Rehoboth issues not limited to pools
Rehoboth Beach is changing, and for many residents and visitors, some changes are not welcome. A once sleepy town whose summer cottages offered wide porches, grass and trees is giving way to resort-style homes with more bedrooms than two older cottages put together - and many new homes have pools.
Some city officials say they want to send a strong message that mini hotels are not welcome in residential neighborhoods - and on that, many property owners will agree.
The question is how to send that message.
One idea is to issue either a pool license or a rental license, but one property would not have both. That idea might slow down the rising number of pools, but it’s not going to reduce the number of bedrooms in large houses. Other ways to limit house size are also under discussion, but maybe it’s time to go beyond specific ordinances. Perhaps Rehoboth is now ready to implement strategies suggested by the Architectural Review Task Force, which nearly a decade ago came up with a series of design recommendations aimed at preserving the scale and character of the city’s neighborhoods.
At the time, city officials said revising rules on roof lines and floor space would solve the problem of oversized houses, and the task force recommendations were shelved.
But if there is one thing that would slow down the speed at which cottages are being torn down, it would be establishing a committee to review plans and giving that committee the power to recommend whether a proposed house was in scale and sound-absorbing buffers were in place to ensure noise from pools or other amenities would not disturb neighbors.
When construction companies are building secret bedrooms and basically getting away with it by paying a fine, simply limiting the use of pools is not the answer.
Limiting floor area and counting pools in the equation, which city officials are debating - and submitting plans to a design committee for review - would send a strong message, one that might protect, at least for a while, the family-friendly, neighborly Rehoboth Beach that for so long has attracted home owners and visitors.
