The most talked-about issue in Sussex County is LAND USE.

By April 2008, The County is obligated adopt a five-year plan to guide growth and the TIME IS NOW to influence what goes into that plan.

CURRENT LAND USE PLAN http://www.sussexcountyde.gov/departments/countycouncil/CompleteCompPlan.pdf

DRAFT 2008 LAND USE PLAN

http://www.sussexcountyde.gov/CompPlan/index.cfm

SEE http://abettersussex.com/Manage.html

State criticizes Sussex land plan

Draft doesn't stop sprawl, planning officials say

By MOLLY MURRAY, The News Journal

Posted Thursday, November 29, 2007

Sussex County's proposed new Comprehensive Land Use Plan allows continued sprawl and fails to take into consideration such issues as the need for future schools, fire protection and preservation and conservation efforts, state planners said Wednesday during a review.

 

But the key problem, said state planning coordination director Constance Holland, is that "the growth areas are everywhere."

 

The state's review was a disappointment, said Sussex County Administrator David Baker. Once county officials receive the state's written comments, they will consider how best to revise the plan.

 

One sticking point may be that a majority of County Council members are committed to allowing development at a minimum of two homes per acre*  throughout the county. State officials questioned that level of density.

 

But Baker said council members view anything less as a significant property rights issue that would require compensation to landowners. **

 

Eighty percent of the county is in state-designated Level 4 development zones, he said. Those are areas where the state has no plans to develop roads, schools, utilities or other infrastructure.

 

"We had hoped this document would help us work together," Holland said.

 

Both the Sussex County planning and zoning commissions and County Council must hold public hearings on the draft before it can be adopted.

 

Sussex County's current development plan, adopted in 2002, expires at the end of the year. State and county officials have been at odds a number of times during the past five years.

 

To develop this revision of the plan, county officials retained Bethlehem, Pa.-based Urban Research & Development Corp.

 

Paul G. Driscoll presented the draft to state planners and agency officials Wednesday. "The plan is really based on a lot of public input," he said. "You name the group, we met with them."

 

Driscoll said the plan reflects Sussex County's strong commitment to property rights, based upon what the consultant heard at public meetings and from County Council members.

 

But Mable Granke, a Rehoboth Beach resident who participated in the process, said there seems to be a disconnect between what many people said and what county officials and the consultant heard. The current draft is "terrible," she said.

 

State officials raised a variety of issues -- many of them citing a lack of specifics in the plan.

 

State environmental officials want the plan to provide more details on key growth issues such as protection of underground water supplies, resource area protection, loss of forest land, protecting all the watersheds in the county and better management of water runoff from storms.

 

State agriculture officials also weighed in.

 

While Driscoll pointed out that farming was the county's No. 1 industry, Scott Blair of the agriculture department suggested two homes on every acre "continues to encourage sprawl."

 

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