Disturbed by comments from pro-development panel members
The Cape Gazette recently reported on a meeting of the Sussex County Land Use Reform Working Group. The discussions and comments were disturbing, to say the least.
As I had noted in a previous letter to the editor, I was concerned with the selection of pro-development members for the panel.
In the recent Gazette article, Jon Horner, representing the Home Builders Association of Delaware, says he does not believe we have outpaced our infrastructure, and the traffic on our roadways is generally moving and adequate. This is absolutely false. Our infrastructure is so far behind our growth that the travel and services issues are drastic.
Anyone who travels our roads knows that our highways are filled with long lines of cars and traffic jams at every intersection. Horner seems to have some grossly incorrect misconceptions before beginning the panel's process.
The members who spoke up at the meeting represented home builders and developers with too many misconceptions to list, such as: our schools are not over capacity, new developments do not bring more students to our schools and more autos on our highways, infrastructure should be updated after a development is completed, not before, and developers should not bear the financial responsibility for the impact on schools, services, public health and the environment they create with their developments.
There are ecological, environmental and aesthetic guidelines for communities that are effective. I sent a report on these guidelines to the panel. Let's see if the panel members read them.
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