Rehoboth planners declare war on residents

At a time when many in Rehoboth Beach look forward to the fresh air associated with the new mayor and two newly elected commissioners to be sworn in to office this week, the holdover Rehoboth Beach Planning Commission has chosen to declare war on residents by denying us due process in its recent hearing on a major project and by trying to stop us from appealing its decision.    

Clear Space Theatre applied to build a theatre campus which could be the largest non-government/non-hotel complex in the city.  Most people want to find a way for CST to remain in town, as long as it meets standards of both the zoning ordinance and site-plan ordinance. The RBPC had an opportunity - in fact, a legal obligation - to review CST’s site plan carefully, and to minimize its negative impact on parking, traffic, noise, stormwater runoff, scale relative to surrounding structures, lighting - all relevant externalities of large buildings.  After revising its initial noncompliant plan submitted over a year ago, CST came back to the RBPC in 2020 with this basic position: “This is now our final plan - approve it.”  When the official public hearing began Aug. 14, several RBPC members announced their support for it, saying the two-building campus was “code-compliant”  even before residents testified about why it was not “code-compliant.” Two dissenting RBPC members understood the site plans remained problematic and needed more changes, but by a vote of 7-2, the RBPC approved CST’s plans as submitted. 

Apart from the merits of whether and how to build this theatre complex, in its rush to judgment in the closing days of the current board, the RBPC engaged in multiple violations of residents’ due-process rights.  Favorable votes included a vote from one RBPC member who isn’t eligible to register to vote in the city, according to public records, and thus ineligible to serve on the RBPC.  Some RBPC members, whose only roles should be that of decision makers, effectively became witnesses for CST by visiting the site solo, counting traffic, and making other specific observations that became evidence in the case - the exact type of misconduct forbidden to any judicial or quasi-judicial official.  Apparently, none of this troubled the city solicitor, who serves at taxpayers’ expense.

Twenty-one residents appealed the site plan approval to the mayor & commissioners.  Almost immediately the city solicitor filed a motion to dismiss, which is not even an option provided in the city code.  The motion argues that neighbors have no standing to appeal.  Yet many of the appellants live immediately adjacent to the theatre complex or live within a few hundred feet - so their concerns about parking, traffic, noise, lighting and public safety are obvious. The city solicitor wants “specific detail” and a “concrete and particularized statement” of harm, although the city code asks for only a “general statement” at this early stage.  The city waived all fees for CST to file its significantly changed site plan, yet the motion claims the neighbors need to pay a double filing fee to appeal one project. With a large shortfall in the city budget due to COVID, why were taxpayer dollars wasted on the city solicitor filing this spurious motion?  The latest unfairness against the appealing neighbors occurred Sept. 11, when the city solicitor and RBPC allowed its ineligible member to attend an executive session to discuss litigation strategy in this case, a case in which he never even should have participated in the first place. 

Regardless of how one feels about CST’s current plans, twisting the language of the city’s appeal law, wasting taxpayer money on legal fees for the motion, and denying residents a fair appeal hearing is not how municipal government should work.  Every resident will benefit from a fair appeal, duly heard by the board of commissioners.