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Suffolk City Council’s recent decision to approve a major residential rezoning in the Harborview area raises questions about the city’s commitment to its long-range planning.

By a 5-2 vote, the Council rezoned 7250 Harbortown Parkway to allow for a 344-unit apartment development, despite formal recommendations for denial from both the city’s professional planning staff and the Planning Commission. Council members Lue Ward and Ebony Wright voted against the measure, while Leroy Bennett was absent.

The applicant had initially sought a change to the area’s Mixed-Use Development (MUD) Overlay District. But one property owner in the district refused to sign off, preventing the necessary amendment. It was mentioned during a recent Planning Commission meeting that the reasoning behind the refusal to sign may have been to avoid competition; however, we do not have facts to back up that claim. Instead, a new zoning designation was proposed altogether — a Residential Urban 24 (RU24) Conditional Zoning District — as a workaround. And the council agreed.

That workaround is the heart of the concern. This decision effectively sidesteps both the city’s MUD policies and the 2045 Comprehensive Plan, which calls for a mix of residential, retail, medical, and office uses in Harborview. Suffolk’s planning director plainly stated that RU24 “is not a mixed-use zoning district.” Staff warned that removing the parcel from the MUD would undermine the area’s long-term vision of a walkable, master-planned community.

The council’s approval not only ignored that guidance, but it also did so without addressing the broader policy questions raised during the meeting. Council Member Ebony Wright asked what precedent would be set by approving a zoning change that conflicts with the comprehensive plan. Vice Mayor Lue Ward expressed discomfort voting without clear answers. Both were right to be skeptical.

The 2045 Comprehensive Plan is only a few months old. It came out of a lengthy, sometimes contentious public process, and it was intended to guide land-use decisions like this one. Overriding its recommendations so soon sends the wrong message to residents, developers, and planning professionals alike: that the rules can change when they become inconvenient.

If the city’s unanimous signature requirement for MUD amendments is too rigid, then council should review that policy through a transparent, public process. But bending the rules for one applicant, without making broader reforms, undermines trust in the city’s planning framework.

Council members supporting the rezoning argued that each case should be evaluated on its own merits and that the plan is flexible by design. That may be true in theory. But there’s a difference between flexibility and inconsistency. If Suffolk is going to invest time and resources into creating a comprehensive plan, it must also commit to honoring it or changing it through the appropriate channels.

Planning staff and the Planning Commission exist for a reason. When their expertise and recommendations are overruled with little explanation, it risks sending a message that decisions are being driven more by politics than by policy. That’s not how good governance works.