Milton planners deny DEStorage modification request

By a 5-1 vote, the Milton Planning and Zoning Commission denied a request by DEStorage for a modification of its special-use permit to allow for outside storage at its facility at Route 16 and Palmer Street Extended.

DEStorage, which has storage facilities in Rehoboth Beach, Dover, Milford, Millsboro, Seaford, Smyrna and New Garden, Pa., is planning to build a complex comprising five structures: four 32,000-square-foot buildings, as well as an office building. The project will be built in two phases, with entry off Palmer Street Extended. Plans call for two stormwater management ponds – one at the front and another at the rear of the property. All four storage buildings will be two stories tall.

The nearly 7-acre parcel is zoned C-1 commercial, but a storage facility is considered a special permitted use, so before it could submit site plans, DEStorage had to receive a special permit, which occurred in August 2022. Part of the approval of that permit were conditions on what DEStorage could do at the site, with one of those conditions being that the company could not have outdoor storage.

The first phase of construction has seen completion of the two street-facing buildings, with the two rear buildings soon to come. At the commission’s June 18 meeting, Andy Strine of DEStorage said the company’s request was to have temporary outdoor storage on site while the two rear buildings are under construction. The plan would be to allow for parking for RVs, campers and boats to be stored. Strine said while he did not know exactly how long the temporary storage would last, he anticipated it wouldn’t be longer than six months.

“Parking is not the highest and best use of that space,” he said.

The commission, however, was not keen on breaking one of its approval conditions without a timeline on how long outdoor storage would occur.

Commissioner Jeff Seemans said, “Six months becomes a year, becomes three years, becomes six years, or you decide to flip this to somebody else. The town is left with outdoor storage, which is not permitted. There is no end date on how temporary this is. I would be willing [to allow it] if there was an absolute guarantee that those two buildings would be done by a certain date. But without any hint of any end date, with the possibility that this could go on for years, that you could flip this without ever having built the last two buildings ... then the town is left with this outdoor storage. It just does not give me a great deal of comfort.”

Other commissioners echoed Seemans’ thought, saying the lack of a timeline and nature of the outdoor storage made it a no-go with them.

Commissioner Lynn Ekelund said, “It’s an RV park. And that’s not what was pitched to us and that’s not what we voted on.”

Commissioner Maurice McGrath added, “There’s too many ifs to it all.”

When Commissioner George Cardwell made a motion to approve the request, the motion died for a lack of a second. Ekelund then moved to deny the request. That motion was passed, with Cardwell as the only no vote.