During the public comment portion of a recent Planning Commission meeting, Cliff Mumford spoke in praise of the commission despite recent condemnation by members of the public.
The topic which I want to speak tonight is just about, generally, what’s going on in the City of Milford. I want to thank the Planning Commission for you being members of the planning commission. I think you guys are doing a good job, even though you’ve seen a lot of scrutiny recently by some squeaky wheels in the public, I don’t think it’s warranted, and I think it’s baseless, a lot of it, so I just want to put that out there.
As evidenced by some of the projects that have come through here recently, where you see a lot of variances, you see a lot of waivers that are required to do anything in the City of Milford, I think it’s indicative that there’s work that needs to be done to the city code and in the subdivision of land and zoning code. if you look At R1, R2 and R3 zoning, and if you look at what the existing lot widths are in a lot of those locations, you have a lot of lots that are 30, 40, 50, 60 foot wide. But in R1 and R2 the minimum lot width is 80 feet.
All these houses that are existing there, you can’t build that anymore. You can’t build part of the city that we like. You have houses close up, it’s walkable. You can fit larger lots. And we want to see infill development. It’s hard, it’s really hard to do that, and there’s only a few guys trying to do it right now, and they’re getting beat up pretty bad because they’re having to come in for waivers and variances.
Whenever someone does that, they get the scrutiny of the public, and the public says, ‘Why aren’t you doing this by the zoning code. We have a zoning code for a reason.’ So, I think it’s a symptom of something bigger, and we need to look at our zoning code and just see what we can do to make it easier for Dan Bond and the other guys that are trying to do infill development. Like most of the big developers I work with, they don’t want to do that kind of development, because it’s so hard to get it to work. But that’s what we need more of, I think.
And then another particular item I wanted to talk about is Accessory Dwelling Units. We’ve had, I think maybe four come through the city since it’s been introduced. The big reasons that people aren’t doing it is because there’s an owner occupancy requirement. So why? Why does it have to be that you have to live there to put ADU on the property? People say, ‘Oh, because then you got to watch over the tenant right in the back.’ If I have a rental property, I don’t live right there next to my rental. So what’s the difference between having an ADU in a backyard of one of your rentals? So I don’t think we’re seeing the impact we wanted to. There’s only a few that’s been implemented, and the impact fees are restrictive, from what I’ve heard. And I think Brad Dennehy. he even mentioned that at one of the meetings where he tried to do an ADU, and it was a very cost prohibitive.
I want to just say again, I think you guys are doing a great job, and don’t take all the criticism personally. It’s a tough job. You’re going to get that. And there’s a few squeaky wheels out there that are really saying some stuff that I don’t think is true, so just keep that in mind.
Cliff Mumford, Milford DE
This article is the opinion of the speaker and does not reflect the opinions of Milford Times, its editorial staff or reporters.
