The Beaver Valley Preservation Alliance has come out swinging at New Castle County’s exemption for a new campus at Wilmington University as well as newspaper coverage.
The News Journal reported that the County Council granted the exemption. Cited as the reasons for the exemption were traffic patterns at the campus that would not result in spikes in congestion.
Wilmington University officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the county’s move. The university has cited continued growth in enrollment in its decision to build a new campus on the property. The university says its buildings will only occupy a small portion of the site in a heavily developed area across from Concord Mall on Route 202.
“Something is terribly rotten in the State of Delaware. New Castle County Council there just granted Wilmington University a rare waiver from having to pay for traffic upgrades to surrounding roads and intersections along the heavily congested Route 202 corridor,” the poste stated. “Not only is it an outrage that they will be allowed to build in a taxpayer subsidized wildlife refuge in Beaver Valley, they now won’t even have to provide for road improvements to mitigate the impact of thousands of new vehicle trips on the intersection of 202/Beaver Valley Road and Thompsons Bridge/Beaver Valley Roads. Moreover, Thompsons Bridge Road is a ‘scenic highway,’ yet NCC Council would allow it to be choked with traffic.”
The post went on to attack the university for everything from its graduation rate to the paycheck of its president Jack Varsalona, making the case that the institution should pay for traffic improvements in the area.
“Finally, these first three buildings planned for Beaver Valley are only the beginning. In twenty years, they will have gobbled up all the land along Thompsons Bridge Road, and New Castle County Council will have allowed it to happen. As far as we know, none of the facts listed here have ever been reported in the News Journal to date. If their readership knew what was going on here, there’d be an uprising,” the post concluded.
The alliance became for its aggressive tactics in opposing plans by Wilmington-based Woodlawn Trustees to develop land in owns near the Wilmington University property.
The group has taken members of the Woodlawn Trustees to task for their business relationships. Woodlawn Trustees was formed to carry out the wishes of Delaware businessman Joseph Bancroft in building housing and preserving land.
The group would like to see Woodlawn to sell its holdings to preserve the land in the area that is near Delaware’s first national park.
