Citizens group unveils campaign against Milton medical facility

Milton residents have unveiled a full-on blitz to persuade town officials not to approve a Mulberry Street rezoning to make way for two 40,000-square-foot medical office buildings.

Public pressure includes signs, an online petition - currently at 134 signatures - and a Facebook page, Citizens Against Mulberry Street Rezoning. 

Allen Sangree is one of the administrators for the Facebook page. A resident of Union Street, he was alarmed when he learned developer Phoenix Holdings has proposed to rezone a nearly 8-acre parcel from R-1 residential to C-1 commercial and develop the medical office buildings - one of which would be occupied by Beebe Healthcare - across from H.O. Brittingham Elementary School. 

“It freaked a lot of people out,” Sangree said.

Phoenix Holdings must obtain a rezoning to move on to site-plan review, so plans are still preliminary, but those that have been shown include more than 400 parking spaces, two stormwater retention ponds and trees screening the campus from adjacent houses. The main entrance would be on Mulberry Street with a secondary access point on Willow Street. 

The plan is for Beebe to occupy one building for doctors, specialists and medical technicians. John Paradee, attorney for Phoenix Holdings, told the planning and zoning commission in January that there would be no emergency services, ambulances or helicopters. The second building would contain additional medical offices. 

During the January meeting, Paradee had few answers on traffic concerns, but he said the campus would provide “double, maybe even triple-digit jobs” in both construction and when the campus is built. That meeting ended with the commission taking no action, waiting for the state’s Preliminary Land Use Service to weigh in. 

State agencies released comments Feb. 19, so the Milton planners will resume discussions at 6:30 p.m., Wednesday, March 11, at Milton library. No public comment will be accepted March 11; meetings on advisory opinions are not hearings, so the commission is not required to take public comments, although Chairman Richard Trask took comments at the commission’s Jan. 21 meeting. The comments were overwhelmingly against the rezoning.

Sangree is a former member of the Planning and Zoning Commission. He said he was concerned about the facility’s effect on traffic and the community, and he did not think representatives for Phoenix Holdings were being forthcoming about what is being planned. He said he thought it was important for the community to unite together in opposition. 

“I didn’t come down here to fight a fight. I came here to retire,” Sangree said. “People don’t want to see that there. They like this town the way it is. This town is one of a couple dozen with this kind of feel. We see that being taken away.”

Milton resident MJ Ostinato said she opposes the plan because, in her view, it does not comply with the town’s comprehensive plan, or the town’s stated goals for sustainable growth. In its application to the state’s Preliminary Land Use Service, Phoenix Holdings has estimated that more than 3,000 vehicle trips per day will come to the facility. In its comments as part of the PLUS review, Delaware Department of Transportation said the proposal warrants the need for a traffic-impact study. Ostinato said that many trips is dangerous, both for a small street like Mulberry Street and because the proposed facility would be across the street from an elementary school.

Sangree said he doesn’t oppose the idea of a medical office facility, but such a project would be more appropriate on Route 16.

“Our mantra is, fabulous idea, wrong location,” Sangree said. “It’s going to change the character of the town, and what the plan states should be there.”