Isle of Wight County residents want new and renovated schools, fewer housing developments and a Chick-fil-A, according to a survey county staff conducted last fall.

Just over 900 people, 92.6% of whom identified themselves as real estate owners in Isle of Wight, responded from October through December to a questionnaire on the online Survey Monkey platform. An open-ended question asking residents to weigh in on what types of residential or commercial development they’d like to see come to the county yielded nearly 450 responses, including over 30 requests for the Atlanta-based Chick-fil-A fast food chain that presently operates franchises in neighboring Newport News and Suffolk. There were also more than 20 requests for new or renovated schools and numerous complaints about the proliferation of housing developments, though a handful also expressed a need for more affordable housing.

A supermajority of the survey-takers, asked if they’d prefer “more, about the same, or fewer” types of developments, wanted fewer apartments and townhouses. A smaller majority also indicated they’d prefer fewer “accessory dwelling units,” a term used among planning and zoning officials to refer to a detached, smaller house co-located on the same lot as the primary residence, which homeowners may use to house relatives or market as short-term rentals on booking websites like AirBnB or Vrbo. Among the types of developments a majority indicated they would like more of were day-care and after-school facilities, public parks, entertainment establishments and restaurants.

A question asking residents to rank the biggest growth issues facing Isle of Wight over the next five to 10 years yielded “traffic” as the top response, followed by “schools.”

The numerous requests for new and expanded schools align with data Isle of Wight County Schools compiled last fall projecting four of its five northern-end schools would exceed capacity based on state-mandated maximum class sizes if and when 15 active and proposed subdivisions are completed and occupied. Isle of Wight, which over an 18-month construction period replaced the 1961 Hardy Elementary with a new, two-story school by the same name, has plans in the works to replace another 1960s-era school, Westside Elementary, within the next few years.

Nearly 40% of survey-takers identified themselves as 20-plus-year residents of the county, and 66% identified as female. Ages 31-45 was the largest age group to respond, accounting for just under 40% of the total, followed by ages 46-59 at 30% and ages 60-75 at 23%. Ages 18-30 accounted for just under 3.5% of survey takers. Ages 76 and up accounted for just under 3% and children under 18 accounted for 1.7%.

Isle of Wight Community Development Director Amy Ring said the feedback will be used by a committee tasked with drafting a five-year update to Isle of Wight’s “Envisioning the Isle” comprehensive plan, which was last revised in 2020. The committee and the full Planning Commission overseeing it discussed the survey results in February.

The input will be combined with insights and data from TischlerBise, the Bethesda, Maryland-based consulting firm that worked on the 2020 plan and has been retained to update its projections.

TischlerBise, at an April Planning Commission meeting, estimated that if Isle of Wight continues to see the 2% annual growth it experienced in 2022 and 2023, the increased tax revenue from the influx would fail to offset the added cost to the county’s schools and other public services in just over 10 years. The consultant modeled three scenarios, one based on roughly the same 0.8% annual growth rate TischlerBise had projected in 2020, one assuming a 2% growth rate and a third assuming a 3% growth rate. At those rates, Isle of Wight could see anywhere from an additional 3,200 to over 14,000 housing units over the next 20 years.

Nine developments collectively accounting for more than 2,000 housing units across the county’s northern end already have rezoning and permit approvals.