Lewes core values about preservation

Two or three decades have passed since Lewes established a set of core values to guide decision making in the town. Planning consultant Bruce Galloway explained at the time that core values define aspects of a town that its citizens treasure and want to protect at all costs. He knew the passage of time can subtly but decidedly change a town, not always for the better.

The values were to serve as a litmus test for decisions. How would small and large decisions affect the values? Enhance? Diminish? Neither?

At the time they were established, the community saw the good sense of the values and embraced them.

The recent placement of an industrial-strength traffic signal array at the town's most prominent intersection – Front Street and Savannah Road – in the heart of the designated historic district shows how the core values could have and should have been used. The most recent core value – there are only six – recognizes the importance of the municipality's historical heritage.

A number of years ago, Lewes set out the boundaries of the historic district and established a commission to oversee projects in that district to ensure its historic integrity.

The work of the commission has focused primarily on projects affecting the district's private properties. Public works projects may not even be in its purview. As the traffic signal installation illustrates, however, public works projects in the historic district should also receive historic commission consideration.

Mitigating circumstances may affect how much infrastructure projects can be influenced by historical considerations, but especially in such visible locations, an extra effort should be made.

Considerations may require extra cost, but when a core value is at stake, the extra cost may be well worth it.

Further, this situation demonstrates that Lewes' core values should be reviewed annually and used as a living tool as originally intended, not just an historic artifact.