Lifelong interest in the environment leads to activism

While driving on Route 9 near her home west of Lewes, Alison White looks out over the vast farm field to the south.

“Every time I drive by there, I’m feasting my eyes on that soybean field because I know it’s going to be gone,” White said.

She sees the Northstar development, planned for the farmland, as a symbol of overdevelopment in Sussex County and the need to change the trajectory of growth.

Last October, the county planning & zoning commission gave final approval to the bulk of the Northstar development. It is expected to include 758 single-family homes on 420 acres between Route 9 and Beaver Dam Road when it is completed over roughly the next decade.

Plans for a related 94-unit workforce housing project on a separate 7.9-acre parcel and a 12.7-acre commercial development were reviewed separately by council this year. The housing portion was approved, while the commercial application is pending.

“These really big developments, I don’t care if they need a change of zone or not, they should be passed on to county council,” White said. “I feel elected officials should be involved.” 

She is one of two principals of Eyes on County Council, which watches meetings of county and state agencies concerning development in Sussex County. Eyes on County Council distributes summaries to about 80 groups on an email list to encourage civic involvement.

White is among those who regularly attend or view online the Sussex County Council, P&Z, Land Use Reform Working Group and state Preliminary Land-Use Service meetings.

As the county struggles with the consequences of a housing boom that has continued for years, White said it is important the public gets involved in the process.

She said she is hopeful the Sussex County Land-Use Reform Working Group, created by county council early this year, will help council draft rules to limit development and protect the environment. The working group is scheduled to offer recommendations Thursday, Sept. 11, after months of meetings.

“We all live here,” White said. “The farmers and the lifelong residents and the newcomers. Everyone has a stake in what happens. Nobody is going to get everything they want. We need to have some kind of balance … There are competing interests.”

White said she has enjoyed the outdoors since her childhood.

She was born in Schenectady, N.Y., near the state’s capital and raised in Louisville, Ky., where she lived at the edge of the suburbs across the road from a farm. 

“We always played outside,” she said. “I’ve always liked the outdoors.”

After graduating from Purdue University, she took a job creating system software for IBM at its facilities in the Hudson Valley of New York.

“New York is beautiful,” she said. “There are a lot of outdoor activities – hiking, skiing, biking, kayaking.”

White and her partner began vacationing in Sussex County in the 1990s, bought a condo in Long Neck in 2008 and moved permanently to Lewes when White retired nine years ago. They were drawn by the coastal environment, but they saw problems that needed to be addressed.

“I think when people move here, they’re surprised how unregulated development is,” White said.

Already a member of the Sierra Club and the American Civil Liberties Union, she was concerned by development’s burden on the environment, traffic, healthcare, emergency services, utilities and schools.

She said the county has not done enough to coordinate development with the state. The county in recent years has approved large housing developments in rural areas where the state has been discouraging them.

“Another problem I see is that the economy here is based on development,” White said. “A healthy economy is a more varied economy.” 

She said she hopes the working group’s recommendations are strong enough to halt a trend of clearing forests for development. Developers have removed 43,000 acres of forest from 1998 to 2021, she said.

The proposed Four Corners development that would create 902 single-family homes on 451 acres on Harbeson Road east of Georgetown would remove 200 more acres of forest, she said.

“Forests are really important," White said. “They are the foundation for the ecosystem – plant life, animals, insects, fungi, bacteria. If you cut down forests, you lose all that. Planting a bunch of little trees is not a replacement for a mature forest.”

She also objects to developers removing topsoil, which contributes to soil erosion and harm to the Inland Bays.

White turned her worries about the environment into action, joining Sussex Preservation Coalition. She helped distribute campaign literature for SPC co-founder Jane Gruenebaum during Gruenebaum’s successful campaign for a seat on Sussex County Council last year.

Gruenebaum was among three newcomers who called for curbing development as they defeated incumbents. The new council formed the working group to review rules and suggest changes.

White became a fixture at meetings of county government boards.

“It’s a very interesting time to be involved in all of this,” she said.

White said the county is at a turning point to preserve the quality of life for all residents.

“We love it here,” White said. “It’s really wonderful. We ate dinner at the Irish Eyes last night. We were looking down the canal, and the sunset was really beautiful.”