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Abbott
said he, state Senator Liane Sorenson and Representative Deborah
Hudson have scheduled a public meeting on Mar. 28 to discuss
where the process should go from here. The session will begin at
7 p.m. in the Natural History Museum on Kennett Pike.
Abbott
told Delaforum that his main objection is with the process for
developing the plan. "It has been a very closed process.
Outreach has been minimal and many people in the Centreville
area are quite upset. Many didn't even know it was going
on," he said.
Cannon
said that a preliminary meeting last October and a three-day
workshop-style symposium in January were well publicized in the
association's newsletter and open to the public. Abbott, she
said attended just one day of the workshop.
"I'm
sorry he feels that way," said Heather Ehrlich, the
planning council's representative on the project. The
organization "has followed a process for the [Centreville]
plan that is very similar to what we have successfully used on
other studies" and views the coming meeting "as a
continuation of our public process."
Cannon
said a preliminary report from paid consultants, financed by a
federal government grant, is scheduled to be published in April.
Erlich said there is to be "a final public meeting later
this spring," but added that will not be "the end of
the public input process."
Hudson
said she was "satisfied with the way things have gone so
far," but added that, "the more you share with the
community the better."
Her main
concern, as a state official, is with the transportation
component of the plan and specifically the traffic-slowing
'gateways' planned for Kennett Pike just north and just south of
the village. She said they should be constructed without further
delay.
"Then
we should see what effect that has on traffic through the
village before going further," she said. "We don't
want to get too agressive. We need to take this one step at a
time."
Abbott
said there needs to be many more meetings to produce a rounded
public view of what residents of the area want for the
traditional Centreville village and surrounding territory.
"For something like this, you don't get a total of, maybe,
50 people, ask them what they're thinking and use that to write
a plan. You come up with concepts, then go back several times
and build on those concepts," he said.
"I
have no idea what took place last October since I was unable to
attend the first meeting due to its being poorly scheduled. ...
Thus, I have attended the first and only meeting that I could.
Anybody knows that one meeting does not a plan make."
He said
the three-day workshop, billed as a 'charette', was,
essentially, "a waste of time and money." 'Charette is
a French term for an open-ended architectural planning session
which has become trendy among planners and their consultants.
It is in
the interest of consulting firms "to justify their existence
by coming up with grandiose schemes," he said. In this
case, the result is likely to be recommendations for "20 to
50 years down the road which might never come to fruition"
while what is needed is a plan that can be implemented during
the next few years.
Cannon
responded that the consultants -- Angelo Alberto, of Alberto
& Associates, a landscape planning firm, and Frank
Jaskowitz, of Glatting Jackson Associates, a
transportation-oriented firm -- constitute a "highly
regarded professional planning team."
Abbott
said that, although the proposed plan centers around traffic and
land use matters, Delaware Department of Transportation and the
New Castle County Land Use Department have had, at best, a minor
role. The former did sent an observer but the latter did not
participate, he claimed.
Ehrlich
disputed that saying that both agencies have been "valuable
partners in the planning process and [the council] has sought
their full participation." Cannon added that DelDOT
"has taken a particularly active role in guiding traffic
solutions toward those that would be acceptable under state
transportation guidelines."
Sorenson did not respond to a Delaforum request for comment.
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