Prospective commercial and residential developments will be among the topics discussed at two upcoming all-day retreats for Isle of Wight County officials.

The county’s Board of Supervisors, according to an Oct. 16 public notice, has called a special Oct. 25 meeting that will begin at 8:30 a.m. at the Hampton Roads Planning District Office at 723 Woodlake Drive, Chesapeake. Among the listed discussion topics is “countywide development issues and economic development” as well as a review of Isle of Wight’s strategic plan.

The county’s Planning Commission has separately advertised its own called meeting set for Nov. 1 at 8:30 a.m. at the Isle of Wight County Museum. Topics on the Planning Commission retreat’s agenda include a discussion of proposed and approved subdivisions, an update from the county’s Economic Development Department, and a discussion of the ongoing work of a Planning Commission committee tasked with a state-mandated five-year review of Isle of Wight’s comprehensive plan.

The strategic plan, according to the county’s website, was last updated in 2013 and is separate from the comprehensive plan. The comprehensive plan, titled “Envisioning the Isle,” was last updated in 2020 and is intended as a guide for land-use decisions. The strategic plan focuses more on budgeting, and as of its 2013 update called for cost-sharing efforts between the supervisors and School Board pertaining to vehicle procurement and maintenance, financial management and technology services, as well as a water supply partnership with the city of Franklin to serve the southern tip of the county, a master plan for the Route 460 corridor that bisects Isle of Wight and a feasibility study of delivering water on a countywide basis. 

According to the county’s economic development website, insidetheisle.com, the county presently owns and operates 19 separate water systems and 31 sewer stations providing services to just under 4,000 customers.

Isle of Wight, already the sixth or seventh fastest-growing county in the state according to differing census data and rankings by the University of Virginia’s Weldon Cooper Center, has grown in population by roughly 2% annually since the 2020 census.

Isle of Wight County Schools projects that the combined impact of 12 approved developments and three proposed ones would put Smithfield Middle School at 106% of its capacity based on state class size maximums, and would put three other northern-end schools at 94% to 99% of capacity.

The comprehensive plan review committee includes two representatives from each of the county’s five voting districts, which county supervisors voted in February to form, is being assisted by Julie Herlands, vice president of TischlerBise, which is the same consulting firm that worked on the 2020 plan. TischlerBise has been tasked with, by the first quarter of next year, providing new growth rate data to replace the now five-year-old 2019 projections that underestimated the county’s growth at 0.8% annually.