Land Use & Development
 | | | |
Discussion Paper on Threat to Public Input on Development by NCC Council -
Council to Vote October 25, 2005
Click Here to Read a Detailed Public Testimony to Planning Board on 3.319 Removal Issue
Click Here to read the current position of NCC Planning Board on removal of 3.319 Hearings
Click Here to read about some thoughts on developer subsidies that make concern of developer costs for 3.319 unjustified.
Please propose that the problems with UDC Section 3.319 be addressed through the
Comprehensive Plan Update, not by the misguided and sneaky efforts of
Ordinance Number 03.091.
Several members of NCC Council (lead by Councilman Weiner & Council President Clark ) are seeking to shut the public out of the opportunity to be heard in a meaningful way on development plans that increase densities. This is known as 3.319 Hearings, which have served as a hearing for upzonings of suburban zoned land under the UDC. Removal of this council hearing will effectively allow the by-right upzoning of tens of thousands of acres of land without any adjustment in the current county wide zoning. The excess of allowable development will further accelerate the over development of NCC, the disinvestment in our Cities and Towns, and the unnecessary expenditure of $100s of millions of tax payer dollars for infrastructure that subsidizes developers.
Even if Council compromise and demonstrate their penchant for mediocrity by "moving the hearing earlier", it will be devastating to communities. There will not be enough information to make informed decisions, and communities do not have the lawyers and technical staff to review these things in time. Also, community organization is a time consuming task that cannot be done in the time period proposed. The developers and authors of this ordinance know communities cannot mobilize earlier, and that an "earlier" review mean "no signficant public input". The only reasonable early review, is to address this issue in advance as part of the ongoing required update of the New Castle County Comprehensive Development Plan.
Consideration of such a massive and significant change in by-right development zoning density as being proposed by changing 3.319 should require a much more deliberate and thoughtful process, and is only appropriately done through Comprehensive Planning due to its regional impacts.
Besides, the current problems with Section 3.319 are a symptom of a much greater problem. Most of the contentious information presented at the hearings is directly related to dissatisfaction with the zoning and NCC Comprehensive Plan. Removing 3.319 is nothing more than a cowardly effort to cover up a symptom of the disease, not cure it. We should treat this 3.319 problem like a Public Policy issue, not like a venereal disease.
Council Members should welcome the concerns and discourses expressed by the tax paying citizens during these hearings, and provide the leadership to resolve the problems, not hide them. If not, we should vote them out.
The proper place to address the issues, concerns, and conflicts experienced through 3.319 hearings is through the update of the NCC Comprehensive Plan. Extra efforts should be made to truly engage the public in this update with a series of extensive charrettes and workshops to help the affected public visualize the future build out of whatever plan gets adopted in advance. The UDC, Comp. Plan, and the manner in which the past County Administration forced things through did not give the public a chance to understand the ramifications. Now that they are seeing it unfold they hate it. Voicing of this dissatisfaction is done at the only reasonable public hearing outlet, the 3.319 Community Character hearings. We can do much better planning with public engagement.
In Southern New Castle County, we want to rein in the excessive over development while we still can, and then push for efforts like those done in our adjacent counties to the west in the State of Maryland. County leaders in nearby MD are doing much better land use planning and management (they appear to have stronger leadership to deal with the Mid-Atlantic Development pressure than New Castle County. Check out what is happening over there at: http://www.eslc.org/es2010.html.
Many people in SNCC would like to be more like Cecil County and Kent County Maryland than like Northern NCC. Culturally we are very different from northern New Castle County. We are far more like the Eastern Shore than we are like the suburbs of Philadelphia (which is more the character of Northern NCC). These areas in Maryland are much more successfully slowing growth, and focusing growth around existing towns with rural legacy areas protected, not arbitrarily zoning to create new city's disconnected from the existing towns and centers of regional social interaction.
Another significant consideration is that 73% of the affected Suburban Zoned Land is in the southern part of the county, but the residents that are more culturally aligned with the Eastern Shore have only two of 13 representatives. The others may not understand the cultural diversity, as they live and experience a cultural setting more similar to that of the Philadelphia suburban region. They appear totally insensitive and at times show disdain of cultural differences.
Most importantly, the NCC Comprehensive Plan is completely out of date with the realities taking place on the landscape.
With all the annexation, growth, and changes in the SNCC, the Suburban (S) zoning needs to be revisited and some down zoned before we consider a comprehensive upzoning of development by weakening Section 3.319. Otherwise we will experience excessive over development. A copy of the growth projections and comparisons to the need were completed as part of a short white paper on the sewer, but are also useful in this context. The paper is available from the SNCCA web page at: http://www.sncca.org/water.html, or directly as a PDF file at:
http://www.sncca.org/SSSA%20Expansion%20Discussion%20033004.PDF .
