTSIDE the Growth Areas. Yet the City keeps expanding the Growth Areas. They also added language to this new plan that gives them flexibility to build outside the Growth Areas IF the City deems it is a good idea. So basically, no farmland, forestry land, or open space is safe from development, if it can feed the City’s voracious appetite for ‘growth’.

L.5.3 Consider amending the City’s development regulations to add guidelines for the review of exceptional development opportunities outside of the growth boundaries. (p.68 of 2045 Comprehensive Plan)

Before getting public comments, the City met with ‘focus groups’ and staff. We don’t know who attended these meetings, so we submitted a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request, and are waiting for that information, but what is pretty clear is that early on it was staff and certain groups of people that were able to sway this plan to their desires, and it definitely wasn’t the citizens.

Here are some highlights from those meetings (full summary is here):

WHAT ‘FOCUS GROUPS’ ASKED FOR:	2045 COMP PLAN TO DELIVER
Interest in expanding Growth Areas	YES
Vacant, rural land provides areas for transformative development projects	YES
Demand is there for continued growth	YES
Efficient and predictable review process, “speed to build” or will look at other communities.	YES
Infrastructure costs – water, sewer, and roads can become barriers for industrial development.	YES
Growth of industrial areas is what drives many of the housing developments.	YES
There is a shifting need to invest in infrastructure prior to building homes (initial investments for long-term returns) would assist developers.	YES
City should either allow for more industrial development or limit based on current boundaries; there is a demand so this is a choice for the City to make.	YES
Renewable energy is looking within the region, planning for this in rural areas is important.	YES

These focus groups got a lot of things THEY wanted – expanded growth areas along with more land use for industrial and then more land for residential development to support it. They asked for a faster and more predictable review process.

L.1.2 Review and revise current development regulations, including the Unified Development Ordinance (UDO) and the zoning map, to improve compatibility with the comprehensive plan. (p.64 of 2045 Comprehensive Plan)

This is part of the “efficient and predictable review process”. It doesn’t matter how many times a staff or City Council Members says that this is ‘just a plan’ and ‘not written in stone’, because the City is planning to rewrite the UDO to reflect the 2045 Comprehensive Plan and rezoning applications that come before them that conform to the Future Land Map will get rezoned. This new Land Use Map is the future of Suffolk. If you don’t know what the land around your home will look like in the future, you should check it out now. This could be our last chance to change this.

The other item that was requested by these ‘focus groups’ was about infrastructure. Developers want it in place so they don’t have to pay or wait for it. Let’s take a moment to appreciate that one about infrastructure. As citizens, we get told all the time that development builds the infrastructure, as in literally, if a developer wants to build, he has to pay for the sewer connection, a pump station if necessary, build the roads and sidewalks, etc.. All of a sudden, developers are complaining about how expensive that is and maybe they won’t build unless the infrastructure is already in place – and so the City adds into the 2045 Comprehensive Plan:

L.5.1 Identify priority economic development sites and make strategic investments to advance site readiness. (p.68 of 2045 Comprehensive Plan)

E.1.6 Strategically expand utility service (water, sewer, fiber) to sites that can support new employment generating businesses. Develop financing options to

facilitate the construction of water and sewer projects to support development.

Use City-funded utility capacity improvements as incentives for development. (p. 81 of 2045 Comprehensive Plan)

The site-readiness is all about having everything in place so developers don’t have to do the work or spend the money to get the land ready. The idea is now that the city will bring in the sewers and other utilities and have the site ready to build on, which will make it more attractive to developers.

Keep in mind that the people asked for fewer warehouses, but now we will get to pay to help build what we don’t even want. How is this representing the citizens? If these warehouses are going to be bringing in so much money, the developers should foot the bill to invest in infrastructure – not the taxpayers!

To entice these warehouse developers that the citizens don’t want, the City is prepared to make Suffolk’s current farmland ‘site-ready’ for the developers on our dime. Knowing this, the City still made the decision to skip the fiscal analysis. The experts that had been contracted to do the FIA, recommend doing the FIA first and then evaluating options, only then should the city write the comprehensive plan. The City of Suffolk decided that it wasn’t going to even evaluate different options for development and it wasn’t necessary to look at the long-term financial impact. This is a HUGE increase in growth for the city, including building large scale warehouses and residential developments on farmland that does not currently have infrastructure.

The State of Virginia requires that comprehensive plans be adopted with the purpose of “prosperity and general welfare of the inhabitants”. This plan does NOT meet that standard. This plan is supposed to be about us, our needs and wants, and our vision for the future of Suffolk, not the Port’s needs, developers’ desires, and the will of City staff.

