Sussex County Council and the Sussex County Planning & Zoning Commission are having a joint development design workshop to review five categories of regulations that affect construction of new homes: site work, open space, forest preservation, subdivision standards and superior design.
If you are fed up with traffic gridlock, clear-cutting and deforestation, loss of habitat for wildlife, degradation of natural resources, and the outdated and poorly written land-use codes, then please show up at the workshop. The public is invited, though we will have to share our feedback with the county council (who writes land-use codes) at a later date.
County council must consider developing a Sussex County Natural Resource/Forest Preservation Plan with specific requirements and enforcement provisions. Both Kent and New Castle counties and all bordering Maryland counties recognize the importance of trees/woodlands/forests and have ordinances to protect them. It’s time for Sussex to take action.
Cutting down forests and leaving a 20-foot wooded buffer around a subdivision is a disaster – there are several subdivisions where you can see dying, mature trees in 20-foot buffers. A mature tree has a root system that is as wide as its canopy! Much wider tree buffers are required to prevent blowdown, protect root systems and have viable forest buffers. We must also have regulations for fencing around the trees to be preserved so construction equipment does not damage tree roots.
The development design workshop will be at the Emergency Operations Center at the Delaware Coastal Airport, 21911 Rudder Lane, Georgetown, beginning at 12:30 p.m., Thursday, Sept. 21. It’s important that we show up so council members know how important it is for them to make substantial changes to land-use code. We will need to follow up with correspondence to our council members.
Please take the survey titled Importance of Trees in Sussex County before Sunday, Sept. 10, when the results will be tallied. It can be found at tinyurl.com/ycwdxr95. It is also available via a link at the top of the page at SussexPreservationCoalition.org.
-
A letter to the editor expresses a reader's opinion and, as such, is not reflective of the editorial opinions of this newspaper.
To submit a letter to the editor for publishing, send an email to newsroom@capegazette.com. Letters must be signed and include a telephone number and address for verification. Please keep letters to 500 words or fewer. We reserve the right to edit for content and length. Letters should be responsive to issues addressed in the Cape Gazette rather than content from other publications or media. Only one letter per author will be published every 30 days. Letters restating information and opinions already offered by the same author will not be used. Letters must focus on issues of general, local concern, not personalities or specific businesses.
