Davis, Bowen & Friedel’s discovery of hundreds of inspection reports from Hearthstone Manor’s construction means the Milford city government can take another look at the $20,000 re-inspection of the development that they approved on May 11.
Before they decide how to proceed with this inspection, the city council needs to be very sure of what they want to do once that information comes in.
Michael Spillane, who is himself a Hearthstone resident, has brought up a litany of issues to the council since he was elected last year. For instance, one of the ones he’s used recently is that the shoulders on some of Hearthstone’s roads are too narrow. Even if he’s 100 percent right about the narrow shoulders, what are we going to do about it?
Thinking just in terms of logistics, there aren’t many options to fix that kind of problem. Expanding the shoulder by making the driving lanes narrower would be pointless. Widening the entire right-of-way seems like the logical idea, but in most if not all of the development, the roads run right to the edge of the drainage swales. Widening the roads would mean redoing the swales, which wouldn’t be an easy or cheap process.
The city has doubtlessly spent thousands of dollars in lawyers’ fees to sue Key Properties over the signs it posted on Route 1 — a lawsuit which has so far produced a $100 fine to make up for those fees.
And the bill’s only going to get larger as the appeal drags on. If the city wants to levy fines against the developer for problems at Hearthstone, we can probably expect more lawyers’ fees that will have to be paid out of public funds.
None of this means it’s not worth investigating the problems Hearthstone may have. If old reports or a new inspection turns up unsafe conditions there, then the city ought to do its best to get those conditions fixed.
The question is how exactly we’re going to do that, and the council needs to have its answer ready before they go forward with an inspection. Anybody who says that once the city finds a problem it can just order it fixed and have that be the end of it hasn’t been paying attention for the last few months.
If we’re going to walk down that road, it’s to everyone’s benefit to know where it’s going from the beginning.
David LaRoss
News Editor
Milford, Del. —