If any of this isn’t sitting right with you, please join us in opposing the 2045 Comprehensive Plan. Please sign our petition, share with all of your neighbors, friends and family in Suffolk. Maybe, just maybe, if enough of us tell City Council we don’t want this, maybe they will listen to the voice of the people.

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

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.

Land Use Change with 2045 Comp Plan

Care4Suffolk — Sat, 22 Jun 2024 20:24:11 +0000

The 2045 Comprehensive Plan that will be coming before City Council on August 21st for consideration will have substantial changes in Land Use for the residents of Suffolk. It is important that the citizens of Suffolk understand the changes that will come if the 2045 Comprehensive Plan is approved.

At the June 18, 2024 Planning Commission Work Session, the Staff addressed a concern they were hearing, specifically about the large amount of purple on the map, the “Employment Centers”. These Employment Centers are where warehouses can be built. The Staff assured Planning Commission, and the public, that the increase in this land use type is only a 14% increase from the current industrial land use.

See for yourself. Below are two images, with the ability to slide between the Current Land Use (left) and compare it to the Future Land Use (right). On both maps, the purple areas are the Industrial Land Use/Employment Centers. Does that look like a 14% increase to you?

There is a diamond shaped cursor in the map. Slide it left and right to see the changes in land use that are coming with this new comprehensive plan.

The keys for the two maps are below. In general, green is for agricultural land, open space and parks; yellow to orange is residential; red is commercial; and purple is for industrial where warehouses can be built.

The maps and keys come from the 2045 Comprehensive Plan draft. The Current Land Use map and key are on pages 31-32 and the Future Land Use map and key are on page 41.

Current Land Use Key

Future Land Use Key

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

City’s Vision Lacking: Suffolk to Support Regional Goals

Care4Suffolk — Mon, 06 May 2024 19:44:56 +0000

At the Joint City Council and Planning Commission meeting on May 1, 2024, city leaders highlighted their extraordinary efforts to reach out to the community during the development of the 2045 Comprehensive Plan. They were right! They did get a lot of engagement and input from the public and we applaud them for that. Unfortunately, the City didn’t listen to us. This new comprehensive plan is NOT reflective of the comments from the citizens of Suffolk.

We said that we want to maintain our small town feel, preserve our open space, focus on creating a vibrant and flourishing downtown, have affordable housing, and respect our agricultural history. The public feedback overwhelmingly told the City that we are growing too fast and our infrastructure can’t keep up. The citizens want to maintain what makes us special: a city with a small town feel and strong agricultural roots.

In contrast, City Staff chose to focus this new comprehensive plan on Regionalism and Suffolk’s role in the economic engine that is the Port of Virginia. The City’s vision for Suffolk’s future is one of warehouses, congested roads, and suburban sprawl.

Why do the citizens of Suffolk have to sacrifice our wide-open spaces, prime farmland, and our small-town feel, to make room for more warehouses, more truck traffic, and more suburban sprawl?

Instead of taking this public feedback and creating a vision the people can support, the City disregarded our desires in order to follow ‘recent trends’ and capitalize on the Port of Virginia. As citizens of Suffolk, we deserve better! We deserve a comprehensive plan that is focused on OUR priorities, encompassing the values we have and not just paying lip-service to them.

What if, instead of focusing on being one of the fastest growing cities in Virginia, we focus on being the city everyone wants to visit? What if we take the special qualities we already have and make them more visible and interconnected? An alternative vision for Suffolk is one where nature, agriculture and a vibrant and thriving downtown come together. We can achieve this if we discard that vision of warehouse and suburban sprawl and instead look inwards on how we can improve the Suffolk we have.

Tourism in Suffolk had an economic impact of $217.8 million in 2022. Compare that to neighboring Chesapeake, with almost $800 million dollars of impact; it is clear there is significant room for growth in the tourism industry here. (source) Even more impressively, the greater Richmond area brought in $3.5 billion in direct tourist spending in 2022 ,with Henrico County alone accounting for $1.7 billion dollars of that tourist money. (source) Richmond and its surrounding areas focus on youth sports. Suffolk should have its own focus and is well-poised to capitalize on its small-town charm, agricultural community and its ecological and outdoor adventure possibilities.

Suffolk already has so much to offer with its unique character, history, and culture. It is rich in natural resources with a mild climate that allows for year-round outdoor activity. Our villages each have their own charm and there are abundant historical sites throughout the City. A more focused emphasis on connecting our parks, waterways, bike paths, historical sites, cultural attractions, and small businesses would enhance the community both for residents and visitors.

