Civic League for New Castle County
Annual Meeting
Date: Tuesday, May 16th, 2017
Guest: Jennifer Cohan, Secretary of Transportation
Time: 7:00 - 9:00 p.m.
Location: Christiana Presbyterian Church 15 North Old Baltimore Pike Christiana, DE 19702
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CLNCC County Comments
Here's a May County Comments submission by Tom Dewson that focuses on one of DelDOT's primary functions in the county land use - the process that determines an applicant's Scope of their specific Traffic Impact Study:
County Land Use Process Under Threat - Will County Administration Act?All residents of New Castle County need to be aware of a serious threat to the integrity of the County Land Use approval process.
Since December, concerned citizens have been fighting the deeply flawed traffic study underway at Delaware National, the 262-unit residential development proposed for the former Hercules Golf Course.
As designed, the traffic study fails to account for over 20,000 vehicles per day. The issue isn't the 16 intersections identified for study. It's the failure to properly account for traffic at these intersections.
The recent Toll Brothers Supreme Court decision was clear--traffic capacity is allocated on a first-come, first-serve basis, and the County is the final decision maker.
The County Code is similarly clear--trip generation from projects with recorded plans must be included. Yet, to date, the County has refused to account for
- 2.2 million square feet of approved but unbuilt space at AstraZeneca and the Experimental Station
- over 1 million square feet of existing but vacant space at AstraZeneca, Experimental Station, Barley Mill Plaza, 4250 Lancaster Pike and Chestnut Run PlazaAll clearly have traffic rights that precede any new development, and all clearly impact some of the 16 intersections being studied.
As expected, objections have been raised that "the approved but unbuilt developments aren't close enough to be considered" and that "traffic studies haven't considered vacant space in the past". None of these objections hold water.
Everyone who travels Route 141 knows it's a major employment corridor. Morning traffic flows from the suburbs to employers along the corridor, and returns in the evening. As for vacant space, this is a unique situation that can't be ignored -- vacant space is huge, it's nearby and it has prior traffic rights.
We filed a formal objection with the County in early March, and we await their response. The County Administration has a watershed decision to make.
Left unaddressed, the integrity of the land use process will be seriously undermined -- for this and all future projects.
Tom Dewson
The News Journal touched on this subject in an April 20, 2017 story by Xerxes Wilson: Hercules golf course project hits familiar concerns
The math of calculating how many vehicles stream near the former Hercules Country Club off Lancaster Pike continues to complicate an effort to build 262 homes on the 205-acre property. An attorney for landowner and Newport-based developer Greg Pettinaro briefed neighbors on the development plan for the property and an ongoing traffic study that will partially determine what sort of road improvements the developer must make to execute the project.
Traffic concerns and calculations have dogged a several-years-long effort to build houses on the property, and the county is fresh off spending tens of thousands of dollars successfully defending all the way to the Delaware Supreme Court its decision to block a previous development on the land over traffic issues. That plan was being pushed by Toll Brothers, which was going to buy the land from Pettinaro. Now, Pettinaro's representatives have been conducting an updated traffic study as he seeks approval of a development plan that mirrors that previous effort.
"The traffic study is deeply flawed," said Tom Dewson, a community land use activist. "We are not missing 20 or 30 cars a day, folks. We are missing over 20,000 cars a day that are not reflected in the traffic study as it is scoped today."........The scope of the ongoing traffic study understates traffic in the area by not considering approved expansions at AstraZeneca as well as the DuPont Co. Experimental Station on Del. 141, said Dewson, who was a figure in the successful fight to block a major development at Barley Mill Plaza that also ended up in the state's highest court over traffic debate. He argues the traffic counts being used in the study are also flawed because it does not consider 1 million square feet of vacant office space in the region at complexes like DuPont's Chestnut Run Plaza and Barley Mill Plaza, which is also owned by Pettinaro.
........A county official at the meeting said local regulators are considering Dewson's objections. It's a debate that will weigh heavily on what local highway intersection improvements Pettinaro must pay for in order to build the project. Toll Brothers objected to the county's requirement that it make pricey improvements to the intersection of Lancaster Pike and Centerville Road leading to the death of the company's development push.
