Sussex County Council Approves CleanBay Renewables & Grant for Delmar Infrastructure

The Sussex County Council began this week’s session with a presentation on the newest winter festival at the beach areas – the Winter Festival in Lewes. The council got a quick overview of the festival and the available attractions and how the festival has grown in its first few years to become an award winning winter celebration.

County Administrator Todd Lawson told the council that this year they’re taking transportation requests for the DelDOT Capital Transportation Program differently this year. You can fill out a form on the county’s website with your transportation project needs – from potholes to big projects like the Route 1 or 113 corridor projects. By making it onto the 5-year plan – this is the only way that projects get funded. You have until August 10th to put in your transportation needs. This would also include buses, intersections, paving, signs, signals and more. If it has to do with transportation – it can be included in the listing. The county will go through the list and incorporate what they can along with the county’s needs and submit it to DelDOT to be included with Kent and New Castle’s requests for work and funding.
https://sussexcountyde.gov/capital-transportation-program-request-ideas

The county was visited by Delmar Mayor Michael Houlihan who was asking for a grant of $125,000 for infrastructure upgrades. This is for 6-parcels on Route 13 which have already been annexed to the city. One of the parcels will become the new home of Perdue Agri-Business, which will be relocating from Salisbury to Delmar. The council granted the one-time funding which will come from the county’s FY 2019 Contingency Fund.

In Old Business the council revisited Conditional Use 2113 – CleanBay Renewables, LLC. The public hearing was held in late February, but deferred by the council. This is an electrical generation and nutrient recovery facility that would be located in the area of Route 113 and Breasure Road south of Georgetown. Councilman Sam Wilson asked for two amendments to the conditions – no entrance to the facility to or from Breasure Road and no more than 12 deliveries of materials daily. Area residents came out in force in February to voice their opposition to the proposed facility. The council approved both amendments from Councilman Wilson – and approved the conditional use with a unanimous vote.

Buffers and density was on the agenda for the third week – however Councilman IG Burton said while he’s always willing to discuss this issue – he’s not yet ready to introduce it as information is still being made available.

The Robinsonville Road Expansion of the County Unified Sanitary Sewer District was approved with a unanimous vote after a public hearing where no one from the public had any comment. This will add several properties in the Robinsonville and Dorman Roads area to the Angola Neck area. Three additional properties have been included.

There were three public hearings during the afternoon session. The council approved Conditional Use 2132 for a hair studio on Clay Road in Lewes. The council also approved Conditional Use 2133 for professional offices to be located on Savannah Road near the intersection of Westcoats Road and Conditional Use 2137 for professional offices also on Savannah Road.

The Sussex County Council is off next week – the next meeting will be held on August 14, at 10am in the County Administration Building on the Circle in Georgetown.