The Sussex Alliance for Responsible Growth has monitored the Sussex County Planning and Zoning Commission's efforts to draft a 2018 Comprehensive Plan, and we feel that the process needs a reset.
SARG has attended the work sessions and followed the mark-up of the wording of the 2008 plan's goals and objectives, and the goals and objectives of the draft 2018 plan. What seems to be taking place is a parsing of words. For example, should the text say coordinate or cooperate? There also seems to be a lot of saying things will get handled on a case-by-case basis. There is too much case-by-case already in our development approval process. Case-by-case is too subjective and has the potential for undue influence to taint the process.
In our view, what is needed is not wordsmithing but a forthright, in-depth evaluation of what worked and what didn't in the 2008 plan. Especially what didn't! There are lots of good words in the 2008 plan and lots of bad results, certainly unintended and unanticipated. Lots of good ones also but they are overshadowed by the bad. With the residents focused so overwhelmingly on growth, traffic and road problems, where did the plan veer off the track? Did the land-use element encourage or exacerbate the undeniable problems the county has with traffic?
Why didn't the transportation element anticipate these problems? Did our zoning or development regulations or approval processes negate the good intentions of the 2008 plan? Did we underestimate population growth, or the types of population or the location of population? Did other levels of government, state and local, cause or aggravate problems? Those questions are not being asked or answered in the current process. To coin a phrase, those who don't understand the past are condemned to repeat it, and we don't get the feeling that the commission has a total grasp on the causes of the issues bothering our residents, and we certainly don't think the county can afford to continue to do the same things and expect different results.
Because traffic is the top hotbutton issue, we would suggest that the commission utilize a symbolic traffic signal as a tool. Red on top, yellow in the middle and green on the bottom. They should use this to take a step back and candidly analyze and evaluate the elements in the 2008 plan and list them for everyone to see. Green for those elements with much success; yellow for those with some success but not entirely successful and red for those, such as traffic and land use, where the desired results were not met.
Ask the residents if they agree and how they would like to see things change. Then, and only then, move forward with drafting the new plan with a complete understanding of where things went well and look to enhance them; where things need some improving and improve them; and where things did not go so well. The commission can then proceed with a laser focus on not repeating the mistakes of the past by recommending the development and implementation of appropriate strategies that will prevent negative impacts from future development and hopefully, mitigate some already doing harm.
This would be a much more efficient way to spend commissioners' time, would demonstrate to the public that it is serious about continuous improvement and provide a crystal-clear path forward: fix what is not working; improve what needs improving; maintain, enhance and potentially expand those that have been successful.
Before the commission goes much further in drafting the 2018 Comprehensive Plan and especially the conservation, land-use and transportation elements, we urge the commission to conduct a candid, open assessment of where the 2008 plan elements did and did not succeed and why? Only then will the commission have a clear path forward to remedying those problems and avoiding future ones.
Jeff Stone
Sussex Alliance for Responsible Growth
Milton
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