In 2019, when my husband and I began building a house in a community on Robinsonville Road in Lewes, we had no idea about the overdevelopment freight train that was already hitting the residents here.
We had moved here from a town in Connecticut where conservation was a very high priority, where about one-third of the town's acreage was under conservation. I served on the town's inland wetlands commission, which was an arm of planning and zoning.
After becoming concerned about the sheer number of developments being approved on Robinsonville Road, and then educating myself as to how Sussex County is run, I began attending county council and P&Z meetings to voice my concerns about the absence of perimeter buffer rules, lack of enforcement, the clear-cutting of forests, and allowing building on/adjacent to wetlands. When a 152-acre parcel was largely clear-cut by the developer on Robinsonville Road, I met several of the smart individuals who had organized to fight with council and P&Z over it, and those individuals later formed the Sussex Preservation Coalition. Jane Gruenebaum is one of those individuals and, with Jane as president, SPC triggered the recent changes to the buffer ordinance in Sussex County.
If Jane is elected, the residents of Sussex County will have turned over three of the five county council seats in one year. This is an important opportunity for all the residents (like myself and my husband) who feel that the current county council and P&Z have no plan for responsibly, actively managing the development here vis-a-vis roads, schools, emergency services, healthcare and evacuation routes. The current council and P&Z also appear to disregard the state recommendations for where development should and should not occur.
I recently looked online at the county council website to see if county council has a mission statement. If it exists, I could not find it. Jane Gruenebaum has a clear mission to promote improved quality of life, ensure first responders and schools have the resources they need to address the growing population, synchronize growth with traffic improvements, and address conservation concerns in the county comprehensive plan.
If you live in District 3 in Sussex County, please vote for Jane. Let's grab this opportunity to change county council to become more responsible for a positive quality of life in Sussex County.
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