'Big houses' OK'd near Burton Pond

Fifteen buildings that resemble huge single-family homes, but actually contain six or eight condominium units apiece, are acceptable near Burton Pond, Sussex County Council has decided.
The council voted 3-2 July 31, with Lynn Rogers and George Cole dissenting, to allow construction of 102 such condominiums, which would complement 265 single, detached homes around the pond that were approved earlier as part of the same project.
The Angola-area 367-unit project is the creation of Burton's Pond Communities LLC, which includes developer Mike Lynn, the Ocean Atlantic real estate firm and the David G. Horsey & Sons development and construction company, all of Sussex County.
Ocean Atlantic was involved in the development of an existing coastal Sussex community featuring "big houses" -- Paynters Mill, off Del. 1 at Cave Neck Road, near Milton.
Rogers and Cole criticized the "big house" units as inappropriate in an area dominated by single, detached homes. Council President Dale Dukes, who cast the deciding vote, said he, too, would prefer single dwellings, but more trees would be destroyed to create single-family housing lots than if homes are concentrated in the proposed 15 buildings.
Councilman Finley Jones noted that 20 homes in the project will be sold through a county program to provide discount-priced housing to teachers, police officers and other middle-class workers in Sussex.
As part of its approval of the project, the council specified that Burton Pond cannot be closed to the public. It also adopted a recommendation by Burton's Pond Communities LLC to allow no more than 30 boats on the environmentally troubled pond at any time.
Burton's Pond Communities is to initiate a maintenance program for the pond. Homeowners eventually will take over the program.
The development company also will pay for creation of an intersection of Del. 24 and Hollymount and Sloan roads. Currently, the roads meet Del. 24 at different points.