Sussex County introduces a package of ordinances seeking to act on recommendations from the county’s Land Use Reform working group.
The ordinances proposed this week all affect county land use, from creating new rules requiring open space, to changing how subdivisions are handled depending on whether the area is designated as a “growth area” or not, to new revisions to the Sussex County Rental program.
The rules, if passed, will be effective immediately, but will not apply to any subdivision applications already being considered.
Assistant County Attorney Vince Robertson said these actions are some of the county’s first steps toward land use reform.
“This is the first official step after we did the Land Use Reform Working Group. As a result of that, there were twenty-some-odd recommendations. What we’ve done is start putting those into ordinance form to get this process started.” he said
One of the six ordinances introduced involve changes to the Sussex County Rental program- Land Use Reform Working Group recommended that things set-aside numbers, open space requirements, and impact fee reduction offerings be enacted as part of this change.
Others involve cluster subdivisions in areas designated by the county as "growth areas", and standard subdivisions in areas that the county has defined as "rural areas". Land Use Reform recommendations were designed to discourage development in areas that are not already dense, according to Reform Group members.
The working group has stressed in the past that it’s important the county pursue the entire package of recommendations. Working group member Christophe Tulou says this move is still a good start.
“Big credit to the county for taking the whole issue of land use reform seriously and also honoring the work of the Land Use Reform Working Group, and this is evidence of that.” he said. "What they've done is taken, five or six of those concepts out of the 20... and said 'ok, these are. relatively easier to do'"
The working group passed 20 recommendations in late summer of last year. Since then, the county reviewed the recommendations, and started revision of its comprehensive plan early in order to properly integrate recommendations.
County officials have previously said they plan to tackle the easiest recommendations first. The first six ordinances proposed this week were among those identified as “low hanging fruit”.
The ordinances will be discussed at public hearings in the future, though dates for those hearings have not yet been determined.