Agriculture is the single largest private industry in the state, generating roughly $462 million of direct and indirect economic impact for the City of Suffolk. (source) It can be the key to Suffolk’s future if we let it. “Agritourism” is a growing subset of tourism. People are looking for that authentic experience and the opportunity to connect with nature and the rural environment. One way we could invest in our agricultural community is with the construction of an agricultural complex that could serve as a venue to draw visitors and farmers from around the state and beyond. It could host everything from horse shows to dog shows, livestock events, chicken swaps, tractor pulls, and educational opportunities with organizations like 4-H and Future Farmers of America.

Our local agricultural community could be the backbone of a new public market that could be located downtown. Public markets can be a driving economic force in communities, as well as a public space for increasing social integration and providing opportunities for social mobility. (source) They provide access to the marketplace for small local businesses, serve as a supply of fresh produce in food deserts, offer a venue for local artists and musicians, and have the ability to draw people from throughout the city and surrounding areas as a tourist destination. A public market could link the rural areas of Suffolk to our downtown, revitalizing it with new economic opportunities and bringing people together.

A passenger rail stop downtown could generate even more tourism. Amtrak reported record ridership to Newport News, Norfolk, and Richmond with over 92,610 riders in March 2024, up 24% from the previous March. (source) According to Michigan State University, tourism has become one of the largest and fastest-growing economic sectors and can be a “key economic driver of socio-economic progress through the creation of jobs, new business, export revenues and infrastructure development.” (source)

Instead of building suburban sprawl outside the downtown area that will incur more heavy long-term infrastructure costs, we can focus on infill towards our city center. A thousand more tightly-packed single-family homes built on farmland and priced at $400,000 will not help with the affordable housing crisis in our city. We don’t have to build houses for everyone to move to Suffolk–instead, let’s make it a priority to build affordable housing for our citizens already living in Suffolk.

Warehouses may bring some economic benefit to a city, but it is accompanied by heavy truck traffic, air and noise pollution. They are unsightly and do not instill public pride or contribute to the social and cultural experiences of a city. By contrast, agriculture, tourism and a public market can enhance a community on many levels, contributing to economic development while preserving natural resources. These things can become a source of pride for our city.

A commitment to stop paving over our farmland could bring about a future for Suffolk that ties us together. Things like a passenger rail stop, a public market, and an agricultural complex, along with increased interconnectivity of our parks, trails, waterways, historic sites and villages, could provide us a thriving downtown and preserve our agricultural lands for generations to come.

This vision is in line with the public feedback the City received – serving as the warehouse capital of Virginia is not. Let’s focus on what makes Suffolk special. Let’s say no to the vision in the 2045 Comprehensive Plan and ask the City to envision a better future for Suffolk.

This is just one alternative vision for Suffolk. It’s not perfect, but I think it is a great improvement over warehouses and suburban sprawl. What are your ideas and thoughts about what we can do to create a better future for our city? Please comment below or email us at care4suffolk@gmail.com to share your ideas.

How do the competing visions of Agriculture & Tourism v. Warehouses
compare with Public Input? See for yourself in the charts below:

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

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.

Get Ready, More Warehouses are Coming to Suffolk

Care4Suffolk — Wed, 20 Mar 2024 15:43:07 +0000

The new 2045 Comprehensive Plan draft drastically increases the Growth Area in Suffolk, by enlarging the existing one by almost 25%, which is unprecedented in the history of Suffolk’s comprehensive plans. The Growth Area is important because it lets developers know in which areas the city (not necessarily the citizens) wants to see more development.

In addition to expanding the Growth Area, our city managers have created a Future Land Use Map. This map shows what type of development (residential, commercial, industrial, etc.) the city would like to see in different areas, which is often very different from the actual, current zoning. If you haven’t looked at your home’s location, you should check it out and see what will be changing near you.

If this plan is approved as it is, Chuckatuck and Sleepy Hole will be seeing an increase in suburban residential development. Whaleyville is about to see an increase in warehouses. Cypress and Nansemond will see increases in both suburban residential and warehouses, while Holy Neck is about to take the brunt of the expansion with enormous increases in both warehouses and suburban residential developments. Holy Neck residents: the city can’t commit to building a rec center in your borough in the next 5 years, but they can guarantee you will get more warehouses!

The term ‘Employment Center’ is now the Land Use Type name they want to use for areas where city managers want to allow warehouses and manufacturing. If you are wondering how much these ‘Employment Center’ areas are set to expand, you will be disappointed to know that the city hasn’t measured it. When specifically asked, what is the area of all land currently zoned industrial as well as the area of the proposed ‘Employment Center’ land use category, the city planner responded that the area in the plan ‘has not been calculated in this way’ and that this isn’t ‘an engineering project’.

The Planning Department stated during a comprehensive plan briefing at the February 7th City Council meeting (mark 19:47) that, “You want to make decisions based on good data.” So why have they not used basic metrics like area? Land is a limited resource. How can you plan without measuring how much we currently have zoned for industrial and how much we want in the future?

