The Sussex County Board of Adjustment held nothing back at its Monday, Oct. 19 meeting when it denied an appeal and variance by Sisk of Sea Air Village near Rehoboth Beach.

“None of her requests were made in a timely manner,” said board member John Mills. “It’s impossible to make any determination with no survey. She is clearly in violation.”

Sisk was asking the board for a variance from side and rear setback requirements and the separation requirement between units in a manufactured home park.

Sisk has been cited twice over the past 17 months for not having a building permit, survey or variance for the placement of an 8-by-10-foot shed on her lot. The shed is nonconforming because it encroaches side and rear setbacks on the lot, a problem not uncommon in older manufactured home parks with small lots.

Sisk replaced an old shed with a new one in May 2008. Sisk says she doesn’t need county approval to replace a shed on an existing footprint, but she is willing to get a building permit.

After the unanimous vote to deny Sisk her appeal and variance, an unidentified man in the audience caused a stir as he stood up to exit the room.

He muttered that all of the board members should be shot. Chairman Dale Callaway did not take kindly to the comment and asked for the guard in attendance to escort the man out of the building.

Sisk, who attended the meeting with several friends and supporters from the Delaware Manufactured Home Owners Association, said she would appeal the decision. Now that the county has made a ruling, pending court cases can proceed.

Sisk said the county has no authority to order her, or anyone in a manufactured home park, to get a survey. “It’s not in the code or rules of the county,” Sisk said. “It’s something the county made up. They have rules for some and not for others. This is not supposed to be the way it works.”

Sisk said everyone she has spoken with is appalled at the decision. “I don’t need to have a survey; the park has already been surveyed – three times,” she said.

Others questioned why tenants on leased land should pay $400 to $600 for a survey on land they don’t own.

Mills said Sisk admitted she didn’t get a building permit for an older shed in the 1990s. “It’s illegal; she can’t build there, and we can’t determine the need for a variance if we don’t know where the property lines are. That’s why we ordered a survey,” he said.