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"Land use planning and regulation is
an evolutionary process. You never get to a point where you can
say you're finished," said Charles Baker, director of the
Department of Land Use.
Understandably, many civic activists might have thought that, or
something close to it, happened four years ago when County
Council adopted the most recent plan and followed up at the end
of 1997 with passage of the Unified Development
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Code.
"No doubt about it, the U.D.C. was progressive. As I go to
conferences, I can see that it puts us in the forefront of
land-use regulation. We have something in place and
working that other people can only dream about," Baker
said. Still, he added, that does
not mean that the law is proverbially cast in stone. On
the contrary, it not only admits of the need for change
but there already is clear indication that residents in
various parts of the county are marshalling support for
incorporating new concepts, such as 'village' identity,
into the code. The present art
of planning and zoning began in the 1920s when some urban
areas realized a laisser-faire attitude toward how
they were growing and developing was leading to, at best,
chaos and, at worst, disaster. There already was
well-established precedent, going back in some cases to
antiquity. A classic illustration, of
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Photo courtesy
of the Department of Land Use
Charles Baker |
course was William Penn's having laid
out a detailed scheme for Philadelphia before he even set foot
in his colony. The modern process came
to New Castle County with enactment of its first zoning law in
1954 and with subdivision regulations in 1967, Baker
explained. The 1997 plan revision was the first under the
state's Quality of Life Act, which mandates that all
jurisdictions with zoning authority update their comprehensive
plans every five years. Thus, the present process, which looks
to Council adopting the update in March, 2002.
At present, the department is gathering information from civic
associations, other interested groups and individuals about
what they would like to see in the plan. That, he said, will
be followed by publication next autumn of a draft document
which will be made public and circulated for comment.
"What the law requires is for us to step back every so often
and take a look at where we are and where we want to go," he
said. To do so at five-year intervals is not unrealistic, he
added, when "you consider that a lot changes in five years
[and] trying to predict the future is always a hard thing."
Baker said the basic question to be answered is how the county
and its residents want to handle the county's anticipated
population growth.
"The Population Consortium is
predicting 35,000 new dwelling units in New Castle County during
the next 20 years. We have to evaluate our zoning and
infrastructure relative to that growth," he said. That comes
down to "is there enough space and, if so, where is it."
Contrary to what might be considered an emerging popular
impression, the county is neither overcrowded nor anywhere
near having to stifle growth. Baker said it has an inventory
of 50,000 acres already zoned for suburban residential use.
Providing for redevelopment of existing areas, particularly
older ones, is also a viable approach.
The issue a revised comprehensive plan intends to address, he
said, is not whether there will be growth -- most of it
related to employment -- but how to best match the growth that
is coming with transportation, sewer capacity and other
essential services as well as the desire to preserve open
space and other amenities.
Only widespread
public participation in the planning process will accomplish
that successfully, Baker said. |
