No more extensions for approved projects

Sussex County officials say more than 200 housing projects with a total of more than 10,000 building lots are set to expire Jan. 1.

These projects must be considered substantially underway in order to meet the deadline. Officials say 60 percent of the projects appear to be on track to meet the deadline, but that leaves as many as 80 projects that may not be substantially underway in the next two months. Many of these projects were filed as the nation fell into recession.

Under county code, conditional-use applications have three years to be substantially underway, while final site-plan approvals, subdivisions and residential planned communities have five years to reach that deadline.

As the housing market slowed to a standstill, council issued blanket time extensions, first in 2011 and then again in 2013, to give developers more time to weather the downturn and not have to start the approval process over again.

But as anyone who has traveled Sussex County roads in recent weeks has noticed, the downturn is over; the housing market is once again in full swing. All of the 200 projects that could expire have now been on the books for years – some for a decade or more.

If a project is not yet substantially underway, it’s time for that project to go back before council so officials can reconsider it in light of today’s conditions, especially where traffic and stormwater retention are concerned.

At the very least, traffic studies associated with these projects must be individually re-evaluated to determine the impact of more housing on increasingly congested roads. Developers of projects approved 10 years ago may not have been required to pay for traffic signals or turning lanes that with today’s congestion would be no-brainers.

Council properly imposed deadlines on developers nearly 20 years ago. If a project fails to get underway within the deadline, then it should go through the process again – and meet up-to-date regulations and design standards. What is the point of a deadline if council repeatedly grants extensions?

Developments that can’t get underway by Jan. 1 should get back in line and start over.