Rehoboth Commissioner reflect on 2020 Comprehensive Development Plan being adopted

REHOBOTH, Del.- After more than three years and 10 drafts, the Rehoboth Beach Commissioners unanimously adopted the city’s 2020 Comprehensive Development Plan.

“It is the single most important plan of the city that has the force of law for how we interpret our code and how we develop the entire city,” City Commissioner Susan Gay said.

This exciting news came Tuesday and commissioners tell me its been a long time coming. “The process of updating this actually started 4 years ago, but it go interrupted by event called the pandemic that never seemed to end,” Gay said.

With over 300 pages, there’s a lot to unpack in this guide book from transportation goals,  economic development goals, and more. “We’ve got a lot of development projects in the pipeline and allowing those projects to go through in a manageable responsible way,” City Commissioner Edward Chrzanowski said. “With any type of growth there’s challenges and to keep the unique feel and history of Rehoboth, to keep that charm and allow new development to go in, is important.”

“So, whenever there is content about adaptive reuse, about outdoor dining, about architectural review, about development of buildings, on the boardwalk, all of those themes about preserving our small town charm and our pedestrian orientation come into play,” Gay said.

City Commissioner Gay said one of the highlights for her is the section on sustainable tourism. “We need to be looking at data to see just what our summer population is and just how challenging our traffic and parking problems are,” Gay said. But, that’s not the only important point made within the plan. “Environmental impacts are going to be key,” Chrzanowski said. “The ocean is rising, the climate is changing, these are things we cannot ignore and the CDP will help us navigate some of those challenges going forward.”

Although the plan has been adopted, it still needs to be signed by the Governor. The plan will carry on for 10 years- with a 5 year update.

Commissioner Gay said this year one of the new elements to this plan is an implementation chapter where they will be looking at putting forth execution steps for the plans.

To find more information on the Comprehensive Plan, you can visit the https://www.cityofrehoboth.com/.