State planners brief Sussex County on 2025 'Strategies for State Policies and Spending'; council presses for updated sewer, road and data alignment

David Eshel, director of the Office of State Planning Coordination, told the Sussex County Council on Feb. 25 that the state is in the middle of the sixth five‑year update to the Strategies for State Policies and Spending and expects to deliver the 2025 update in July 2025.

The presentation focused on how the Office of State Planning Coordination (OSPC) and agency partners run a GIS‑based methodology to score and map areas that “favor development” (levels 1–3), discourage development (level 4) or are legally protected (out of play). Josh Thomas, principal planner and policy lead for the update, said the office reruns a full data analysis each cycle and “incorporates new data” including county comprehensive plans, agency data layers and program areas such as Transportation Improvement Districts (TIDs).

Why it matters: county officials said the maps and data drive decisions about where state and local infrastructure money should go. Several council members urged quicker, clearer incorporation of county sewer plans and recent construction activity into the state mapping and asked how the maps relate to DelDOT project priorities, especially for Route 1 and other congested corridors.

State presenters summarized the update process and the data inputs. Jason Vogel, statewide geospatial data coordinator, described the GIS workflow and the principal datasets that feed the map (municipal and county comprehensive plans, corridor preservation areas, sewer tiers, ag/forestry preservation, wetlands and other agency layers). Josh Thomas said the office assigns positive scores to “favoring growth” layers, negative scores to preservation layers and removes legally protected lands from the analysis. Thomas emphasized the update is not a simple patch: “the entire analysis is rerun” for 2025.

Presenters reviewed a 2020 “capacity” (absorption) analysis the office rebranded as a residential development capacity test. Using that 2020 baseline, the office estimated about 55,000 acres of residential‑developable land in strategy levels 1–3 and calculated that, at roughly three units per acre, the identified growth areas would contain about five times the number of housing units needed to meet Delaware Population Consortium household projections through 2040. Thomas and Eshel both noted that the 2025 re‑run may change those numbers because some local governments have updated comprehensive plans since 2020.

Council members and county staff pressed presenters on several recurring concerns:

- Sewer and private utility data: Council members said recent sewer mains, private community systems and county sewer‑tier petitions are not clearly visible in the state maps. Eshel and Vogel said OSPC relies on county and agency data stewards and asked the county to share its latest sewer‑tier and annexation application data; they said the office will incorporate those inputs where possible. The county’s public works staff explained that county policy requires a land‑use decision before a sewer annexation request progresses, and noted the Public Service Commission and Artesian/other utilities play a role in permitting and rate approval.

- Transportation funding and timing: Council members asked how DelDOT spending aligns with strategy levels. OSPC showed FY2024 capital figures presented by DelDOT (the slideshow cited county breaks used for illustration) and said DelDOT’s six‑year capital program can create uneven year‑to‑year county totals. The council asked for clearer reporting on federally funded lane miles vs. state‑funded projects because federal projects can follow different permitting and right‑of‑way timetables.

- Methodology and local nuance: Several council members asked whether the maps use a one‑size‑fits‑all buffer and travel‑shed assumptions for New Castle, Kent and Sussex counties. Presenters said the methodology is intended to be statewide, but noted forward‑looking datasets—TIDs, transit reimagining (DART), corridor preservation areas and county sewer plans—are included when available. Jason Vogel said OSPC can and does accept locally provided datasets (for example, Milford’s TDR map) when they are provided as authoritative inputs.

Other items discussed briefly included forestland loss and the increasing cost of easements for ag/open‑space preservation; the state’s dashboard for financial and infrastructure metrics; the population mix in Sussex County (including seasonal housing) and housing affordability. Eshel and Thomas urged continued coordination: they said local comprehensive plans remain the principal input to state strategies and that OSPC will consider any county comprehensive‑plan amendments or confirmed annexations that occur before the next taskings.

Council reaction was pointed. Council member Vince (surname not specified in the transcript) said, “the maps between your map and our map… they don’t align,” and asked how the two agencies could reconcile competing maps that affect development approvals. Eshel answered that OSPC will work with the county, and that certified comprehensive‑plan amendments recognized by the governor will be treated as consistent with state strategies until the next full update.

Ending: OSPC asked county staff to share current sewer‑tier, annexation and development‑permit data and promised to surface more detailed layer metadata (for example, which out‑of‑play areas are federal, state or locally protected). The presenters and council agreed to continue follow‑up through a county working group and in advance of the 2025 update schedule. The workshop recessed to allow the council to return for the remainder of its agenda.