Charles C. Clark IV, “Little Owl,” was assistant chief of the Nanticoke Indian Tribe for more than a decade. He helps manage his family’s ancestral lands along the Indian River in Sussex County.
Beginning March 2022, residents in the Riverdale Park-Oak Orchard area began vigorously demonstrating our opposition to a proposed 123-home development called Stillwater Harbor. This project — which no one living in this area ever asked for and nobody living here needs — was targeted to be forced upon us, our homes and our lives.
That was then. This is now. What has occurred in the time between?
For the most part, it’s mostly been what by now has become what everyone expects to see happen every time a citizen-backed opposition rises to a proposed development project such as this one:
These are the responses one expects to see in these situations. Of course, now that some time has passed since the initial jolt of this news hit the area and all of the players involved have had plenty of time to talk among themselves, some new nuances have revealed themselves during this time.
After news of this proposed development spread, several concerned local citizens formed the group “Save Oak Orchard” to oppose the proposed development and held several meetings in the home of a member to discuss the issues and strategy.
The group’s first mission was to inform other members of the community about the development and the negative consequences it will have upon them. After reaching out to others, the group’s next goal was to drum up support for its mission and its efforts by holding public meetings targeting specific elements and issues related to the development. We decided to hold public “town hall meetings” at the Indian River Volunteer Fire Co.’s fire hall.
Breakneck speed
What followed the very next week happened at breakneck speed. In the span of just a few days, Save Oak Orchard held a town hall meeting that attracted in excess of 125 people. That is an incredibly good showing for the group to have at its very first town hall meeting, especially with just a few days of prior notice to get the word out about the meeting to the people.
During that first meeting, which was held on a weekend, serious plans were hastily made to make a group appearance by publicly opposing the developer’s application in person and speak out against it before the developer’s application came before the Sussex County Planning & Zoning Commission — which was scheduled to occur on Thursday.
But then, from out of the blue and just days away from when the Sussex County P&Z Commission was scheduled to vote on the project, public notice was given by the developer’s attorneys that the developer’s application was being removed from P&Z’s schedule to be voted on. No explanation was given. We were informed by the county that the application was to be tabled until November 2022, at which time the matter would once again come before the county P&Z Commission for a vote.
After that, without anything pending before it, the Save Oak Orchard group’s activities slowly came to a halt. Communication between the group’s founding members went from a daily tidal wave to an occasional trickle. As spring faded into summer, so did discussions about Stillwater Harbor.
Casual conversations about Stillwater Harbor and the fight to block it eventually gave way to talk about too-high gas prices, how nobody nowhere was pleased or happy with anybody anywhere, and the crazy costs of crabs these days. As summer began to sizzle and sweat began to fall so, too, fell talk about Stillwater Harbor and the threat it posed to the community.
And that is exactly why what happened occurred.
Only a foolhardy, naive individual would claim what transpired as a victory. How could this be a victory for anyone other than the developer, when what happened is exactly what the developer wanted to happen?
November 2022 is election time in Delaware, including elections for some of the all-important seats on the Sussex County Council, which oversees the process by which developments are either approved or rejected to be built. This body of elected officials affects Sussex County residents and its visitors far much more — and on a much greater day-to-day basis — than do any other elected officials county citizens could vote for in any election. In high-stakes games, such as local politics and the fate of proposed developments where nothing is ever left to chance, so, too, is nothing ever left up to coincidence.
Where we are now
And so here is where things stand right now: Local residents may be quieter than they were, but that is only because we are saving our voices for later, for when it counts. No one has forgotten the developer’s application comes up once again before the Sussex County P&Z Commission in November 2022 for a vote — no one on either side of this battle.
An army of highly paid individuals who are highly incentivized to see this development become a reality is what volunteer citizens’ groups such as Save Oak Orchard face every time they come together for the sole purpose of blocking yet another life-changing development being established right in the middle of their very lives.
When this occurs in Sussex County, even a blind man can see the clear, wide pathway awaiting developers and their investors, courtesy of Sussex County’s elected officials and their appointees, who apparently are incredibly far out of step with their constituents. Some county officials have even stretched logic and reality, making public statements on their opinions that Sussex County’s economy depends upon the very building industry which is destroying it.
Opinions do not come any less informed and less based upon facts than that one.
There are slightly less than 100,000 people in Sussex County’s workforce. Health care and other such social-assistance jobs make up the largest part of county workers, about 14,600 people. Retail workers come in next, with about 13,200 workers employed in these capacities. Construction comes in at about 9,800 workers, which is a little less than 10% of the entire county workforce — a very important 10% for sure but not enough to stake a county’s entire future upon.
Construction jobs come and go. Unplanned county building sprawl, the destruction of irreplaceable precious natural resources and the displacement of an entire rich local way of life are forever.
Another fatal flaw in such foolish financial thinking is this: Just how long does any rational person think the explosive housing industry, in a relatively small space such as Sussex County (or to be much more accurate, eastern Sussex County), can continue before it snuffs itself out? There are not many more farmlands left to gobble up. Available coastal space is just about spoken for. Eastern Sussex County’s impossible roadways are already more congested than the lungs of a five-pack-a-day smoker working in an asbestos mine and living in another one.
The days of the construction boom all of us are caught up in — and each of us must deal with every time we get behind the wheel and want to think we know what time we will arrive to our destination — will come to an end. The questions still left to be answered are “What will Sussex County look like and be like then?” and “Will anybody want to live here when that day comes?”
Changed minds
What is very amazing to see happening right now, too, is that the voices of true native Sussex Countians are no longer the only voices speaking out in protest against Stillwater Harbor and other such out-of-place developments. There are now also many other people who are relatively new to living in Sussex County and who also are vocally against what they see to be the destruction of the very things they moved here to have, experience and to enjoy, because rampant overdevelopment is spoiling Sussex County.
Not one person has established a home in Sussex County or comes here to vacation because of all of the chickens we have here. People come here for only two things: the quality of life here and the close access to waterways. To add insult to injury — or apathy to ignorance — the overdevelopment that is occurring is actually the greatest threat to both of these great assets of the First State.
Money is the fuel source of the blazing fire burning across the county. Money can even bend the will of certain individuals. I’ve seen that happen before in the past and, unfortunately, I’ve seen it happen again, too.
Years ago, when people behind the exceptionally large development called The Peninsula on the Indian River Bay, destined to be built in the Long Neck Road area, came before Sussex County officials seeking approval for this project, the local volunteer fire department — the Indian River Volunteer Fire Co. — came forward to speak out on the record that it opposed this project because it would strain the capabilities of the department, among some other issues that also were raised. I remember this because I was there. And I was also there later, when the developer made a substantial financial offer to the volunteer fire department — to be paid on an annual basis in perpetuity — which was accepted and then magically completely dissolved their opposition.
I know what has caused this current event to unfold the way it has. But just because I know how it happened does not mean I also understand why it has happened. There is a great and significant difference between the two. As different as right is from wrong.
I also know the challenges anyone risks facing when he or she takes up a task such as trying to block an unwanted development from coming in and ruining their lives, their homes and their lands. And just how much, much more difficult this task is here in Sussex County is not lost on anyone who is even the least bit familiar with Sussex County, its history and the way in which it conducts business. These days it feels like real estate is the only business the county is in.
None of this will deter the people who are committed to blocking the proposed Stillwater Harbor development project. It is a sad, sad truth that wrong choices seem to be prevalent every single time this same fight is fought. But it is also true every dog has its day, and no one should pet a dog they do not know.