Maybe they don’t want to measure because they don’t want to tell us how much area they are expanding for warehouses. (It is about four times the current industrial-zoned areas, by an eye-ball measurement, and sadly, that is the best info we were able to get off the provided maps.)

Interestingly, listed as THE TOP, #1, Objective and Action in the ECONOMIC section of the new comprehensive plan, is this plan to build a publicly owned commerce/industrial park:

E.1 Attract and retain employment-generating industries. (p. 80, 2045 Comprehensive Plan Draft)

E.1.1 Develop a publicly owned commerce/industrial park to promote diverse industry growth in support of higher-paying jobs. The site should be aligned with the Virginia Business Ready program (VBRSP) to leverage the visibility and funding opportunities available at the state level. VBRSP grants are awarded to assist with the costs of site assessment and work (rezoning, surveying, infrastructure improvements, etc.) necessary to increase a site’s development readiness.

City planners won’t measure the area they want to expand for warehouses and logistic centers, but they know they want to develop a publicly owned commerce/industrial park? Where is this park going to be? How big will it be? It is hard to imagine they spent two years on this draft, list this as the #1 economic priority and don’t know what they are planning. Where is the transparency?

They will also tell you that zoning and land use type are not the same. However, the wording in the 2045 Comprehensive Plan says differently. Check out the sections below that clearly talk about changing the zoning to match the Future Land Use map.

OBJECTIVES AND ACTIONS (p. 64, 2045 Comprehensive Plan Draft)

L.1 Focus development in designated Growth Areas and promote development that is consistent with the Future Land Use and Growth Areas Map.

L.1.1 Review development proposals for consistency with the Future Land Use and Growth Areas Map, the Future Land Use Types described and mapped in this chapter, and the Guiding Values, Land Use Principals, Objectives and Actions adopted in this plan.

2.1.2 Review and revise current development regulations, including the Unified Development Ordinance (UDO) and the zoning map, to improve compatibility with the comprehensive plan.

Priority areas for consideration include:

• Downtown Mixed Use Core & Adjacent Neighborhoods

• North Suffolk Mixed Use Core

• Opportunities to Promote Affordable Housing

• Opportunities to Promote Master-Planned Traditional Neighborhood Developments

• Rural Villages/VC Zoning District

• Consistency with Use District and Place Type Definitions and the Future Land Use Plan

Integration into City Operations and Processes

Regulatory Updates (p. 153, 2045 Comprehensive Plan Draft)

Revisions to the City’s zoning code and other regulations should be made in accordance with the plan. The process for updating the zoning code will be led by City Staff in collaboration with the Planning Commission and will be determined following the adoption of the plan. This will provide the City with the regulatory authority to enforce recommendations in the Future Land Use Map and promote other desired outcomes expressed through the plan’s actions.

Private Development Decisions (p. 152, 2045 Comprehensive Plan Draft)

Property owners and developers should consider the principles, objectives, and actions in the plan in their land planning and investment decisions. Public decision-makers will be using the plan as a guide in their development deliberations such as zoning matters and infrastructure requests. Property owners and developers should be cognizant of and complement the plan’s recommendations.

If you don’t like what you see in the Land Use map, don’t count on the process of rezoning with a public hearing to help you fight it. The city is being perfectly clear that they want to streamline this process. They want to make it easier for developers to look at the map and, regardless of the zoning, allow them to develop based on the Land Use Map. The city is helping developers rezone the land with this document. This is yet more evidence that this new plan is written with the developers in mind and not the citizens.

This can not be stressed enough. This new comprehensive plan is designed to make it easier for developers to build even when it doesn’t match the zoning. If you do not want what is proposed in the Land Use Map, NOW is the time to act and let City Council know. If you don’t want to see four times the amount of warehouses we already have, you need to tell them now. If you are waiting to give your input during a future rezoning application, it will be 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

warehouses – Care4Suffolk

Steering Suffolk Towards More Warehouses and Sprawl

CONFIRMED! Suffolk’s Future is to Serve the Port

How Much Will It Cost Us?

Regional Influence to Turn Suffolk into a Dry Port

Voice of the People

Servants of the Port

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.

Comparison of warehouse development over time.

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

Slide explaining new secondary use of Employment Centers.

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

Land Use Change with 2045 Comp Plan

City’s Vision Lacking: Suffolk to Support Regional Goals

How do the competing visions of Agriculture & Tourism v. Warehouses compare with Public Input? See for yourself in the charts below:

Comprehensive Plan Survey

Get Ready, More Warehouses are Coming to Suffolk

How do the competing visions of Agriculture & Tourism v. Warehouses
compare with Public Input? See for yourself in the charts below: