Overbrook parcel should remain agricultural

Sussex County Council will soon make a major decision: whether to grant a zoning change for a large parcel that lies along Route 1, where developers have requested commercial zoning that would allow a massive 850,000-square-foot shopping center with 5,000 parking spaces, known as Overbrook Town Center.

Zoned agricultural-residential (AR-1), the land is open farmland bordering historic farms. According to testimony, these farms would be threatened by the zoning change, because farming practices would likely be curbed adjacent to a commercial area.

At the time of a pair of public hearings on this parcel, the land was in an area that Sussex considers an “environmentally sensitive developing area” and that state planners had placed in a Level 3 zone, an in-between zone for state spending, where officials do not expect to make immediate investments, but where future development may be appropriate.

After the record on this rezoning request was closed, state planning officials unveiled a draft of new state spending maps, based on the most current land-use data. A coalition of people who oppose rezoning has asked the county to reopen the record in light of the state’s new draft maps. Those maps place the parcel in Level 4, an area where state planning documents state what should be emphasized is “development that is compatible with and enhances agriculture ...”

Looking back, it was only in the midst of the unprecedented and, it would turn out, unsustainable housing boom that the parcel found its way into Level 3. Before 2010 and now in draft 2015 maps, the parcel has been in a Level 4 area, where agricultural uses are protected and encouraged.

Developers can request that any piece of land be rezoned, but no matter where land is located, no one has the right to a rezoning.

Whether county council decides to reopen the record or leave it closed, council members are still faced with the knowledge state investments in this area will be limited, and state officials say this land is, and should remain, agricultural.

Rezonings are by definition political decisions: Do the interests of a developer outweigh the interests of the farmers, residents, taxpayers and state officials who have all testified this is agricultural land that should remain agricultural?

Route 1 is the wrong location for a massive shopping center. This land should remain agricultural-residential.