Clear Space should work with planners

On Oct. 12 2018, the Clear Space Theatre Company presented plans for a more than 25,000-square-foot theater at 413-417 Rehoboth Ave.  Since that date, the project has been is in limbo, because the proposal is not code compliant.  As such it cannot proceed to site review before the planning commission and receive a building permit.  During this long process, Clear Space has never compromised on its proposed design. It insists on what it wants, and where it wants it, code or no code. On the face of it, this appears to be a very ill-advised approach. 

But the record shows that Clear Space has approached the project logically. Between May 3, 2018 and April 15, 2019, in more than 350 emails between city officials (elected and appointed) and representatives of Clear Space Theatre Company, not once did any city official suggest to Clear Space that Clear Space needed to respect the code, the process, and approach the planning commission with code-compliant plans. Quite the opposite was the case. 

The email record demonstrates a city administration that is openly working to defy the city’s code and process. 

At the first presentation of the proposed theater, at the Oct. 12, 2018 planning commission meeting, the chief building inspector outlined (in a letter to the planning commission) that the proposed theater was allowed under the code. The letter stated, “The lots are zoned C-1 commercial and the proposed use is permitted in the zoning district as a Tier 3.” Further, he wrote the required parking for such a structure would be 128 parking places.  

As it turns out, on further review, the proposed theater is closer to 40,000 square feet, thus resulting in an even larger number of required parking spaces.  For practical reasons, code compliance, and costs, such a project simply cannot fit on a 15,000-square-foot parcel. 

But why let facts and practicality get in the way? Three-hundred-fifty emails tell the story of how to get around the code, the process, and how to ignore public safety all in the name that we must have Clear Space at 413-17 Rehoboth Ave.  At the Nov. 11, 2018 meeting of the planning commission it was suggested (for a second time) that Clear Space might want to consider alternative sites since its plans were not code compliant for the proposed site.  Following that meeting, alternatives were then considered: but not alternative sites or designs to become code compliant. Rather, at a meeting held Nov. 21, 2018 attended by two elected commissioners, the Clear Space executive director, and a Clear Space patron, the alternative discussed was to pretend that the Clear Space project was not a theater but was a “performing arts center.” 

And since the code made no mention of performing arts centers, a new ordinance was needed to fit performing arts centers in the code.  In a letter dated Dec. 6, 2018, the Clear Space executive director wrote a sample new ordinance and presented it to the city manager.  Unsurprisingly, the proposed code matched the exact needs of Clear Space’s proposed behemoth of a building to become code complaint. And so, at the Feb. 4, 2019, board of commissioners meeting the mayor added to the agenda:

“Discussion of potential Clear Space Theater Project, possible Code change and setting of public hearing.”

After all, performance art centers are not mentioned by name in the code. so a code change was in order.  But theaters are mentioned in the code.  As a result, this end run around the code failed and the matter was sent back to the planning commission with the charge:

“The current charge is review and recommend whether a performing arts center should be added as a permitted use in the C-1 zoning district and if so, recommend an appropriate parking requirement for such use.”

But before the planning commission could lawfully take up this charge at its April 12, 2019 meeting, there was a meeting attended by the Clear Space Board president, the Clear Space executive director, the city manager, the city manager’s assistant, and the city solicitor.  Like the meeting held Nov. 21, 2018, the purpose of this meeting was to find Clear Space relief from the code - regardless of what the planning commission might have to say on the matter at its April 12, 2019 meeting. 

And relief they found! 

After several back and forths between the city solicitor and the Clear Space executive director, on April 1, 2019, the city solicitor circulated a draft ordinance for a new code designed for performing arts centers and special relief from parking requirements for any structure within so many feet of the traffic circle.

After a few email exchanges between the Clear Space executive director and the city solicitor, it was determined that any business within 225 feet of the traffic circle would need not follow the parking restrictions required for any other business in Rehoboth Beach.

And by the way, the Clear Space executive director measured the require footage to assure himself (and the city solicitor) that the proposed Clear Space Theatre would fall within this parking exemption.

That is apparently how laws are made in Rehoboth Beach. Well, almost. Because at the next board of commissioners meeting - the one to take up the planning commission’s recommendation for the need (or lack of a need) for a special performing arts designation in the code, one commissioner expressed his outrage that proposed ordinance was drafted without the knowledge, let alone the consent, of the board of commissioners.

He expressed his displeasure about the dollars spent paying the city solicitor for a draft ordinance that the board of commissioners had not authorized.  If you wish, you can watch the video recording of this meeting.  The question of upon whose authority this proposed ordinance was drafted was not authoritatively answered.  Perhaps the question would have been better answered if asked under oath.  

All the shenanigans regarding Clear Space have led to countless wasted hours, one city commissioner who asked to recuse herself from all things Clear Space, a complaint pending at the Public Integrity Commission against another member of the board of commissioners, and still no clear path forward for Clear Space at 413-17 Rehoboth Ave. I heard rumors of a possible new design that might bring Clear Space to the Avenue with code-compliant plans but when I asked the Clear Space executive director about this, his official response was, “I have no comment about rumors of new designs. Thank you.”

Such is the sorry state of affairs in the new “theater district” as the mayor has called the area in an email to the Clear Space executive director.

I’ll say it again, and I speak for my neighbors, we’d love to welcome Clear Space to our neighborhood, but with code-compliant plans that have been vetted by the planning commission’s site-review process. 

We recommend the many friends Clear Space has in City Hall get out of the way and allow Clear Space to work with the planning commission to achieve its goals.

Mark Betchkal
Rehoboth Beach