Acres talks trees, cleaning up leaves at CDP hearing
Henlopen Acres conducted its public hearing on the draft of the 2024 comprehensive development plan Jan. 24. The document was generally well received, but members of the public who spoke wanted to make sure more efforts are made to keep the town’s tree canopy, and find the best way to remove leaves that inevitably fall from that canopy every year.
Planning Commission Chair Lee Raesly led the hearing, crediting his fellow commissioners for the nearly two years of work that went into producing the document. He said it’s a good plan with aspirational goals that will guide the town for the next decade.
As required by the state, the document covers a number of issues in town, but two issues did raise comments from the public in attendance.
First was noise and air quality. The plan recommends the town consider mandating electric-powered, handheld landscape equipment.
Resident David Kaplan said the town should take a more proactive approach to leaf blowers.
However, resident Patrick Hurson said it’s his experience that the technology for leaf blowers isn’t applicable to commercial application yet because the batteries still need to be replaced every 20 minutes. He said the town has a ton of leaves, and it can be onerous to remove them all.
The second issue discussed was tree canopy. The plan recommends the town take efforts to maintain its density and suggests the minimum tree-planting requirements for new homes be enhanced to require a higher percentage of deciduous and evergreen canopy trees. The plan also suggests the town focus on retaining mature trees throughout the town, especially during new home construction.
Resident Wendy Jacobs said she was thrilled to see tree canopy be included as part of the plan, because it’s an important aspect of town.
In 2014, said Jacobs, a study of the tree canopy showed the town had 75% tree coverage, while another, conducted in 2017, said half the trees in town were mature or older. New construction is an issue, and there are a lot of residents in town who would like to see the town’s tree code have more teeth, she said.
The plan also calls for the town to consider a preferred trash contractor, which Kaplan said he thought was a good idea.
Overall, the document was met with positivity.
It was a good turnout, said Mayor Joni Reich. It’s great to hear what’s on people’s minds, she said.
Moving forward, Raesly said town commissioners will consider possible revisions to the document during a meeting Friday, March 14. He said the goal is to submit the document to the state by Tuesday, April 1, so it can be included on the agenda for Preliminary Land Use Service review later in the month.
From there, said Raesly, town commissioners are expected to review PLUS comments during a meeting Friday, June 13, with possible approval by town commissioners during a meeting Friday, July 11.
Candidate qualifications
During a meeting Jan. 10, town commissioners agreed to a few changes related to the qualifications of candidates who are running as residents. In addition to signing an affidavit saying a person is a resident, they must provide two of the following: the prior year tax return, with sensitive information redacted; a state license or identification card, with a town address; a military ID, with a town address; or a voter registration card, with a town address.
Commissioners also agreed to allow an individual who is part of an ownership LLC to be a candidate as long as the LLC has 100% ownership in a town property and that individual has at least 50% ownership stake. The candidate will have to sign an affidavit saying they will let the town know if their ownership stake changes to less than 50%.
