Some developers say building up can preserve open space, pay for amenities and keep buyer costs down. Opponents of high-rises say they are not compatible with coastal Delaware’s small-town character.
By James Diehl
When developers announced plans last June to build a 68-foot-high luxury hotel at the site of the Ruddertowne complex in Dewey Beach, residents cried foul. Then they took action, forming a grassroots citizens’ group and collecting more than 800 signatures from their supporters.
They also threw their considerable weight behind three candidates for local office — town commissioners Dell Tush, Diane Hanson and Richard Hanewinckel.
All three were against easing the town’s height restrictions and voted against the hotel plan — after winning office.
“The passion this issue has ignited has really been something to watch,” says Joy Howell, a part-time Dewey resident and co-founder of Citizens to Preserve Dewey Beach. “People just love Dewey Beach, and they want to see development here that is in character with the town.”
The Ruddertowne project — presented to the town council by Harvey, Hanna & Associates owner E. Thomas Harvey III, and fellow developers David Sills and Jim Baeurle — has brought to the forefront an issue sure to be addressed many times in coastal Sussex County in coming years: building height. With only so much land near Delaware’s coast on which to build, county and town governments will likely feel increased pressure from developers to relax their longstanding height restrictions.
“We just want to create a year-round resort destination for Dewey Beach,” says Baeurle, whose group, now named Dewey Beach Enterprises, bought the Ruddertowne property with the intention of erecting a commercial hub for the town, a hub he believes is permitted by the town’s comprehensive plan. “[The Ruddertowne Architectural Committee] wanted a boardwalk, public restrooms and a welcome center, all of which the town of Dewey Beach has no money to pay for. We were willing to accommodate their wishes, but in order to pay for it we had to build up. At 35 feet, you can’t build a whole lot, and their comprehensive plan recognized that.”
When they adopted the town’s comprehensive plan in 2006, Dewey Beach planners designated the 80,000-square-foot parcel as a future “Resort Business District-1.”
One section of the plan states: “Relaxed bulk standards are available for contiguous tracts consisting of at least 80,000 square feet with a detailed commercial, mixed and multi-family land-use development plan review as an overlay zone or alternate method of development, provided that there is public access to all common areas of the development and any waterfront area shall be for public use.”
Developers of the Ruddertowne tract used that passage to justify their proposal to town commissioners last year.
“They talk about any parcel 80,000 square feet or greater, but Ruddertowne is the only one. The whole town of Dewey Beach will not turn into another Ocean City,” says Bauerle, referring to Ocean City, Md., and its many towering condominium complexes. “That’s why they picked this parcel, and only this parcel, for the relaxed bulk standards.”
While Dewey Beach voters may ultimately have the final say on the project — a referendum is being considered for the fall — the question could well be heading for a decision by the courts.
“If the commissioners don’t wise up and start talking about compromise, I don’t think the developers will have any recourse but to go to court,” says Vivian Barry, who last year served on the Ruddertowne Architectural Committee, a group of residents appointed by town officials to review the design plans and offer a recommendation.
Their verdict — a 7-2 vote on June 15, 2007, in favor of sending the developers’ plans for a 68-foot-tall luxury resort to the town’s planning and zoning commission.
“It was a beautiful design with a lot of amenities that the developer was willing to give us. But the mayor and commissioners just hit the roof and said there was no way Dewey Beach was going to be another Ocean City,” says Barry.
The idea of increased height is not a new issue for Sussex County, nor is it one that will likely go away, as development will surely continue once the real estate market rebounds from its current slowdown.
“People who use the rhetoric of comparing Ocean City with what Sussex County will turn into if we allow higher buildings are using that as a scare tactic,” says Sussex County Councilman Vance Phillips, whose district encompasses Fenwick Island, South Bethany, Millsboro and Selbyville. “You can actually get a lot more open space by allowing the buildings to go up instead of out,” he says, meaning that stacking housing units into taller structures would preserve more open space on a property than would spreading them across the landscape.
Scare tactics or not, several citizens’ groups have organized in recent years to fight the developers, preferring to keep what they say is their area’s small-town charm and character.
“There is probably going to be more and more pressure to build up, but I believe our current board will withstand that pressure,” says Nancy Martin, organizer of Save Our City, a civic group based in Rehoboth Beach. “The citizens of Rehoboth will not tolerate that and I can’t imagine even one commissioner on the board who would entertain the lifting of our height limits [which allow no more than four stories].”
So far, area municipalities haven’t wavered on their height restrictions, not even a hair. And there’s no indication they will any time soon.
