A Hockessin property owner received the green light from the Board of Adjustment to build three commercial buildings on his Yorklyn Road property.
The board granted five variances at its Feb. 25 meeting, allowing property owner Marty Mellinger to construct three new buildings, totaling 9,840 square feet, on his industrially-zoned land near the abandoned NVF plant.
He filed the plan for the three buildings in November, 2008, but it has not yet had an exploratory review by the Planning Board, according to New Castle County records.
The new buildings are necessary to balance the indoor and outdoor storage at the site, Mellinger said. Used as a bus depot for 50 years, the property is now a hodgepodge of renters and contractors, including lawn companies, a septic service company, an antique dealer and storage space for campers and boats, he said.
Because construction of the buildings and entrances would disturb the riparian buffer of a tributary of the Red Clay Creek, Mellinger first had to take his request to the Resource Protection Area Technical Advisory Committee, which unanimously approved it late last year.
As part of the agreement with RPATAC, Mellinger has committed to removing some pavement and gravel and moving several sheds upslope from the stream, he said.
Mellinger also plans to reforest some land along the stream, planting about 250 plants along both sides of the stream and removing invasive species growing in the area, said landscape architect Gary Burchman.
“We’ve all agreed finally that this is the path of least resistance to try and clean it up and make it a more organized site,” said Mellinger.
Cleaning up the property will give his renters more space to store things and the businesses on the property an easier time parking trucks, he said, though it will probably be four or five years until the site is totally finished.
