Next week, Sussex County Council is expected to vote, for a second time, on a rezoning request for Overbrook Town Center – at 850,000 square feet, the largest shopping center ever proposed in Sussex County.
Council denied the request last year, but that vote was overturned in Chancery Court, on grounds that several council members had given reasons for denial that did not meet legal standards.
The question, this time around, is whether new information has been presented that should change the minds of those on council, who previously voted 4-1 to deny, a decision in line with the views of hundreds of residents who crowded council chambers and signed petitions opposed to rezoning.
The developers now say they will build houses on part of the land and a smaller shopping center on a 50-acre portion instead of the massive center first proposed.
But this new idea only muddies decision making, because specific plans for the property are irrelevant. Council's decision next week goes back to the original application, and under current code, if the property is rezoned, the developer is not limited to those original plans; any of dozens of uses permitted in the new zone can be built. The developer could sell the rezoned parcel at a profit and a new developer could present new plans.
Council has shown a high regard for protecting property rights, a value stated in the county's vision for the future. But let us be clear.
Property owners, both the developers and all of their neighbors, are entitled to develop their property according to existing zoning. They are not entitled by right to upzoning.
That same vision statement calls for sustaining Sussex's agricultural resources. Among opponents of this project are none other than Delaware's secretary of agriculture, who wrote that this project, surrounded on three sides by farms including one in preservation, would significantly increase the chances that farmers would give up farming.
This project does not support Sussex County's core values. That is reason enough for council to deny it a second time.
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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.
