A Refreshing Community Perspective on the Problems with the NCC Redevelopment Code

This is an very refreshing and insightful perspective on the serious failures of the New Castle County Redevelopment code, particularly with regard to its impact on communities by Fritz Griesinger, a former member of the planning board and long time community advocate.  The Civic league must take on this issue, and get this code corrected before even more damage is done that will negatively affect our communities for decades to come.
 

As a long term Community Advocate, I felt reporter Chad Livengood (News Journal, August 16, 2010) wrote a refreshingly candid article on problems with Redevelopment.  Properties faced with acts of God and similar situations were addressed by  Redevelopment as part of the Unified Development Code (UDC) when it was adopted in 1997.  Over the years, the Redevelopment ordinance has been mercilessly perverted by the county to now include, by right, just about every zoning category including residential.  With a compliant county government as well as favorable waivers and interpretations by the Land Use Department, there is little protection for residents' quality of life covered in the 2007 Comprehensive Development Plan.

     One might argue that the free market would determine when a profitable property should be redeveloped.  The incentives are many and compelling including density bonuses, exemption from impact fees and traffic studies, expedited approvals and exemption from site capacity standards.  Not to mention the 400% site improvement which is easily achieved by adding a few bicycle racks and handicapped parking spaces.  Finally, developers love redevelopment because of the by right predictability, lower costs, no hearing and no unhappy residents to deal with?

     But what about adverse impacts on neighbors and their quality of life?  They too should have by right protection.  But they don't.  Neighbors should have better transparency and hearings, aesthetics as pleasant or better than existing, drainage better than before including downstream, adequate local sewers including downstream, adequate, non contaminated drinking water. Traffic is the responsibility of the county and should be within Level of Service standards.  The county can ill afford loosing all of the fees and taxes redevelopment will avoid.  Interestingly, the first few projects would have been renovated without the redevelopment subsidies.

      Ordinance 06-007 was adopted in 2006 and was the most liberal version.  Coons and council tell as that ordinances not serving their purpose are always under review for improvements.  Isn't four years long enough to recognize that this ordinance needs to be more neighborhood friendly?