“We discourage variances in Bethany Beach. They are really difficult to get here because of the criteria we have in place to get them,” says John Eskrich, the building inspector for the town of Bethany Beach, whose height limit is 31 feet above flood elevation. “We have maybe one or two requests a year and those are usually only because a surveyor made a mistake, or something like that.”
Height limits for residential and commercial properties in Bethany were established in the 1970s in response to the construction of Sea Colony, the 2,225-unit behemoth that was erected just south of the town. The complex includes nine towers, ranging in height from nine to 15 floors.
Any proposed change to those height limits has been vigorously fought since then.
“A few years ago, we raised the height limit to 35 feet, but just for architectural features [such as dormers and gables]. Within a month of doing that, the town council came in and rescinded that because of all the opposition,” Eskrich says. “There have been changes in town, but one of the things they’ve always been conservative about is the height and size of houses. [Any proposal] to change that would be very controversial here and would have a hard time getting passed.”
Longtime residents of coastal Delaware remember the construction of the Sea Colony towers, built between 1971 and 1980. For many, it’s still a point of great contention.
“My father didn’t want our coastline to be lined with those types of buildings; he didn’t think it was in our best interest long-term,” says Sussex County Councilman George Cole, whose father, Charles Cole, fought against Sea Colony as a member of the council in 1974. “The problem was, the County Council was not very sophisticated back then and the developers were very sophisticated. [The developers] couldn’t believe how easy it was [to get Sea Colony approved].”
One thing Sea Colony did, however, was spur people to action. High-rise opponents could envision another Ocean City, and many coastal Delaware residents did not want that to happen.
In Fenwick Island, which butts up against Ocean City, residents look at so-called “condominium row” and vow to fight against anything that resembles what happened south of the state line.
“People who vacation in our area come here because it’s a whole different world,” says Karen McGrath, executive director of the Bethany-Fenwick Area Chamber of Commerce. “Not that improvements in some instances are a bad thing, but we really need to be mindful of what makes us special when future planning goes on.”
As long as height restrictions stay at current levels, that should be easy enough to accomplish, proponents say.
But, with property values rising throughout the county and with available land dwindling, the most logical place to build is up.
Ocean Atlantic Associates, for example, last April received approval from Sussex County to build 60-foot-tall mixed-use buildings as part of The Vineyards at Nassau Valley. The complex, to be built over the next decade, will include 350,000 square feet of retail space and 75,000 square feet of office space, along with 927 residential condominium units.
While the height restriction in unincorporated Sussex County remains at 42 feet, county attorneys ruled that the 60-foot height is permitted under the county code — most of which was written in the 1970s — for public or semi-public buildings where the general public is invited.
They also ruled that only buildings with commercial space will be permitted to exceed 42 feet in height.
According to an application on file at the Sussex County Planning & Zoning Department, eight structures in the first phase of the project have received preliminary site-plan approval to exceed 42 feet — six buildings and two parking garages.
“The reason that we needed the extra height, and the reason [the county] allowed for it, is so we can get levels of residential space with an aesthetically pleasing roof, instead of flat roofs,” said Wendy O. Baker, the senior project manager for Ocean Atlantic, as well as its director of public relations. “Now we can put dormers, and gables and things that are architecturally pleasing. We didn’t ask to do this to increase density. It was really done to enhance our architectural diversity in the project.”
In the development’s mixed-use buildings, the ceilings in first-floor retail establishments will be between 16 and 18 feet high, not the standard 8 feet as the code would normally assume.
With The Vineyards receiving approval, could more projects like it be on the way?
There are none currently in the pipeline, according to Sussex County Director of Planning & Zoning Lawrence Lank.
Says Cole: “We don’t have the roads to handle what we’ve done now, so why should we build up? Why come in with additional density when we don’t have the infrastructure to handle it? If we permit these tall buildings, what we’d have is high-density urban sprawl.”
Not all of Cole’s fellow council members agree.
“What if you had 500 acres of land and you put Sea Colony-type buildings on five acres of that and the rest was left for ball fields, recreation facilities, wildlife and open space?” asks Phillips. “I think there’s certainly a great case to be made for growing up instead of growing out.”
Taller buildings could provide for a more competitive economic climate, say proponents, who claim that curtailing development has led to an environment in which middle-income wage earners simply can’t afford to live at Delaware’s beaches.
“If there were higher buildings where you could have a higher density, more people who are not rich could afford to live on the water,” says Rich Collins, executive director of the Positive Growth Alliance, a pro-development group concerned about private property rights and government intrusion on businesses. “Right now, we have made something that is very exclusively for the rich.”
Sea Colony’s high density, however, doesn’t seem to have resulted in “affordable housing”: a 1,500-square-foot unit there sold for a record $1.45 million in November 2006, and list prices at Sea Colony currently range between just over $300,000 to a little more than $1 million.
