Dewey Favors Tall Buildings Cap
BY BRUCE PRINGLE • THE DAILY TIMES • STAFF WRITER
DEWEY BEACH – Mary and Woody Gilleland had plenty to do back home in Pittsburgh, but they weren’t about to leave town without hearing the election results.
“Dewey Beach is one of the greatest places in the country,” and the construction of six- or seven-story buildings would only spoil the town in which they own a beachfront vacation home, Mary said.
“We would be Ocean City No. 2,” her husband added. “We’d have high-rises all along the ocean.”
But that no longer seemed like much of a possibility.
The votes had been counted, and the Gillelands were among dozens of year-round residents, nonresident property owners like themselves and ordinary tourists who were outside the Dagsworthy Street polling place celebrating passage of a proposal to strengthen Dewey’s current building height limit, 35 feet.
Five of every six voters endorsed a proposal to make the height restriction part of the town charter and allow it to be changed only in a townwide vote, rather than let the Town Council control it. The result was 608 in favor of that idea and 114 against.
The referendum was conducted in the wake of a proposal to develop buildings as tall as 68 feet at the Ruddertowne commercial complex.
“Once we had one (development like that),” Mary said, “everyone would want to do it.”
Voters also chose two Town Council members and cleared the way for enactment of a 3 percent tax on residential rentals.
Mark Appelbaum and Marty Seitz, who ran as a team promising to watchdog town finances and oppose taller buildings, won two-year terms on the council. They will replace Dale Cooke and Claire Walsh, who didn’t seek re-election.
Appelbaum received 582 votes; Seitz, 542. They had the backing of a prominent civic group, Citizens to Preserve Dewey.
The only other council candidate, Kris Appel, garnered 214 votes. Her views were similar to those of the winners.
All three candidates are from Maryland: Appel lives in Baltimore, Seitz in Silver Spring in and Appelbaum, Chevy Chase.
The tax on vacation home rentals was approved by a vote of 501-218. How much the levy will generate is unclear. Some estimates put the take at more than $300,000.
That income will help offset a sharp decline in the town’s revenue from Delaware’s tax on real estate sales.