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Friday Editorial

Common sense boards: big benefits

August 25, 2016

As bureaucracies continue to grow with offices inside of agencies inside of divisions, it's time to try a simpler approach. Lewes would be a good place to start the experiment. The Fourth Street Forest discussion offers a focus for what we will call a common sense board.

That's an elected board that would convene - easy enough to call the Mayor and Council its members - on an as-needed basis to consider proposals that would fall outside what current zoning allows. Of course this could apply to other municipalities in Sussex as well as the unincorporated areas of the county.

Let's say the owners of the Fourth Street Forest came to the common sense board and said let's focus on a solution rather than on the problem. The problem would be how to preserve a much-appreciated and valuable forest while still taking advantage of property and development rights.

The owners would say, for example, how about a condominium project that goes up 50 feet and incorporates the same 30 or 40 units that current zoning allows. The project would be built on a footprint disturbing only about 10 percent of the forest while preserving the rest as a natural area with all of its benefits to flora, fauna, and stormwater retention. The community would get the benefit of the greatest majority of the forest, and the owners would get the development benefit of the condo sales.

Designed tastefully and creatively, the condo mass with lots of texture would rise just above the canopy. The units, with lots of glass, would look out on a natural amenity.

The common sense board would present the option to the community in required hearings. Approval would have to require a unanimous or supermajority vote. This open-minded approach would encourage creativity to help preserve and protect important natural assets.

In the unincorporated areas of Sussex, allowing such flexibility in the use of allowable density could preserve hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland while maintaining property rights.

Preserve the forest. Encourage creativity. Here's to more common sense and less bureaucracy, leading to acceptable solutions and progress.

  • Editorials are considered and written by Cape Gazette Editorial Board members, including Publisher Chris Rausch, Editor Jen Ellingsworth, News Editor Nick Roth and reporters Ron MacArthur and Chris Flood. 

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