Sussex eyes swift review of development limits

Sussex County Council is expected to create a working group at its Tuesday, Feb. 11 meeting to formulate recommendations on land-use issues, pledging swift action on a topic that resonated through the November elections.

Council President Douglas Hudson asked all council members two weeks ago to list their priorities for the coming year.

“We talked a lot about our priorities and what we want to do, and they always seem to come back to land development and land use,” Hudson said. “When it comes to tackling the problem of land-use development, I don’t want this kicked down the road for a long, long time.”

Three council members elected to their first terms in November ran on platforms calling for limits on development in Sussex, the fastest-growing county in the state over the past five years. They raised concerns about the effect of development on utilities, emergency services and schools.

“I want to come back in two weeks with a real, real good start of where we want to go with this thing and set some serious timelines,” Hudson said.

He suggested residents, stakeholders and Delaware Department of Transportation representatives could serve on the working group.

“I’d like to narrow this down to very specific deliverables that all add up to actions we can take, as a council, to move forward on these concerns we have,” said Councilwoman Jane Gruenebaum. “I don’t think we need to sit and be useless. While this is going on, there is a lot that we can move forward with, including some of these things that are on this page. We need to identify those as well.”

Vice President John Rieley noted that the county has taken steps to curb and improve housing developments, and had planned to continue making changes.

Council will have to decide how long to give the working group to recommend action, but Hudson said he hopes that within six months council will be moving toward changes in laws, although it may take months more before any proposals come to a vote.

County Administrator Todd Lawson noted that council priorities included six recommendations involving land use; four involving affordable and workforce housing; three each on open space and farmland preservation, strategy and public safety; two each on impact fees and school funding; and one each on code update, economic development and environment.

While there is a significant need for workforce housing, Rieley said the county’s past initiatives to support construction of such homes have drawn little interest from developers. He said the county could purchase land to help make a project economically viable.

“We’ve seen progress, but we haven’t seen the kinds of projects we need,” Rieley said.

“I think the time to revisit that is now, to see from the development community what else we can do or consider,” Lawson said.

Councilman Matt Lloyd said a combination of government subsidies, rezoning and increased density may be needed to encourage creation of workforce housing.

Lloyd said council will have to review data on development as it makes decisions on its goals for the year.

Earlier this month, Lloyd drew an outcry from developers, builders and other business groups, and received no other council support when he called for a one-year moratorium on review of new applications for large housing developments while the council considered new rules.

Hudson said he wants to place an emphasis on homeownership.

“It’s nice to have a nice place to rent and live, but there’s nothing like helping someone afford ownership, the pride that it gives people and the overall way that it makes you feel,” he said. 

A past proposal to initiate a voluntary school assessment to help fund construction of schools failed, which Hudson said may have been because people did not understand the issue.

Several council members said they want to discourage development in rural and farmland areas of the county, where much of the building has been occurring in recent years.

After the council discussion of goals, Jamie Whitehouse, county director of planning and zoning, gave a presentation on housing development in recent years that illustrated the trends that have drawn calls for change in the county.

Many of the 22,358 building permits issued since Jan. 1, 2020, for construction of residences were in rural areas, said Whitehouse, who noted a permit does not mean that a residence has been constructed and a single permit can cover a multi-unit residence. A quarter to 32% of the permits issued each year were in the most rural areas of the county, the data show.