Suffolk again tabled a vote on its working comprehensive plan update until Dec. 18 after a tense meeting.
The decision frustrated many in attendance. More than a dozen people spoke during the public hearing before an overflowing gallery in Suffolk City Hall. Several called for City Council to wait even longer for a vote, until January, when councilmember-elect Ebony Wright would be seated.
Denise Murden, who advocates for residents on land use issues and serves on the board of a grassroots advocacy group Citizens Voice, called it “so anti-what the citizens just said they wanted done.”
City councilmember Shelley Butler Barlow compared the city’s growth to a hurdler running faster than they knew how to, and suggested pushing the vote to 2025.
“This plan needs to get done. It needs to be on the table for the December vote,” said councilmember Roger Fawcett, who made the official motion to override Barlow’s suggestion. “It’s not the worst plan in the world. It’s not the … falling off the cliff everybody is talking about.”
City staff have been working on the Suffolk 2045 Comprehensive Plan update for more than two years.
Comprehensive plans are long-term planning documents that set a locality’s growth strategy, detailing where to focus new development as well as what services or utilities need to be expanded and what community assets need protection.
Cities are required to review their comprehensive plan every five years.
It’s drawn opposition from various segments of Suffolk who argue the new plan will pave the way for further growth that they do not think the city is prepared for. At times, the debate has been heated.
U.S. Census data estimates Suffolk’s population surpassed 100,000 people, up from 94,000 in 2020. It was the fastest growth any Hampton Roads city experienced between 2022 and 2023.
Councilmember John Rector said the fraught comprehensive plan discussion is a hangover from the fight over the Port 460 project, which led to a lawsuit that was ultimately dismissed.
"When friends outside of Suffolk would talk to me about the Port 460 project, I would jokingly tell them that this was the closest thing to a civil war that Suffolk has had since 1865,” he said. “A lot of the emotion has spilled its way into the debate over this update to the comprehensive plan."
Councilmembers delayed voting on the updated comprehensive plan in August to give city staff more time to add details on Suffolk’s plan for the city’s transportation networks. Finding ways to address traffic congestion was a “main concern” raised by both council and residents at that meeting.
Keith Cannady, Suffolk’s comprehensive planning manager on Wednesday presented an overview of the update to the plan’s section on transportation, which lays out a multitude of the city’s transportation objectives and a list of projects it plans to undertake. The Virginia Department of Transportation reviewed the plan and returned comments to the city in October.
For multiple residents, the edits to the plan over the course of 2024 haven’t been enough to change their view that it still encourages too much growth.
“This plan focuses on expanding the growth areas into the agricultural lands to allow for more warehouses and suburban sprawl to support the Port of Virginia,” said Michele Faulk, a member of a group called CARE4Suffolk that has staunchly opposed the plan.
The plan includes a more than 12% increase in the city’s growth areas in downtown and north Suffolk, which are locations identified as ideal for new development – including possibilities like warehouses and employment centers that city officials argue create new job opportunities for residents.
Some speakers on Wednesday addressed Mayor Mike Duman directly, pointing to his tight race for re-election as cause for him to take pause and seek more information before passing the plan.
“Over 60% of Suffolk’s registered voters who actually voted this year disagree with your performance managing Suffolk government during this term,” resident Lisa Jones said, referencing that Duman won his mayoral race with just below 35% of the total vote.
Other residents raised concerns that the city did not analyze the possible cost associated with the plan, and the inclusion of pre-pandemic traffic data that became more dated as the process to create the plan stretched on.
Following the hearing, Duman responded amid outbursts and people walking out of the gallery. He repeated prior statements of displeasure about the current state of the plan, and openly wondered how the process went sideways.
“Maybe it’s because it did take too long,” Duman said. “I’m not really sure there would be an end to this process ever unless I (got) everybody in the city, put them all in a room (and said) come up with a comprehensive plan.”
Duman said the repeated updates are evidence they are listening to the public’s concerns and trying to balance the sometimes conflicting interests of residents with the reality of the city’s growth. But he said the plan will “never be perfect.”
“It’ll never be everything to all people,” Duman said. “This comprehensive plan does not provide for rezoning. The comprehensive plan is a guideline, but it’s not an ordinance – it’s not a mandate.”
Councilmember Tim Johnson spoke after a 10 minute recess. He said there are many good elements to the plan, specifically the stated goals to update master plans for the city’s historic villages, but couldn’t support it without additional changes.
“I don’t think we’ve done justice to the people of this city, but we need to do justice to our people that work for the city now as well,” Johnson said. “They are trying hard to make this something that we can work with and live with.”
Starting over was not an option for Duman. He challenged councilmembers to offer specific changes they want to see that could put them in a position to pass the plan.
Councilmembers proposed various updates, including reducing the proposed increase to the city’s growth area from 12% to 5%.
Other proposals ranged from the inclusion of housing in areas identified as potential sites for new employment center development, focusing growth area increases along major transportation corridors like U.S. Route 58 and updating the plan with more recent traffic congestion data.
