Group steps in to propose detailed recommendations on development
As a group drafting proposed rules to help steer development in Sussex County was nearing completion of its work, four of its 10 members offered a series of specific changes that were reviewed Aug. 5.
At the previous meeting of the Sussex County Land-Use Reform Working Group July 25, some members complained that tentative recommendations lacked details and did not address some issues they thought were important.
Following that meeting, Jill Hicks, president of the Sussex Preservation Coalition, reached out to fellow members Christophe Tulou, executive director of the Delaware Center for the Inland Bays; Jon Horner, representing the Home Builders Association of Delaware; and Mike Riemann, representing the American Council of Engineering Companies.
“We were equally frustrated that we were not getting into specifics,” Hicks said after the Aug. 5 meeting.
Horner said the working group’s consultant encouraged discussion among members beyond the series of meetings that have been held in recent months. He said the meeting format did not provide an opportunity for the in-depth discussions that the four members had on their own.
They talked for hours, reviewing the 18 proposals offered by consultant McCormick Taylor, a planning firm that has provided consulting services to the county since about 2015 and coordinated preparation of the last county comprehensive plan.
While not all of them supported all the recommendations, they agreed to send them on to the full working group for consideration.
The consultant revised its recommendations to reflect the ideas of the four members, and presented the new wording at the Aug. 5 meeting. The working group plans to finish reviewing recommendations at a meeting Thursday, Aug. 21, and vote on the final proposals to Sussex County Council at a meeting added to the schedule for Thursday, Sept. 11.
The four-member group provided detailed suggestions that would encourage denser development in growth areas that would be established by the county where they are supported by infrastructure and public transportation. Other areas would be conservation areas, where development would not be encouraged.
“The key component to all this is we want to direct growth into the growth zones and out of the conservation areas,” Horner said.
The group of four members again asked the full working group to put back on the table a suggestion to limit developments to one house per acre in rural areas, an idea that was removed in the previous version of recommendations.
Much of the county is zoned AR-1, agricultural-residential, which allows two homes per acre and has contributed to housing sprawl.
Lower density is intended to reduce sprawl, but Jay Baxter, a farmer who serves on the group, said it could have the opposite effect. Baxter also said he worries that some changes could devalue farmland.
Two suggestions that failed to make it onto the list of 18 recommendations were added for the Aug. 5 meeting. One encourages “objective, predictable and measurable criteria to guide decisions on subdivision applications.”
The other would prioritize the public hearing process for residential subdivisions and land development projects in growth areas that meet the county’s land-use goals. It includes a six-month deadline from the time an application is deemed complete to granting final approval.
Horner, who is general counsel for Schell Brothers and Ocean Atlantic Companies, said hearings should occur more quickly for projects that comply with county regulations in growth areas.
Vince Robertson, a deputy county attorney, and Jamie Whitehouse, the county planning & zoning director, said the six-month deadline is arbitrary and could be impossible for the county to meet, in some instances.
Other suggestions in the tentative list include aligning the future land-use map with state goals; establishing clear rezoning standards; comprehensive rezoning; encouraging developing of more housing types, including affordable housing; creating more transportation improvement districts, where developers fund traffic studies and infrastructure improvements; preserving natural resources in rural areas; adding protections for agriculture; and completing a master plan zoning ordinance for large-scale development.
County Administrator Todd Lawson said it would be a lengthy process to make some of the proposed changes.
“This won’t happen overnight,” he said. “This will take some time.”
Kevin Conlon came to the Cape Gazette with nearly 40 years of newspaper experience since graduating from St. Bonaventure University in New York with a bachelor's degree in mass communication. He reports on Sussex County government and other assignments as needed.
His career spans working as a reporter and editor at daily newspapers in upstate New York, including The Daily Gazette in Schenectady. He comes to the Cape Gazette from the Cortland Standard, where he was an editor for more than 25 years, and in recent years also contributed as a columnist and opinion page writer. He and his staff won regional and state writing awards.
Conlon was relocating to Lewes when he came across an advertisement for a reporter job at the Cape Gazette, and the decision to pursue it paid off. His new position gives him an opportunity to stay in a career that he loves, covering local news for an independently owned newspaper.
Conlon is the father of seven children and grandfather to two young boys. In his spare time, he trains for and competes in triathlons and other races. Now settling into the Cape Region, he is searching out hilly trails and roads with wide shoulders. He is a fan of St. Bonaventure sports, especially rugby and basketball, as well as following the Mets, Steelers and Celtics.
