Reading "New Overbrook plan requires overpass" in Tuesday's Cape Gazette prompted me to take a close look at the Draft Sussex County Comprehensive Plan prepared by McCormick and Taylor now under review.
While all of the essence of its 280 pages cannot possibly fit here, I was able to glean from it that an argument can be made that Sussex County, especially its eastern half, has already reached its maximum growth. Continuing to develop as we have been, and as the plan projects, will only reduce the quality for the people here.
What really needs to be done, I think, is to "fix" our systems, (water, sanitation, drainage, roads, open land and protected areas, traffic) and stop adding to their problems with approving every proposal for development that comes along with a rubber stamp.
The plan only projects to 2024, which is when the Overbrook (Cave Neck Road) overpass is scheduled to start (and it is just one of the major changes to the Route 1 corridor that is projected) but we are already experiencing the traffic impact these changes are intended to mitigate. This parcel (and the developer is only asking for "phase one") is still within the watershed of the Great Marsh Preserve less than a mile away from Route 1.
This is just one (but one of the more egregious) example of development proposals that have brought us to the limit of growth. Overlay the other maps from the plan on one another - existing land use, developed and protected land, state spending policies, (projected) future land use, protected land, watersheds, wetlands and floodplains, water service areas, wellhead protection, (existing) wastewater control, existing and future roads and their traffic - and one sees a perfect storm of competing, potentially conflicting land uses, and a highly urbanized environment.
And speaking of storms, more frequent and more severe storms are forecast to continue, and that a "Sandy" will hit us at some time is a real possibility. Because Delmarva is a peninsula, evacuation for a major storm would likely make being stuck in Route 1 traffic on a summer Saturday a fond memory.
A day trip up or down the coast will suggest that those areas that allowed or chose to max out their development potential have become urban areas, small cities with all the aggravations of city life - and places you may not want to live in.
There is a lot to be said for the quieter, slower pace of life here; and I think we are in danger of losing that unless we reconsider allowing just about every field and forest we have to become just another suburban anyplace strung along congested roads leading to some commercial noplace.
John Mears
Millsboro
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