We Are Marshallton (maybe)
Marshallton Village is thinking about moving to the Hometown Overlay (HTO) just as other unincorporated towns in New Castle County have done, reports The Community News. The other towns that have adopted HTO are Hockessin, Greenville, Claymont and St. Georges.
Antoni Pardo’s article does a great job detailing how the idea of HTO is dividing this community. It seems to be a battle between the new residents and the old, the new residents favoring the HTO and the old residents wanting to keep everything the way it is.
A lifelong resident told The Community News, “Newcomers want a lot of things changed. I don’t see it changing in my lifetime.”
Isn’t it interesting how the change argument is generational even in smaller fights.
Larry Mergenthaler and Keith Wiseman at Mill Creek Fire Co. are both lifelong residents of Marshallton who want everything to stay the same so obvisously they oppose rules that will ensure everything stays the same.
I happen to agree with them. Developers rights must not be infringed upon. It is in the NCCO charter.
Marshallton is a great historic community, along with Newport and Elsmere. When we were house hunting back in the 1990s there were lots of nice old houses for cheap there. Ultimately though we decided we wouldn’t have time to deal with a fixer-upper, and we were right.
There is a lot of nice pre-Kirkwood Highway architecture tucked away all along the Old Capitol Trail.
anonii writes, “Developers rights must not be infringed upon. It is in the NCCO charter.”
That is blatant, all out, HORSEDUNG!
It appears that Mr. Mergenthaler, who has some degree of wealth (when compared to many in the area) wishes to impose his interests on everyone else in the community.
For the case of Mr. Wiseman, in the development of the overlay plan, the County’s Community Planning people, as well as the contracted consultants, met with him to discuss what he desired in future development of his property, if he ever chose to subdivide it and they wrote it into the plan!
Finally, although my/our local civic umbrella (Milltown-Limestone Civic Alliance) and the Marshallton Civic Association requested the plan be developed, without Councilman Reda sponsoring legislation to allocate funds to hire a planning consultant, the plan would have never gotten off the ground.
Uh oh, Dunn is turning this into a rich vs poor thing.
I read the article, and I still don’t really understand what this is all about. A Hometown Overlay would prevent people from building chain link fences? Why?
Bill Dunn, who should be NCC council president, nails the situation. There is a high correlation between families who are long-time landowners and sales to developers. At some point, the family wants to be able to cash out its inheritance, even if it leaves a hideous mess for future residents. Intelligently regulating this kind of thing is what zoning is all about. County residents have been crying for this kind of control for years now. Good luck to Bob Grabowski and the civic association in getting this done.
Can we hope against hope that Bill Dunn will run for a county elected office??????
There is always hope.
We should start fundraising now.
😉
“Hideous mess for future residents?” What about hideous messes left for current residents all over the county. I live along rte. 40 and there are signs up for more strip malls and there are plans for 2 more grocery stores, a Food Lion (yuck) being currently built and another one further up the road – (the current 4 aren’t enough?) At least if they’re going to add another grocery why not something decent like a Whole Foods or a Trader Joe’s oh yeah we lowlifes in Bear/Glasgow/Fairwinds wouldn’t shop there…..
At least if they’re going to add another grocery why not something decent like a Whole Foods or a Trader Joe’s oh yeah we lowlifes in Bear/Glasgow/Fairwinds wouldn’t shop there…..
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no one plans in county government…
they pander…
one of the worst ever was in justifying the POS library on Kirkwood with “it’s a commerical strip-mall high-way so why build anything of beauty or aethetics?”
something about the low-lifes who live in Stanton…