Infill development: The real story

Have you heard of infill development or seen it in proposed residential development documents? Its use is growing in proposals before the Sussex County Planning and Zoning Commission and Sussex County Council as they consider residential projects.

Unfortunately, the term is not used or presented accurately, misleading the public and likely confusing P&Z Commission and council members. Worse, no one in a position of authority seems to be saying or doing anything to correct this misinformation.

Here’s the real story about infill development. In a nutshell, it essentially means redeveloping - recycling - previously developed residential, commercial, or industrial sites to be useful again. These sites - think burnedout, derelict buildings - are in highly developed, almost always urban areas. Redeveloping capitalizes on location, services like mass transit, on-site sewer and other utilities, and takes pressure off undeveloped or “raw” land. A good example is converting dilapidated warehouses into apartments.

In P&Z Commission and county council hearings, new housing development proposals for currently wooded and/or wetland areas and other open spaces have been called infill developments simply because they would be squeezed between existing communities. These include three recent controversial projects: Terrapin Island off Camp Arrowhead Road and two Ocean View-area projects, Kent Village and the Lighthipe property by the Ocean View Beach Club. These are not infill developments; they are simply new planned developments on raw law that will require construction of new streets, utilities, and more. Using the term infill development for projects like these is wishful thinking, and a complete distortion and perversion of what infill development is all about. In short, calling projects like these infill development comes across like a con.

Correspondingly, attempts are made to portray rural, undeveloped land in prime locations as “not rural.” Statements make proposals sound like they are in or close to urban areas rather than being put on farmland or undeveloped sites. Time and again these sites are presented as if they are just like neighboring communities that have streets and utilities, when in fact they have no basic services and lack even sidewalks let alone transit service.

Worse yet, no one points out these inconsistencies. I and others have yet to hear the P&Z Commission chairman say Sussex County does not have any infill development language in its ordinances. And when was the last time the county attorney or P&Z’s attorney told members of their respective bodies “ladies and gentlemen, keep in mind that there is nothing in the Sussex County code about infill development”?

Smartly, developers or others never say infill development is in the Sussex County code. They can’t, given no ordinances mention infill development. In fact, the word “infill” appears only once in the code and it refers to sewer system design: see Section 110-78. But mentioning infill development repeatedly implies otherwise.

The only key Sussex County planning document mentioning infill development seems to be the comprehensive plan. Chapter 4: Land Use, briefly but clearly mentions it as reusing existing sites, not developing raw land. Interestingly, developers and others only point to the comp plan - the supposed road map for county development, when they think it supports their projects; otherwise they largely ignore it when it doesn’t support their efforts. And even when referring to the comp plan, developers and others have wrongly referred to infill development as acceptable for undeveloped sites, turning the meaning on its head. Yet I know of no instance where someone has challenged these statements or correctly cited comp plan infill development language. Perhaps no one in a position of authority has ever really looked at this wording and simply takes developers and others at their word. That needs to change.

What does the state of Delaware say about infill development, you ask? It has endorsed the concept as a means to redevelop previously developed sites that are currently unusable. The Delaware Code itself appears to mention infill development only once: Title 7 Part V Subchapter II The Fort DuPont Redevelopment and Preservation Act, the goal of which is redeveloping the site and its existing utilities and services. Also, multiple state land-use, economic development, and planning documents discuss infill development in this same context. And the University of Delaware’s Complete Communities Toolbox has a section on infill development, describing it as reuse/regeneration of worn-out, rundown, abandoned sites and not undeveloped land - see www.completecommunitiesde.org/planning/landuse/infill-and-redevelopment/.

Maybe Sussex County Council and the P&Z Commission will invite UD’s Institute for Public Administration down here for training sessions on the Complete Communities Toolbox section on infill development for public officials, developers, and others. Cynics will say this training won’t happen and inaccurate statements will continue. I’m hopeful that county officials will surprise us and have this training, and will correct misstatements. Until then, it’s important the public speaks out and the powers that be start paying as much attention to what the public says as what developers say. That’s the real story.