On August 14, Milford Board of Adjustments denied a request from Dollar General to reduce parking from 54 to 48 on a lot located on South Rehoboth Boulevard. The construction of the store met with resistance from area residents who felt the commercial area would be better served by higher end retail outlets. During public comment, several people spoke out against the value store’s efforts to build in southeast Milford.
“I drove around and looked at this area. I’ve been there before, but this is the first time I looked at where the Dollar General is going,” Trish Marvel, who lives on Shawnee Road, said. “It’s a box store in a beautiful, well-maintained development. I, personally, would not want that right across the street from me and I don’t think you all would want it across the street from you. I just think it’s not conducive to that neighborhood to have that type of business there.”
Marvel continued, stating that when the land was converted to commercial zoning, it was her understanding it would have plazas with little coffee shops, restaurants that would be good for the character of that area.
“Now, here we are, five years later, talking about a box store going in a very well-maintained, beautiful area of Milford,” Marvel said. “Now, we could have three Dollar General stores in this town and that is their MO, they go in and saturate a small town and that puts mom and pop businesses out of work. And their products are not really healthy products. A year ago, we talked about Milford being a healthy town and let’s engage in getting people to eat healthy food and then we’re popping in a dollar deal that doesn’t provide quality or healthy food.”
Annette Billings, who lives on Cedar Beach Road, but owns property on Rehoboth Boulevard complained she had not gotten notice of the possible Dollar General going in just north of her property. At first, she thought the land was residential but then remembered it had been rezoned a few years ago.
“I recalled the Feindt’s did something with the zoning, but it was never meant for that,” Billings said. “It was supposed to be for a house, a nice house, but not a Dollar General. It’s just not a good fit. It’s a nice neighborhood out there. We don’t need a dollar store, a bike path, we don’t need a silly willy park with pickleball courts and basketball courts that are not even int town. I don’t know how it got from small restaurants to a Dollar General, but I want to point out we are not in the city, yet we keep getting attacked by the city. I have gone from eminent domain to a bicycle path out there and now this. Rob Pierce told me a long time ago it can’t stay farm land forever, but I am hoping it can.”
The request from Dollar General met most of the requirements for commercial zoning. They were asking to reduce the parking area by six spaces due to the size of the lot and the square footage of the building. According to Clifford Mumford, an engineer on the project, 48 spaces met county code and matched other Dollar General locations in the area.
“Dollar General in Milford in the Plaza Shopping Center. This one’s a little bit different, because it’s a shopping center and shared parking between businesses. If you look at just the two rows of parking, there’s 38 parking spaces. Dollar General in Lincoln, 30 parking spaces. Dollar General Ellendale, 39, parking spaces. Dollar General in Milton, 34 parking spaces,” Mumford said. “Dollar General Greenwood 313, 32 spaces, Dollar General in Greenwood 35 spaces. Dollar General in Dover on Route 8 and Windy Creek Road. This is west of Dover, 43 spaces, plus two spaces for horse and buggy. Thought that was interesting. So, looking at all these different sites, we’re over parked in comparison to similar Dollar Generals.”
Mumford read a letter from Scott Grimes, Senior Planning Director for Dollar General.
“To whom it may concern; through the years, Dollar General has been in the process of refining the design criteria for new store development. With almost 20,000 stores in productive operation, we have gathered a significant amount of data,” Grimes wrote. “One area in which we are balanced between parking requirements and accessibility for our build-to-suit locations during the highest peak hours of sales, the prototype utilizes approximately 50% of its parking spaces. We have confirmed that the proposed 48 spaces at this location will accommodate and exceed the customer flow rate that our business generates.”
Mumford explained that the prototype used by Dollar General for a site found that the stores need approximately 35 spaces and only 50 percent are utilized during peak demand. Mumford stated that he had worked on various projects in Milford where parking variances were necessary, and his view was that the requirements were sometimes in excess of what was actually needed. He felt that requiring 54 spaces for this project was “onerous” and felt the requirement should be amended in code.
“Today’s request is to reduce the required parking from what is required by our code at 54 to 48. This is not a minor adjustment,” Morris stated during the public hearing. “it goes to the heart of why we have zoning standards in the first place and whether the board will apply to them consistently.”
Morris felt that allowing the reduction would set a precedent that would have other developers requesting reductions in parking. When asked if there was an option for street parking should the parking lot be full, Mumford replied that there was not, but that it would be rare for the store to have 48 or more cars in the parking lot.
Board of Adjustments voted unanimously to deny the request for the parking reduction. The project was withdrawn from the Planning Commission agenda on Tuesday, August 19.
