On Tuesday night Mike Matthews was in attendance as county council met. One of the issues up for debate was the modifications for the workforce housing ordinance. There were a number of issues that the modifications would address such as removing a traffic study waiver, strengthening the school district notification process, more oversight and a requirement for owner-occupancy.
These are a good start. However, developers that got in under the wire would be grandfathered. These will be battled by the SNCCA lawsuit. If you are a developer that didn’t have your paperwork ready to go when the moratorium was passed, you are in luck. Everyone else is screwed.
Penrose Hollins decided not to present the modifications for a vote on Tuesday. He said that he didn’t want to step on anyone’s toes, since the legislature has begun legislation that would impact New Castle County development. Well I call bullshit. Mr. Hollins doesn’t believe that there is anything wrong with his ordinance in the first place, so he wants Southern New Castle County to be developed just like the rest of the county, as if a developer were given free reign. And make no mistake, that is exactly what we have here.
This means that the moratorium will be lifted on Monday with no change to the law. So it is business as usual on February 1st. And by business as usual, I mean that the developers are back in charge. Blacktop is the new green.