CLNCC Monthly Meeting
7 p.m. Tuesday, January 18th
ZOOM Program
Civic League for New Castle County Zoom Meeting
Time: Jan 18 Nov, 2022 07:00 PM EST
Guest Daniel Blevins Principal Planner at Wilmapco
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Meeting ID: 898 692 4710
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County Comments January 2022:
How can there be 20,000 excess residential units in New Castle County
by Charles C Stirk Jr 1/1/2022
How can there be 20,000 excess residential units in New Castle County .
225,245 Residential Units in NCC
205,829 Households in NCC
48,000+ Approved New Residential Units NCC 2020
For years now NCC Has had an ordnance registering vacant residential property but no ware near a 1000+ number have been registered.
Are these 20,000 vacant residential units Zombie properties ? In 2012 WILMAPCO estimated 14,700 vacant residential properties in New Castle County . In nearly a decade have vacant residential property increased by approximately 5000 units ?
Are there nearly 20,000 vacation homes & Pied-à-terre or short term rentals such as Airbnb in NCC ? A check of Airbnb list only 300 ish available units in NCC .
What portion of the 20,000 excess residential units owned by real estate investment funds ?
Using residential property as an investment asset such as gold & Intently holding vacant residential property from the market would seem to be a Nonconforming Use to a Land Use Department .
The Variety of Land Use Departments in New Castle County did not approve residential development for 20,000 units or roughly 5% of all residential property to sit vacant .
In any case the various state of ownership 5% residential property in New Castle County is currently vacant & beyond the market . The various vacant residential property ordnances have not solved the issue at hand .
What Can Be Done ?
Vacancy / Empty homes tax
The City of Vancouver In British Columbia has come up with a possible solution The Empty Homes Tax, also known as the "Vacancy Tax”, VACANCY TAX BY-LAW NO. 11674 .
Simply put an additional 3% of the taxable assessed value on vacant residential properties doubling year on year .
A originally written the By-law doubled the Empty homes tax year on year
1st year 3% 2nd year 6% 3rd year 12% 4th year 24% 5th year 48% 6th year 96% of the taxable assessed value on vacant residential properties .
A ordinance such as above doubling the Empty homes tax year on year would seemingly strongly encourage all owners of vacant residential property to bring such residential units back to the marketplace .
Comp Plan April 7 2021 Workshop
By Vic Singer
This evening Wednesday -- I attended the LU Department's 6 pm to 8 pm Comp Plan Workshop entitled "April 7, 2021 - Community Design and Historic Preservation." The LU Department followed up by asking for an evaluation survey, in two principal parts. The first, a General Comment on the entire seance, was limited to 1000 characters (no, NOT 180 words). The second or Other Comments section, was unlimited. My unexpurgated remarks in both sections follow.
In minor parts, I acknowledged living in 1973 in an owned home, being white, non-hispanic and over 65 with an income greater than $100K. Actually, my mother's family was hispanic before the Spanish Inquisition in the 1490's; over succeeding centuries they wound up in Eastern Europe, and then to Canada in the 1920's
You may remember that during our gathering Monday afternoon/evening, I mentioned that during my many years designing rocket motors for numerous communication satellites, it was my practice to encourage our customers to develop a sense of ownership of the design by allowing them to make some design decisions, but never on anything crucial to mission success. We let the customer choose what colors to paint the bathrooms.
My overall impression of this particular Comp Plan public involvement opportunity is that the LU Department is giving the public an opportunity to choose what colors to paint the bathrooms. The 1000 character limit on comments sort of confirms that.
GENERAL COMMENT ON THE ENTIRE SEANCE
The seance focused on land use patterns (unusual in NC County at least north of the canal) suitable for accommodating population growth, and for existing populations seeking newer quarters. I'm aware of only one area in NC County where an existing community was razed and replaced with a new lot layout -- west of Philadelphia Pike near the PA line and the former steel plant. Should that happen again, the present street pattern may well be preserved, to re-use buried water, sewer, telephone and electric infrastructure.
I asked also how many years of growth can be accommodated by using the existing inventory of platted but undeveloped dwelling lots.
Mr Hall acknowledged (responding to my comments) that NC County's growth rate is expected to turn negative after 2040, but that he has little faith in population projections. Our Population Consortium's historic strategy is to get all the players to agree on projection methodology, thereby locking them into the result. NC County is one of the players. Mr Hall should have more than intuition to support his view.
A re-focus is sorely needed.
COMMENT AT "OTHER THOUGHTS" SECTION
.Mr Kohl (our Comp Plan land use consultant) deprecated situations where a streetscape is damaged by an electric pole line on one side and a telephone pole line on the other side. Had he devoted sufficient time to familiarization with NC County, he would have observed that for perhaps more than three decades, out telephone and low voltage electric lines have been underground. He also acknowledged that his firm is rarely engaged by communities that expect negative population growth. Did we hire the wrong consultant on Mr Hall's intuition that the Population Consortium's projection is faulty?
First, a 1/27/2015 e-mail from the UDC Update Consultant to the LU GM, and related correspondence, are consistent with a new overlay zoning scheme that would create Economic Development Districts and Neighborhood Conservation Districts. The 1/27/2015 e-mail addresses regulatory incentives of the Economic Development Districts, including "Modifications to concurrency in traffic impact analysis such as exemptions from traffic impact studies, level of service standard reductions . . . that reduce the cost of compliance.
Second, except for the absence of the term "Overlay Zoning," both the 12/16/2014 and 2/10/2015 SOW drafts already include the terms "Economic Development Districts" and "Neighborhood Conservation Districts" in text that conveniently avoids mentioning that relaxations of the concurrency, LOS and TIS requirements are being contemplated.
The apparent UDC Update strategy is to soften up the audience -- the public -- with sweet talk before exposing the bitter pills. We are to be lulled into complacency before being urged to drink the Kool-Aid.
And at the regulatory level -- how individual land use intensification applications are to be handled -- exactly the same strategy again appears: Keep the public in the dark until it's too late to mount an effective defense, thereby making the Kool-Aid easier to swallow. That strategy is clearly stated in both the 12/16/2014 and 2/10/2015 SOW drafts, in text under a "Short Term UDC Amendments" heading and a "Streamline Development Review Procedures" heading. That text: "emphasize procedures that involve staff approval rather than discretionary public hearings."
.Eliminating "discretionary" hearings means hearings other than the Planning Board and County Council public hearings which are mandated by State law. It is hardly credible that the UDC Update SOW would include such a provision if it didn't reflect the views of the LU GM. Those views boldly contradict her advocacy, in numerous presentations to many groups in and outside of government, of early involvement of the public in land use intensification applications, is just sweet talk before the Kool-Aid comes into view.
