THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, December 18, 1994 TAG: 9412160265
SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: John Pruitt
LENGTH: Medium: 72 lines
If traffic were the only concern about a proposed automobile racetrack off Nansemond Parkway, that would raise plenty of red flags but still be resolvable.
Instead, the major issue is potential impact on the lives of people who call the Shoulders Hill area home. What possible benefit could they expect from transforming a peaceful, neighboring farm to an industrial park and racetrack which, besides crowding their roads, would be noisy and smelly and possibly vibrate the plaster right off their ceilings?
The Industrial Development Authority, which seeks rezoning for the industrial park; and Upton & Arnette Associates, which wants to build the racetrack, have a convincing answer: it would bring new business, and that would relieve Suffolk's heavy reliance on taxes to support - and expand - municipal services.
Still, nearby residents need to know at what cost. They need assurance that little racetrack traffic would even use neighborhood roads.
Some of the folks along Nansemond Parkway already gag in their own homes from the foul odors of the nearby landfill, and they've endured a great increase in traffic with the opening of Lakeland High School, the blossoming residential growth in the Bennetts Creek area and the nonstop expansion of Chesapeake Square and its surrounding commerce.
The city's 2005 General Plan, formulated to guide land uses so the city isn't a hodgepodge of spot zoning, calls for that area to retain agricultural usage.
The plan is not etched in stone, and highest and best uses of land do change. Proponents of the industrial park and racetrack obviously think this is the case with the proposed 684-acre industrial park and 65-acre track - which, by the way, initially would consist of a 1/2-mile oval with bleachers to hold 7,581 people.
The logical expectation is for expansion, as racing enjoys extensive support in Hampton Roads. And with that would come more noise, more fumes, more traffic.
Part of the apprehension about the plan probably evolves from preconceptions about a racetrack. Overlooking design advancements that emphasize noise abatement and other enhancements, we tend to think of the tracks as spartan facilities like the former raceway at Suffolk Municipal Airport.
Few of us know much about berms - high mounds of grass-covered, often tree-dotted earth - barrier walls and placement among natural noise barriers, primarily trees, to offset negative impacts.
A good illustration of how the negatives of noise and fumes can coexist with a delicate neighbor is found in Norfolk, where the design of Norfolk International Airport enhances its fit with the neighboring botanical gardens.
A preliminary plan for the racetrack incorporates appealing, effective design elements, and the City Council can impose whatever additional, reasonable requirements it believes to be in the best interest of the people who would live with the racetrack.
Primary benefits to the city would be (1) gaining an industrial park roughly three times the size of Wilroy Industrial Park; (2) getting water and sewerage, preconditions of business locations nowadays, mostly at the expense of the racetrack/park developer; and (3) having an immediate tenant for the park.
The city is optimistic that a large business and at least two smaller ones would be in place by next year.
It's not the type of potential to write off, and that just adds to the obligation of everyone involved to be good neighbors and address the concerns of those who live nearby. by CNB