ANTI-SPRAWL ACT DESERVES SUPPORT
A Guest Opinion by P. Brooks Banta
In the June 22, 2005 Delaware State News
As you have heard me say many times, I support appropriate development that is well coordinated, meets all current regulations and guarantees a good quality of life for all involved. As elected officials, we are mandated to protect your health, safety and welfare. With this mandate comes the responsibility to protect future generations and provide them with the resources to meet their challenges. One way to accomplish this is to prevent rural sprawl and promote smart growth.
A Livable Delaware bill that would attempt to rein in sprawl and protect our rural quality of life deserves the support of Kent Countians. The Sprawl Prevention Act severely limits the permitting by DNREC of standalone community wastewater systems that permit large-scale developments in areas that would otherwise stay rural.
I hear many Kent County residents complain that we need to do something to stop sprawl. Sprawl in unplanned, scattered development that leapfrogs into rural areas, gobbling up land and changing the character of our countryside forever. It also brings traffic and threatens our unique natural resources. The Sprawl Prevention Act would bring it to a virtual halt.
Since we adopted our county comprehensive plan in 2002, 83 percent of new development has been approved inside that growth area, which runs down the middle of Ken County between Smyrna and Milford. The county worked with the state and municipalities and agreed where growth should occur.
Still, we are seeing intense pressure to develop outside of those growth boundaries - especially east of Del. 1. The state has invested heavily in farmland preservation in that area. Large-scale development devalues the taxpayers' investment in land protection and threatens the viability of farming operations, hurting farmers who made the long-term commitment to grow crops rather than houses.
The state review most large residential projects through its Preliminary Land use Service (PLUS). Since the state adopted PLUS in February 2004, 22 developments totaling almost 2,000 residential units have been proposed in the county's rural areas - the so-called "Level 4" investment areas where Delaware's rural quality of life and the agriculture industry are supposed to prevail.
It's more than a quality of life issue, however. Stand-alone residential developments do not pay for themselves. They demand more in services and infrastructure - schools and pupil transportation, road improvements, emergency services, transit, libraries - than they generate in tax revenues. Farming and even commercial development more than pay their fair shares.
Taxpayers should not be required to subsidize unplanned development or sprawl. But stand-along community wastewater systems that allow large, denser developments to sprawl into rural areas force taxpayers to do just that.
Delaware Secretary of Agriculture Michael Scuse, a Kent County farmer, believes the Sprawl Prevention Act will protect the long-term sustainability of our agricultural industry. It will also help us get a handle on haphazard growth that most of us believe jeopardizes the livability of Kent County. I urge Kent Countians to support this legislation.
P. Brooks Banta lives in Smyrna. He represents the First District in Kent County Levy Court.