We need to ask if the SNCC growth zone is still needed at this time.
Keeping this unnecessary growth zone will cost the public at least 500 Million for roads (Rt. 301), 80 Million for known developer road assistance (Bayberry agreement - 65M, Westown Agreement 15M), 100 Million for Sewer, and many other tax payer costs. The public will pay huge sums of money, and should be involved in the decision making process (not shut out while secret deals are cut). While county council approves all this excessive development, in Delaware, they shun the cost of supporting it to State and Federal taxpayers for roads, drainage, schools, and many other service expenses.
An extremely important consideration for Comprehensive planning, is the changing pattern and location of SNCC growth in recent years. We must acknowledge that since the NCC Comp. Plan was approved, we have seen significant annexation that has increased densities for the region in Middletown, Smyrna, & Townsend. We do need some denser development areas, but we don't need it everywhere. In fact, many people in SNCC are comfortable with higher density in towns. They believe Town Houses belong in town, and growth should occur in concentric rings around our towns. The current approach of NCC to have mixed housing everywhere is a new post WWII dilemma that came with Euclidian zoning and sprawl in the "suburban Philadelphia" region known as northern NCC. This is now oozing into SNCC, where we have a chance to choose differently. As a largely rural region, SNCC still has a choice about the way it is developed, and many believe you will find the southern residents are much more comfortable with municipal growth at higher densities than the "conservation sprawl" approach of the NCC comp. plan. Besides, the municipalities are showing a much better capacity to actually build moderately priced and affordable homes (140K-190K) than the "conservation sprawl" approach with $400-450K gentrified townhouse communities. They also are not punting and dumping the responsibility of managing these large tracts of fragmented and useless "open space" to the communities that are unprepared to manage it.
Many of us have come to hate the bastardized term; "open space". We want to protect natural areas, forest, working lands, working forest, and habitat; not wasteful & ecologically damaged "open space". The subdivision "open space" is the worthless spoils of irresponsible land exploitation that has been brilliantly marketed by developers and politicians.
At a minimum, we must take a regional planning approach that allocates the growth between the County and Municipalities in line with the projected housing needs of the Delaware Population Consortium, not simply have our towns and the County compete and try to "grab it all", causing the excessive overdevelopment. We must treat growth like a limited resource; allocated like clean drinking water.
The approach should be to hold interactive community meetings called charettes, tell the people in SNCC they need to find a place to put "X" number of houses in accordance with the DPC housing projections, and let them work it out (with guidance). It will give them a chance to see the difficulty and challenges, and be a part of determining their future landscape. (A bit more complex than this, but catches the gist of it).
At a minimum, addressing the issue as part of the comp. plan update gives people a better opportunity to visualize the options and impacts than simply shoving it down there throats and cutting them out of the opportunity to testify at hearings.
We hope citizens realize that removal of the Council Hearing for 3.319 is a massive upzoning of land. While it might delight the developers (and increase future campaign contribution potential), it will infuriate many citizens that are paying for the drainage repairs, roads, schools, wastewater treatment, etc. etc., etc.
Please DEMAND that these issues be done through Comprehensive Regional Planning, not through underhanded piecemeal political maneuvering that is so typical of sleazy politics in Delaware.
Useful Documents
Discussion Paper on Southern Sewer District Expansion - Water Farm II - SSSA Expansion Discussion 033004.pdf (26KB)
News Article on Lack of Funds to Fix Stormwater Problems Caused by Overdevelopment (Delaforum July 14,2005)
Article on Funding Concerns for Southern Sewer Service (Middletown Transcript May 19,2005)
WILMAPCO Summary of Transportation Projects Cut due to DelDOT Budget Problems (Caused by Overdevelopment)
Delaware Population Consortium Household Projections as of April April 10, 2005 - Southern New Castle County (MOT Planning District) Projection is for only 18,973 homes in both Incorporated & Unincorporated Areas (9KB)NCC HOUSEHOLD PROJECTIONS 041005.pdf
Response Letter to NCC on Eroneous Growth Analysis and Problems with Comprehensive Plan (164KB)Response to NCC MOT Analysis.pdf
NCC MOT Growth Assessment April 9, 2003 (146kb)NCC MOT Growth Analysis.PDF
Conservation Design Fact Sheet
New Castle County Development Process Diagram
| | | | |
|
|
©all rights reserved, Southern New Castle County Alliance
|
