While congestion and gridlock are everyday occurrences for Sussex drivers, developers have an open road when it comes to county approvals. There is every reason to slow the decision process on Northstar to avoid a Nightmare on Nine.
The Lewes-Georgetown Highway is a major arterial road carrying a heavy volume of east-west traffic, including large numbers of emergency vehicles. It plays a crucial role in evacuations caused by weather or man-made emergencies. The Route 9 corridor is already being rapidly developed, with even larger development plans looming in the future. Northstar is on the P&Z agenda Wednesday, Oct. 9.
Critical questions about Northstar’s traffic remain unanswered. Under prompting from members of P&Z, DelDOT promised to post additional data that would confirm why 13,000 daily vehicle trips can be accommodated. But DelDOT did not release the promised data, nor did P&Z seek their release.
Sussex Preservation Coalition filed a FOIA request for the traffic data and petitioned P&Z to hold the official record open so that the traffic data could become part of their deliberations. P&Z did not respond and DelDOT released only part of the data.
In the meantime, the 45-day countdown began Sept. 4 for P&Z to act on the Northstar applications.
In its evaluation of traffic impacts, P&Z did not give adequate attention to the final report of the Coastal Corridors study released in June 2024 that included important findings about Route 9 and did not include the Northstar traffic projections. The Coastal Corridors report has triggered another follow-up study of Route 9’s future which will not be concluded until late 2025 or early 2026.
Finally, P&Z did not address how Northstar will impact Five Points. Just 1.2 miles from Northstar’s location, the thousands of additional daily trips are bound to affect the largest traffic problem in the area. What light can the Five Points Working Group shed on the problem? No one has asked.
Road improvements should precede construction. Sussex County and DelDOT need to agree on how to synchronize the two at Northstar. But Sussex County has resisted slowing the pace of residential and commercial development so that it can be phased in with road improvements, something they are empowered to request.
P&Z should refer action on all parts of the Northstar application to Sussex County Council for decision. That simple step provides the additional time required to further examine traffic data and conduct a traffic impact study, which has not been done for Northstar. Now is not the time to rush headlong into unwise decisions that could produce the Nightmare on Nine as predicted by one county council member, multiple civic organizations and thousands of local residents living and traveling in this area.
-
A letter to the editor expresses a reader's opinion and, as such, is not reflective of the editorial opinions of this newspaper.
To submit a letter to the editor for publishing, send an email to newsroom@capegazette.com. Letters must be signed and include a telephone number and address for verification. Please keep letters to 500 words or fewer. We reserve the right to edit for content and length. Letters should be responsive to issues addressed in the Cape Gazette rather than content from other publications or media. Only one letter per author will be published every 30 days. Letters restating information and opinions already offered by the same author will not be used. Letters must focus on issues of general, local concern, not personalities or specific businesses.
