It is most upsetting to read the recent letters to the editor in the Cape Gazette. Those of us who have owned property here for years need to pull together to stop this senseless, uncontrolled development. The most recent spate of letters is around all the RV parks proposed in the eastern side of Sussex County. The reality is that we have a land use plan that is useless.
Three men from the west side of the county control everything that is being built and will be built here regardless of the impact to the environment, traffic, safety and tourism. Yes, tourism. At some point, tourists will stop coming here, because it is no longer pleasant to visit here.
Why do they control everything? They appoint the members of the planning and zoning board and the members of the board of adjustment. There are five council members and three votes control all of this. Nothing will change until the voters change this.
It is not only the county, but also the state, that I blame for this horrible situation. The county is required to submit a land use plan to the state, which the state reviews and then requires that the county enact ordinances to support the plan. The county has never enacted these ordinances, which would have strengthened somewhat the land use plan. The state has never done anything about this in the past or now. Sussex County Council continually either votes to make something Conditional Use (big joke) or says they are down-zoning something, as in the case of the Cedar Grove Road RV Park (big joke again)!
Also, there is this whole DelDOT situation that complicates all of this. The developer hires and pays a firm to perform a traffic study and then DelDOT 95 percent of the time rubber stamps it. In the Cedar Grove Road RV situation, the traffic study does not even have the roads that are impacted going in the right direction! So, the RV park will be built, and DelDOT will play catch up with widening the impacted roads. The surrounding communities will be locked into their developments and will probably lose more of their land to the widening of the roads just as Sandy Brae has lost considerable land to the realignment of Cedar Grove and Postal Lane.
It is time that those of us who are concerned about this continuing circus get it together and not only changes this county council, but also get our state senators and representatives who are ignoring this horrible DelDOT rubber stamp situation to get on board.
Betty Deacon
Lewes
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