Sussex County Council Establishes Priorities

Image courtesy Sussex County Government

The Sussex County Council was tasked to submit to the County Administrator 5 priorities they’d like the Council to focus on in the immediate future.

Land Development received the most responses – with six from Councilmen Matt Lloyd and Steve McCarron. Land Development was revisited during the discussion and Council President Doug Hudson proposed the formation of a working group between Council and Staff and to come back in 2 weeks with information about who is in the working group, specific timelines of what they want the group to get done – and establish goals and parameters of the group.

Planning & Zoning Director Jamie Whitehouse also presented information related to development activity and data. He told the Council that while they deal with the unincorporated areas of the County – they collect data on the towns as well. Whitehouse says that while most of the data is relatively flat – they did receive a boom in applications in 2022 – especially in conditional use applications – which could be for anything. And in 2017 there was a big surge in applications for subdivisions ahead of a code change. And that has been similar in other areas ahead of code changes.

Whitehouse also told the Council that permit issuance doesn’t mean that a permitted dwelling was built. The data includes all dwelling permits of all types of dwellings. Some permits are for multiple dwelling units – so it cannot be assumed that each permit equals one dwelling. Also municipal boundaries change over time and the data shows how those municipal boundaries existed on January 27, 2025.

Economic Development Director Bill Pfaff came before the Council with a lease agreement for the Delaware Technical Community College Kitchen which is the Sussex County Kitchen Incubator. This was created to provide affordable, licensed kitchen space for foodpreneurs. The Kitchen Incubator enables them to produce food products without the heavy financial burden of building their own commercial kitchen. There are currently 36 members in the Kitchen Incubator. This lease renewal is for 4 years and was approved by the Council with a unanimous vote.

After holding public interviews for members of the Board of Assessment Review and alternates several weeks ago, one alternate has resigned. County Finance Director Gina Jennings told the Council that the County did receive one qualified applicant after the applications were sent to the Council for the last round of interviews. During Tuesday’s meeting Jennings interviewed Jeffrey Howard and after his interview he was approved as the 3rd alternate on the Board of Assessment Review.

There were three public hearings on Conditional Use applications during the afternoon session. The applicant for Conditional Use No 2455 was not present – but contacted the Planning Commission requesting a one-year continuance. The Council voted unanimously to give the applicant permission to withdraw his application and resubmit it with the condition that before the next public hearing, Planning and Zoning would address his violations.

The other two Conditional Use applications, No. 2520 and No. 2270, were approved.

The Sussex County Council is scheduled to meet next Tuesday – beginning at 1pm in the County Administration Building on The Circle in Georgetown.  Click here for the County Council Agenda for the February 4 meeting.