The following was sent to Sussex County Council, County Administrator Todd Lawson and Planning & Zoning Director Jamie Whitehouse with a copy provided to the Cape Gazette for publication.
I attended the public hearing this past Tuesday on the proposed Master Planned Zoning ordinance regarding large master planned projects. I appreciate county council allowing the public record to remain open for 10 business days until Oct. 31.
My main question to you is, what's the rush?
Why rush to pass this major new ordinance now, when the recent September workshop identified possible major code revisions regarding some very important topics?
Why rush to pass this now when the proposed ordinance has an opening paragraph that mentions superior design to a standard residential subdivision, commercial site plan or combination of both, and we haven't even delved into what the definition of superior is?
Why pass this now when there is clearly no strict language protecting existing forests and a miserly 10% minimum open-space requirement after the developer receives a gift of 12 units per acre? From my years in New Castle County, this is the density developers sought when they wanted to build three-story apartments.
Why pass this now when the 20% minimum of land shall be designated nonresidential, including commercial? Using David Hutt's very reasonable rule of thumb of 10,000 square feet of commercial per acre of land: the Cool Spring project along Route 9 is now 636 acres; 20% of that equals 127 acres; 10,000 square feet per acre of commercial is 1,270,000 square feet. The Christiana Mall near Newark is 1,267,241 square feet! This ordinance would demand a Christiana Mall-sized project next to Route 9 if they use this new zone!
Please pause on this ordinance. The devil is in the details, and there are many obvious devils contained within the language of this proposed ordinance.
Thank you for your consideration of the above points.
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