The state’s master plan is now our neighborhood’s nightmare. Jack Lingo Asset Management checked all the boxes for the state and county as they designed the new Village Center. The plan is to connect Stockley Boulevard in Governors to the traffic light at Clay Road and Kings Highway, creating interconnectivity on steroids with a thoroughfare from Kings Highway to Gills Neck Road. It’s a safety nightmare for the residents.
Contrary to the developer’s assumptions of people’s behavior, this has the potential to be the shortcut of choice for the many folks who live along Gills Neck Road. Not to mention GPS apps such as Waze will route vehicles through our streets during peak traffic.
Residents along Gills Neck Road, including those in Senators and Governors, already have connectivity to the new Village Center shopping area for bike and pedestrian traffic via the bike trail. You can hardly improve on that.
Perhaps a more prudent action would be to completely eliminate the connection to Stockley Boulevard, ending the road from Kings Highway at the entrance road for the 102 Village Center cottages. The developer saves the cost of building a section of road, it reduces the square footage of the hard surface for stormwater management, and it puts the land back in the developer’s inventory for future use. And the residents of Governors maintain their beautiful, safe, walkable community.
I hope both the developer and the Sussex County Council see this alternative as a win-win to the plan as presented.