The Rehoboth Beach Planning Commission has scheduled a preliminary review for a major subdivision of the Ocean Bay Mart property on Coastal Highway in the Forgotten Mile area. The review is scheduled for Thursday, June 26, and the subdivision calls for the 7.75-acre lot to be turned into a community of 31 single-family home lots called Oceanside Reserve.

The new plans for the commercially zoned property, also known as Rehoboth Beach Plaza, were announced at the planning commission meeting in November, but there was a level of due diligence required by the city in advance of public review to make sure the application was complete. The city issued a public notice about the upcoming review June 3. City officials allowed the Cape Gazette to review the submitted plans the following day.

According to the plan, Oceanside Reserve comprises a main street from Coastal Highway that terminates at a cul-de-sac, and an alley that connects the interior street to Coastal Highway at the northwestern corner of the parcel.

Proposed homes in the community will be similar in scale and size to adjacent single-family home lots on Scarborough Street Extended and Terrace Avenue.

“The adjacent properties are a series of residential homes to the north, south and east. Coastal Highway is the western border. Oceanside’s 31 proposed single-family lots will fit in with the surrounding neighborhoods,” says the plan.

There are few trees on the property now, but plans say the existing trees will be preserved to the extent possible. Trees near the southeastern corner of the property will be preserved and incorporated into a vegetative buffer. An existing stormwater easement shall be utilized in the overall stormwater management plan.

“Oceanside will comply with all local and state regulations regarding the public’s health, safety and welfare. The parcel improvements will provide a better site for the environment and overall public health. Oceanside will have more pervious areas, tree canopy and ecosystem services post-development,” says the plan. “By changing the current use to residential and increasing the amount of pervious area, the value to public health is improved overall.”

As for streetscape, Oceanside Reserve proposes a single road centrally located with the homes facing the road. An alley is proposed to service a portion of lots with rear-loaded garages, which allows more on-street parking on the main road. 

Plans say the proposed road shall meet all local standards for public safety, including sidewalks on both sides and providing a pedestrian safety zone that connects into the overall sidewalk system along Coastal Highway.

Dark sky street lighting is proposed. Each unit has two parking spaces for a total of 62 off-street spaces.

This is the same property where a neighborhood called BeachWalk was proposed. Those plans called for 58 single-family homes and one building with five units, but the city challenged those plans because, among other things, it didn’t call for a subdivision. A years-long legal battle ensued after the city passed an ordinance codifying that only one building could be built on a lot and then retroactively applied it to the BeachWalk proposal. The developer challenged the application of the code to the BeachWalk proposal, but ultimately, after trips to Chancery Court and the Delaware Supreme Court, the city came out on top. The Supreme Court ruling was in 2023.

The property owner is currently Keith Monigle, who also submitted the previous plans, but the name of the applicant on the plans is Cape Communities LLC, which shares the same Lewes-Georgetown Highway address as Capstone Homes. A representative from Capstone could not be reached for comment.