Bethany Beach Planning Commissioners on March 22 approved applications for combining for five properties on Wiegand Lane.
Approved were applications filed by Matthew A. Howard and Joan M. Howard for property at 419 Wiegand Lane and 421 Wiegand Lane; Jerry and Carolyn Parr for property at 423 Wiegand Lane; Joan and John Murray for property at 425 Wiegand Lane; and John D. and Geraldine F. Walsh for property at 427 Wiegand Lane.
The property owners had obtained portions of a segment of property owned by Stanley Walcek at their rear of their Wiegand Lane lots as buffers, with Walcek having applied to the commission in January for approval of a residential project on his larger property.
That project still faces hurdles typical of developing federally-designated wetlands, but the Wiegand Lane property owners had also opposed it on the grounds that it might worsen existing flooding problems in the area.
The purchase of the buffering area could potentially alleviate some of those concerns, as well as provide a buffer from the potential residential development that could some day be built there.
Commissioners rejected Walcek’s initial application as not being concrete enough and not complying with some basic requirements for approval by the commission.
Walcek said he planned to refine the plan and return to the commission, whose approve he said he needs before the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers can consider designating some of the property as suitable no longer being protected wetlands.