On the Banks of Broad Creek

The final draft of Laurel's 10-year comprehensive plan update has been distributed - and uploaded to this website. It reflects the many comments, concerns and recommendations of Laurel's Planning and Zoning Commission, Mayor and Council, and state agencies such as DelDOT, DNREC, Department of Agriculture, and the Office of State Planning Coordination. The plan and its recommendations still adhere to the Guiding Principles established in July 2016 by the Laurel Plan Advisory Team, with Mayor [...]

Laurel's Old Town neighborhood is on the verge of a substantial facelift. Delaware's Strong Neighborhoods Fund has awarded $500,000 to the Laurel Redevelopment Corporation for the construction of four new homes and the purchase-rehabilitation of six more in the section of town between Central Avenue and Oak Street (east-west) and Market Street and the waterfront (north-south). The LRC is partnering with the Town of Laurel, Sussex County Habitat for Humanity, and Milford Housing Development Corporation [...]

Will you help Rock the Block on Saturday, March 11? Sussex County Habitat for Humanity is sponsoring this community improvement event in Laurel's Old Town neighborhood on Saturday, March 11. This event will use local volunteers who will be partnering with homeowners to provide free services like  landscaping, trash removal, power washing, and more. Old Town, which includes the neighborhood between Central Avenue and Oak Street, from the waterfront to Market Street, is a targeted area [...]

Lee Ann Walling, a planner and principal of Cedar Creek Sustainable Planning Services, prepared Laurel's latest growth plan. Her email is cedarcreekplanners@comcast.net. Laurel's comprehensive plan is now available for your review at this link. I invite you to read it and email me if you have questions or comments. The plan has been submitted to the Office of State Planning Coordination, which sends it out to state agencies for review. I consulted extensively with all [...]

Lee Ann Walling is finishing up Laurel's comprehensive plan. She offers continuing thoughts on major findings and themes.  We have a brand, Laurel, and we need to start using it. It's "Laurel: Great Things Come Naturally." More on that in a minute. This weekend I finished up the Economic Development section of the plan. My overriding goal is to produce a plan that gives Laurel useful information and recommendations that are doable given the size and [...]

Photo: Jeff and Laurie Roberts on their Central Avenue front porch.  Working on several projects for Laurel, I have spent about two years walking its neighborhoods, talking with its citizens, digesting its demographics, taking hundreds of photographs, and making maps that help tell its story. I am wrapping up work on Laurel's 10-year comprehensive growth plan, and the plan makes one big assumption: that the town's leaders will make the decisions needed to transform Laurel from the poorest [...]

Lee Ann Walling is holed up in her office writing Laurel's comprehensive plan. She thought she would share interesting and significant findings from the plan, which will be presented to the town's Planning and Zoning Commission in January.  Do you assume Laurel is a town with a lot of older, white people? If you do, you are wrong. The median age of Laurel's residents is only 27.7. That means half the residents are older and half [...]

Contributed by Jim Rapp  Last month,  Mayor John Shwed and the Laurel Town Council welcomed Jim Rapp and Dave Wilson of Conservation Community Consulting to a Town Council meeting to share a nature and heritage-based tourism plan for the town, with Broad Creek and the Ramble as the centerpiece. The tourism plan is titled "Laurel, Delaware: Base Camp to Nanticoke Country," and it details the process, resources and recommendations to reimagine Laurel as a Trail Town for [...]