Sussex swats away Overbrook developer's zoning pitch
Sussex County Council thwarted the plans of a Timonium, Maryland, developer to build the nearly 1 million-square-foot Overbrook Town Center retail complex.
The vote Tuesday morning means that barring an appeal to Chancery Court by developer TD Rehoboth LLC – which submitted plans in 2014 to construct the big-box store development across from Cave Neck Road – the plan is dead.
Council members Joan Deaver, George Cole, Sam Wilson and Michael Vincent voted to deny TD Rehoboth's request to rezone 114 acres of land near Milton from agricultural to commercial.
Rob Arlett was the sole council member to vote for it.
"This is something we really hadn't planned for or considered," Deaver said. "It's not part of an existing commercial corridor. It exceeds anything else along Route 1."
If built, Deaver said, the shopping center would threaten to pollute the Great Marsh near its southern border.
George Cole said, "It's not good zoning to place your highest and most intense commercial districts next to your lowest-density ag districts. They’re not compatible uses ... there's nothing positive about this application."
Wilson, a longtime farmer and property rights hawk, rarely finds himself aligned with the smart-growth supporters who opposed Overbrook in force. But he sparked wild applause in the packed room when he said, "Right now, I'm in favor of denial."
Still, Wilson warned, Sussex is fated to become overdeveloped.
"People are still going to come in here. You can all fuss about it. Won't matter," Wilson said. "We’re losing our farmland. People are coming in and bidding up our land so high, we can’t afford to have this."
Arlett gave a long, elliptical speech defending his vote, saying Sussex should do what it can to cater to retirees and tourists who are flocking here.
"We are a tourism destination. And so we have to accommodate that. And one other thing we are, who we have become as a county, is a retirement destination," Arlett said. "We have got to understand the bigger picture. Who we are and what we are is very relevant to this decision ... We have got to move forward as a community to embrace change, but responsibly."
The public record of comments on the rezoning request documented six supporters, some of them other large landowners. They were dwarfed in the record by letters from more than 450 people who pleaded with County Council to turn the developer down, citing worries about road-choking traffic, water pollution and public spending needed to improve roads around the center.
Dozens signed a petition opposing the project, fretting it would "set a precedent for limitless rezoning along Route 1, resulting in sprawl similar to Route 113."
The Overbrook developer's application estimated that $100 million would be invested in the project, and suggested it could create 1,500 retail jobs. The developer said it would commit to spending $8 million on a new overpass at the Cave Neck Road-Del. 1 intersection. The Department of Transportation estimated the total cost of that overpass is $13 million, and said road improvements there would be needed in the next few years with or without Overbrook Town Center being built.
A market analysis prepared by the developer said Sussex is "underserved by the lack of traditional retail shopping facilities" and that "many national retailers have expressed interest in the site."
The Overbrook project was originally floated to county and state officials in 2012, but those plans stalled until they were revived in 2014. The county's Planning and Zoning Commission voted last year to recommend approval of the 850,000 square feet of retail space, but Council has final say in all rezoning requests.
The development proposal came in the context of a county rapidly changing with commercial and residential development. A recent statewide planning study calculated there were 93,000 buildable acres in Sussex County in 2007; five years later, 68,000 buildable acres remained.
MAP: Draft land-use plan paints Overbrook as poor for growth
TD Rehoboth LLC is headquartered in Timonium, a corporate cousin of the development firm Trout Daniel & Associates, which has backed smaller shopping centers in Cheswold, Dover and Selbyville. To pitch Overbrook to Sussex, it hired James A. Fuqua Jr., a Georgetown attorney who has experience shepherding land-use projects here, along with Joseph T. Conaway, a former county administrator and land-use consultant.
"I can say that the client is disappointed in the council's decision," Fuqua said Tuesday after the vote. "We certainly understood there was significant public pressure on the council to deny the application, but we really think the council members who voted against failed to apply the land-use laws the council itself enacted."
Fuqua's client has the right to appeal the county's decision to the Court of Chancery; it can do so within 60 days of the county formally publishing notice of its denial.
"We're going to sit on it, think about it, see what the actual ordinance says and go from there," Fuqua said.
Contact James Fisher at (302) 983-6772, on Twitter @JamesFisherTNJ or jfisher@delawareonline.com.