LEWES, Del. — Lewes city officials held a public hearing to discuss the proposed Overfall Preserve development, which had been known as the Warrington Property. The project includes plans for 90 townhouses along with amenities and site improvements at 1147 Savannah Road.
One of the key recommendations from the city's Planning Commission is that a Traffic Operational Study be conducted before the final site plan is approved.
The study must be completed by a licensed professional traffic engineer or a civil engineer with sufficient traffic engineering experience. The final report must be submitted to the Lewes Planning Commission for review before any site work can proceed.
Patrick Keating lives in Lewes and told CoastTV the traffic is already bad enough as it is, and he does not want to see another development in the area. "This is a victim of its own success in the real estate is appreciating very much, which then causes people to say, oh, I want to build here. I want to build a house here because it will naturally appreciate, the fact of the matter is, you can go many places," Keating said.
As part of the information expected to be presented at the hearing is a January response to the Commission from Morris James LLP. It states that the traffic volume from Overfall Preserve does not meet the amount where DelDOT would require the developer to conduct a TOS.
John Feliciani lives in Lewes and told CoastTV he thinks more is better. ""Let the growth happen, but be relaxed about it. And if you think traffic's bad here, go to New York or Washington or or Los Angeles. It's not that bad here. We have it great. We're at the beach and life is good. So let the growth happen slowly," Feliciani said.
City council says they are accepting all other public comments until April 11 at 4 p.m.
