This Act aims to increase this State’s supply of housing for Delawareans. Despite rapid development, Delaware is facing a significant and growing shortage of affordable housing. Senate Joint Resolution No. 8 of the 1st session of the 153rd General Assembly created a pilot program designed to encourage local zoning reform efforts that would help increase affordable housing. While several local jurisdictions have taken advantage of the assistance offered by SJR 8, the scope of the problem is statewide, and it will take more than isolated local reform to scale up housing production, particularly affordable housing production, to the degree necessary to meet this State’s needs. To that end, this Act does the following:
Sections 1 through 3 amend the requirements for comprehensive plans for New Castle, Kent, and Sussex Counties. Current statute specifies that only the land use map or map series part of the comprehensive plan has the force of law. Under this Act, the entire comprehensive plan would have the force of law, as is the case in municipalities. This means that no development will be permitted in the Counties that is not in conformity with the comprehensive plan. These Sections also create a new requirement that the housing element of a comprehensive plan must include an affordable housing plan, the contents of which are dictated by newly created Subchapter III of Chapter 92 of Title 29. These Sections also change the amount of time a County has to administratively rezone from the date of adopting a comprehensive plan from 18 months to 12 months. No additional public meetings beyond those required to be held in connection with the comprehensive plan are required to accomplish administrative rezoning.
Section 4 amends Title 22 to require municipalities with populations of greater than 2,000 to develop affordable housing plans as part of their comprehensive plans. As with the counties, the municipalities must meet the affordable housing plan requirements under newly created Subchapter III of Chapter 92 of Title 29. This section also reduces the amount of time from comprehensive plan adoption to rezoning, which is to be done administratively and without the need for additional public meetings beyond those required for the comprehensive plan, from 18 months to 12 months.
Section 5 amends the comprehensive plan review and certification process under Chapter 91 of Title 29 to remove the ability of counties and municipalities to reject the comprehensive plan once it has been certified by the Governor or returned to the county for revision. If a comprehensive plan is returned to a county or municipality for revision, the county or municipality has 20 days to make any revisions and return the plan to the Governor for review and certification.
Section 6 adds definitions related to affordable housing to Chapter 92 of Title 29.
Section 7 creates the Affordable Housing Act in Title 29 and establishes the requirements for affordable housing plans that must be included in all county comprehensive plans, and all municipal comprehensive plans for municipalities with populations greater than 2,000. Affordable housing plans, which must be approved by the Delaware State Housing Authority as part of the comprehensive planning process, are focused on identifying a local jurisdiction’s housing needs and developing strategies and timelines for addressing them. The Delaware State Housing Authority will review each local jurisdiction annually for compliance with its affordable housing plan. These reports will be available on the Delaware State Housing Authority’s website.
Section 8 provides that this Act may be cited as “The Housing for Every Delawarean Act”.
In making these changes, this Act seeks to increase access to housing for all income levels while allowing local jurisdictions the flexibility to develop their own strategies for doing so.
This Act also makes technical corrections to conform existing law to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual.
Under § 1 of Article IX of the Delaware Constitution, this Act requires a two-thirds majority vote because the amendments it makes to Title 22 of the Delaware Code would indirectly amend the charter of one or more incorporated municipalities.

Statutes affected:
Original / Not Amended: 22.702, 29.9103, 29.9202