One of the more spurious claims of elected leaders who’ve allowed the community to be overrun by residential growth is that more houses will take some tax pressure off current property owners.

Suffolk residents were told the same in the 1990s before that community embarked on a course of explosive residential growth much like Isle of Wight and Smithfield leaders have chosen in recent years. Ask a Suffolk friend how that turned out for them.

The median real estate tax rate in Suffolk today is $1.18 per $100 of assessed property value, considerably higher than both the national median of 99 cents and the Virginia state median of 89 cents. If you happen to live along the Bridge Road corridor, you pay an insane $1.31 per $100 of property value.

So when Isle of Wight supervisors tell you that the high-growth “development districts” they’re quite proud of are needed to help them maintain your tax rate, currently an incredibly low 73 cents, grab your wallet. History shows that rooftops create more demand for government services, meaning local government gets bigger and more expensive. More expensive, in fact, than the revenue from the new rooftops can pay for at existing tax rates, which means those rates must be increased for everybody.

Suffolk, whose population has nearly doubled since 1990, is the perfect case study.

The effects of increasing property taxes are felt by more than homeowners. Small businesses, many of which operate on thin margins, are further strained. Higher taxes reduce the disposable income that is critical to the health of the local retail and service economies. Renters pay more as property owners pass along the cost of higher taxes.

The narrow window for controlling residential growth in this community before it controls us is getting smaller by the day. A $7 million roundabout approved by Isle of Wight supervisors last month signaled the county’s plans for massive new residential growth along Benns Church Boulevard. When you negotiate with developers to help pay for the roundabout before some of their plans have even been vetted by the Planning Commission, don’t attempt to tell the citizenry with a straight face that those projects will get the scrutiny from elected officials that they merit. The fix is in. 

Barring a major shakeup of the Board of Supervisors in the 2025 and 2027 election cycles, the citizenry’s only hope is for the new Smithfield Town Council, elected entirely on a platform of managing residential growth, to at least protect the town limits from what supervisors are permitting elsewhere in northern Isle of Wight.

An early test will be council members’ response to Joseph Luter IV’s declaration that the Grange at 10Main won’t move forward without the support of the new council.