Rezonings should improve, not deteriorate
A rezoning requested for a 35-acre parcel on Warrington Road is just one more in a lineup of rezonings already under consideration by Sussex County’s planners and council members.
As with all of the proposed rezonings, it should absolutely not be considered as an isolated project. Rather, it must be viewed as one more project that has the potential of exacerbating existing traffic problems in eastern Sussex County unless the county adopts a harder-line approach to responsible development.
In this case, as with the others, responsible development would mean requiring developers to demonstrate that their plans include design and funding for roadway and transportation construction that would do no less than alleviate current traffic congestion. Approving rezonings without requiring such improvements would show total blindness to already failing roads and would amount to dumping on existing residents to benefit only the developers.
Warrington Road is a perfect example. The road is already jammed with traffic much of the time, not only with drivers accessing their communities along Old Landing Road, but also with drivers trying to beat Route 1 traffic by sliding south to Plantation and Warrington roads. Even developing this particular tract at its current permitted density of two units per acre would, without roadway improvements, aggravate the situation.
Although higher densities in developed areas can make sense, more than doubling the density, as is proposed in this situation, makes no sense whatsoever without serious road improvements.
One place to look for improvement would be toward the started - but never completed - crossing road between Route 24 and Old Landing Road just north of the Beebe Healthcare Route 24 campus. If that road were completed and not just left as the stub street it currently is, it would at least add a much-needed option to the traffic grid in that area.
With the housing market continuing to strengthen, development pressure will only increase, as this most recent proposal demonstrates. Now is the time to demand more. Rezonings should be approved only if they improve conditions.
Sussex deserves no less.
