I went to another Lewes City Council meeting a couple of weeks ago. The only subject to be discussed was the consideration of excluding wetlands from the formula that gives square footage available for building projects.
Presently Lewes doesn’t exclude the wetlands in their calculation, allowing for more density per acre.
The county is moving forward with changing the way they calculate available square footage and excluding all wetlands. There’s lots of good reasons for doing so, and I wish it could have been adopted long ago. I applaud them and I.G. Burton for leading the way.
I attended the meeting, along with 50 or so other concerned neighbors. We wanted to talk about the 90 townhomes proposed on the Brittingham property in relation to the wetland exclusion factor which would reduce the number.
The council had a closed meeting the Monday before and decided to exclude the Brittingham property from the new wetland subtraction formula - the same formula that we were supposed to be considering for future projects, but not the present Brittingham proposal. That decision had already been made by council in private.
The council refused (repeatedly) to discuss the Brittingham project.
After 10 minutes of badgering, they relented and we all began to discuss what we were there for.
It took the better part of two hours, with the conclusion that the only way they would consider changing the density was if new information came into play. It wasn’t the most friendly meeting I’ve ever attended.
I’m pretty sure that Lewes City Council will quickly adopt the new wetlands formula. It’s surely the right thing to do.
What we all hope will happen is that the council will reconsider their hard-line stand on this previous decision and change their minds to make things better for the present, and the future.
All they have to do is decide individually and then as a group if they care about making things better!
They can do that. It doesn’t cost anyone anything - all parties can still be satisfied. There’s no shame in correcting something if you can make it better.
We’re here such a short time - let’s leave something good behind!
Bruce Chandler
HOA president, Creekside Manor
New Road, Lewes
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