Henry Glowiak pulls up roots

One of Sussex County's most ardent environmental advocates says he's had enough.

Henry Glowiak, a Delaware native who lived in the area for nearly 40 years, has pulled up stakes and moved to Accomac, Va. “I don't recognize this place anymore,” he says.

On a recent hike in the woods around his home, off Beaver Dam Road near Lewes, he came across land cleared for a housing development. “It was clear cut with no trees left,” he said. “Trees were cut right to the edge of the wetlands with no buffer left. This could not happen anywhere else on Delmarva but in Sussex County.”

That was the tipping point.

For decades, Glowiak has been on the front lines of a movement advocating smart, sustainable growth in an effort to protect the Inland Bays watershed. He served as vice president of Citizens Coalition and still serves on the Inland Bays Foundation board. Dating back to the mid-1970s, he testified on environmental issues at countless county council and planning and zoning commission hearings. “Unfortunately, I can only count on one hand the number of victories we've had,” he said.

Glowiak recalls a simpler eastern Sussex County, when there were two traffic lights from Five Points to Rehoboth Beach. Farms lined the Route 1 corridor. But, he said, over the years the Cape Region has succumbed to the pressures of people demanding to live near the beach. Glowiak said putting central sewer along Route 1 provided the jump-start to rapid development in the area.

“Change and development are inevitable,” Glowiak said. “But Sussex County is going about it completely wrong, with no planning and the most liberal zoning on Delmarva. It's basically become a free-for-all. The genie is out of the bottle, and we can't turn back.

“I'm not going to spend another minute fighting a lost cause. It got to be overwhelming attending never-ending hearings and meetings. It gets more and more frustrating, and you end up depressed. Who wants to live like that?” he asked.

Glowiak said many Sussex residents have become disenfranchised. “Where else on the Delmarva Peninsula do you have to rally the troops and hire a lawyer to fight your own government?” he asked. “You may as well stick a fork in eastern Sussex County. The handwriting is on the wall.”

Glowiak: AR-1 biggest flaw

Glowiak – an outspoken critic of county council – says council fails to look at the big picture and does not take into account the cumulative impact of development. “It comes down to an overall lack of planning,” he said.

In addition, he said, council routinely disregards measures suggested by state agencies to safeguard the environment. “Central sewer will not solve all the environmental problems the Inland Bays are suffering. The amount of impervious surface has already passed the threshold in a good portion of the Inland Bays watershed,” he said.

Glowiak admits that Sussex County officials' hands are sometimes tied by outdated or insufficient ordinances in county code. “I do understand that, but there doesn't seem to be any interest in looking at new zoning ordinances,” he said.

“And the biggest flaw in the county is AR-1 zoning. It's been a disaster. Sussex County's definition of low density is entirely out of character with the entire Delmarva region,” he said.

Most land in Sussex County is zoned AR-1, which allows for two building units per acre and also allows many permitted uses as conditional uses. Upzoning is also allowed in AR-1 districts with approval of rezoning applications.

In Accomack County, base zones are one unit to five acres and in some places one unit to 10 acres. “They have a different philosophy about land use and planning there,” he said.

Glowiak said he understands that revenue from development is required to keep county government running, but he says that's not the only reason the majority of applications in Sussex are approved. “Certain people in Sussex County are looking out to protect people's property rights. Who is that for?” he asked. “It's for a small minority of big landowners. They are watching out for them.”

Glowiak said he used to hear a lot about maintaining a balance between growth, the environment and the economy. “We've lost that. I never hear the word balance anymore,” he said.

While acknowledging some might say his comments are parting shots from a frustrated person, he says it's nothing he hasn't said during public meetings.

And for possible solutions? Glowiak said the county administrator should be an elected position, a person who answers to Sussex residents and not county council. He said planning and zoning commissioners should also be elected.

More training in land-use planning would help council and planning and zoning commissioners, he said.

Glowiak says the one shining example of proper planning helped keep Sussex County coastal towns from looking like Ocean City, Md.

He says he can only imagine what the Sussex County coastline would have looked like without the Coastal Zone Act, championed by former Gov. Russell Peterson, and the state's initiative to purchase as much beachfront property as possible. “It would have looked just like Ocean City from Rehoboth Beach to Fenwick,” he said. “We need another governor like Peterson who is not afraid to step on some toes. He would not let anyone get in the way of preserving the Delaware he loved.”

In addition, in the late 1970s, county council reacted quickly by putting restrictions on building heights after the Sea Colony project in Bethany Beach was approved.

A love of nature and outdoors

Glowiak grew up in New Castle County but spent time on his grandparents’ Kent County farm and at a family house on Rehoboth Bay in the Long Neck area. “It's in those places that I learned to fall in love with the outdoors and nature,” he said.

After graduation from Dickinson High School, he went to the University of Delaware, where he was an agriculture major. He worked in the poultry industry and at the Delaware Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He moved to Sussex County full time in 1978 and retired two years ago.

He said a January 1975 planning and zoning commission meeting was the first one he attended. “Even at 18, I had a good sense how ecosystems worked, and I loved my state and didn't want to see it ruined,” he said.

During the meeting, he testified against an application for the Cozy Cove – now Mariner's Cove – development in Long Neck. “At the time there was no central sewer. I questioned them about the impact of placing septic systems so close to open waterways and the potential for leakage and leaching. They laughed at me,” he said.

That meeting set him on a course of environmental activism for the rest of his life. “When I look back over what has happened in the county over the past 40 years, it's more than overwhelming,” he said.

He said one of the biggest shocks over the years has been the development of the Long Neck area, an unincorporated area where zoning, subdivision and conditional-use applications must be approved by county officials.

Glowiak said back in the 1970s, the state had maps showing large sections of preserved land in the Long Neck area. “Obviously that didn't happen,” he said.