Imagine a cartoon of Sussex County with two levels. A top with development sprawl, a bottom with infrastructure. Cards would be roads, schools, hospitals, doctor and vet offices, fire and police stations, libraries, sewage treatment plants, etc. The foundation is very wobbly.
Crazy, not really. School lines are being redrawn to accommodate overcrowding. Adults have been plagued with traffic and the inability to get doctor or dental appointments. Children will now be impacted by the utter chaos that is land-use management in Sussex County. Friendships will be affected; will children understand why they can’t go to the same school they attended last year? What will parents tell them? County officials hide behind ordinances they won’t change, and haven’t met a developer they didn’t love.
In the Cool Spring area, 1,900 new homes are planned. More children will come. Where will they go to school? Everything built is obsolete before it opens.
Some argue we need more gas stations, like the one proposed at Route 24 and Angola Road, a corner that has been under assault for seven years. The topography is horrendous for cars now, and it abuts the location of a drinking water aquifer and Sarah Run.
Angola Road is saturated with new homes and is the proposed location for the entrance and exit for a Royal Farms. When asked about it at a public meeting in November, a DelDOT engineer said an entrance and exit on Angola Road would not be safe. He added the entrance and exit was not on his plan for an improved intersection. But it is on the Royal Farms application. This meeting was recorded. Why must residents fight the same battle three times? From Angola by the Bay, people can drive 2.4 miles west to a Wawa, 3.8 miles to a Royal Farms, 1.3 miles to a Valero. Is that so bad?
At a recent meeting in Angola by the Bay, residents discussed growth issues, including the proposed gas station. Many people from new communities participated. So why are they concerned, these new transplants from other states? Maybe it’s because they can’t get to the beach in five minutes. Or because they can’t get a dental appointment or the colonoscopy they need. Or maybe it’s because they can’t find a vet for Fido. Or they have to drive to Dover or Salisbury to get an MRI. Welcome to our world and to our fight.
The problem isn’t that you moved here; the problem is our county does not provide for the infrastructure needed to support growth. We need an adequate public facilities ordinance. Pass one now and update land-use ordinances that have led to the crisis we have at hand. And pass them before our foundation of cards tumbles altogether. And, please, once and for all, deny CU2360. We don’t need a gas station at Angola Road and Route 24. Not now, not ever.
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