This could be your last chance. Next week the Suffolk Planning Department will be hosting a pair of public meetings to unveil revisions to the proposed 2018 Comprehensive Plan.

Suffolk is going to grow with or without your input. The shape that growth takes will impact those of us who now call Suffolk home and the estimated 50,000 or so people who will be moving here in the coming decades. City planners have their own ideas on the shape that growth should take.

The only thing that will change that is if voters raise an objection.

The plan is basically a good one, in line with the process begun in 1998. However, there is a significant change being proposed in how development will proceed South of downtown, one about which we harbor concerns. It will be interesting to hear the explanation of the need to increase sprawl in our city.

The first meeting will be at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 24 at Lakeland High School, followed by another at the same time two nights later at Nansemond River High School. Please attend and help guide Suffolk’s future.