“Economicially, it is going to be more affordable if you put 100 units in that [oceanfront] space instead of 10 single-family homes,” says Steve Alexander, an associate broker with Seacoast Realty. “So [height restrictions] probably do allow more rich people to live oceanfront.”
The solution, says Collins and his supporters, is to allow higher density — the number of residential units allowed per acre of property — along Delaware’s coastline.
“People need to choose whether they want higher prices or lower prices. We would have more opportunity [to buy] if prices were lower, and that could be achieved if more density were allowed,” Collins says. “As far as the beaches are concerned, the only way that could be achieved is with additional height.”
Most of the area’s municipalities have yet to have their height limits challenged head-on — except for Dewey Beach, and many residents there answered with a loud and emphatic “No!”
“I didn’t give [the Ruddertowne project] much credibility because I never thought the [former town council] would approve it,” says Rick Judge, a local developer and member of the Citizens to Preserve Dewey Beach. “Then I found out that not only were they considering it, they were almost endorsing it. It was such a drastic change to our little town that I had to get involved. When I found out that we had overwhelming support from about 800 people in town, it was such a relief.”
Judge has developed several local properties, including Mallard Point in Lewes, Silver Lake Dunes in Rehoboth Beach and the soon-to-be Bethany Woods in Bethany Beach.
He says developers should be mindful of a town’s zoning regulations when planning housing subdivisions and should work within them, not try to change them.
“I wouldn’t conceive of going into a town and rewriting their zoning codes for my purposes,” Judge says. “I think a 35-foot limit works and most developers agree with me. You can do a nice complex at Ruddertowne within our 35-foot limit. You don’t need to put a five-story hotel in to be successful.”
Fifteen miles to the south of Dewey Beach, the Fenwick Island Board of Adjustments recently denied a mixed-use project that would have exceeded the town’s 30-foot height limit by 4 feet.
The plans were for a plaza — at the site of the former Libby’s Family Restaurant on Route 1 — that would have comprised mixed?-use buildings with six apartment-sized condominiums over two retail stores, as well as a free-standing coffee shop with a third level. Both buildings would have exceeded the town’s current height restrictions.
“Our current limit will be addressed during the summer months by the charter and ordinance committee and also the town council,” says Tony Carson, Fenwick Island’s town manager. “We may also go through the process of having more public meetings or doing a survey of residents to see what their thoughts are.”
Unlike neighboring Bethany Beach, where height restrictions are measured from the surrounding flood plain, in Fenwick Island those limits are measured from the crest of the nearest road.
As for Rehoboth Beach, the current maximum height limit remains at 35 feet for residential properties and 42 feet for most commercial properties.
However, five structures in town — The Henlopen Hotel, One Virginia Avenue, Edgewater House, Star of the Sea and Patrician Towers — are taller because they were built before the current height limits were established. But any talk of returning to the 52- to 65-foot height limits of the 1960s and 1970s has been quickly discarded.
“I think that keeping the height limit lower maintains the small-town charm and the quaintness of our city. It doesn’t detract from the smaller buildings in town,” says Terri Sullivan, chief building inspector for Rehoboth Beach. “I would not want to see a condo row in Rehoboth. Our city has that small-town charm and I get the feeling that most in town want to keep that.”
Opponents of the Ruddertowne complex say virtually the same thing.
“That type of building would not have fit in well with the town,” says Dewey Beach Commissioner Diane Hanson, who swept to victory with Hanewinckel and Tush in the September 2007 election, campaigning on a platform aimed at maintaining current height limits. “The building itself would have been a pretty building, but it belongs in a big city. It doesn’t belong in Dewey Beach. Also, it would have been massive. If we let one developer do that, then the next guy will want to sue the town if we don’t let him do it.”
While the Ruddertowne project would be an extreme exception at 68 feet tall, some in the business community say they will continue to argue for exceptions to the current height restrictions, if they think it’s justified and it’s responsible.
“As Realtors, we can understand the economics of it because it’s very hard to develop a commercial piece of property for a three- or four-story building and make money,” says Camilla Conlon, chairwoman of the government affairs committee for the Sussex County Association of Realtors. “I don’t think anybody wants another Sea Colony, but when you can justify the need for a little more height, what’s the harm in that? You should be able to make exceptions when it is justified and not to the detriment of others.”
Responsible growth means different things to different people. But one thing’s for certain — development is here to stay in Sussex County and the height issue is going to linger for many years.
“We just want to see responsible development,” says Howell, of the Citizens to Preserve Dewey Beach. “We would be happy to work with developers who want to embrace our town, as long as it keeps with our small-town beach character.”
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One Comment
Great story, it really gets to the heart of the matter.