Why Should Delaware Care?
Five new developments in Delaware could bring 7,800 homes to their respective towns, in some cases, doubling the population. Builders and county leaders say the new subdivisions will benefit the community, but residents near the proposals raised concerns about the projects.
This story was edited to clarify statements made about a Milton development that is proposing more than 1,000 homes. A previous version of this article stated there was only one application for the development, when there are two.
As Delaware’s pace of building has grown considerably since the pandemic, so has the size of the developments proposed by builders, with communities of 1,000 or more homes no longer an outlier.
Some of these communities stand to double the populations of existing small towns, while others are jumping into an already bustling development scene in Sussex County.
Local leaders and developers say the communities will benefit their communities, but residents harbor concerns about these massive projects and what they could mean for existing services.
What’s different about these communities?
Suburbs are nothing new in the United States.
It’s an idea that can be traced back to a post-World War II era, according to UCLA professor of urban planning Michael Manville. Levittown, N.Y., was one of the first major suburbs in the U.S., bringing 17,000 homes to Long Island in the 1950s.
But while older suburbs were exclusively residential, newer developments are consolidating commercial space and other amenities in the community. Manville said these new communities would in theory have a Main Street area where residents could walk to different commercial spaces and services.
“And so folks who live there get more than just a very pleasant residential environment,” Manville said. “They also get a little bit of the ability to walk and do some other things.”
The idea of a master-plan community like Levittown isn’t as common as it used to be due to a lack of necessary open space to develop such large projects, Manville said. But areas like Kent and Sussex counties are rife with undeveloped agricultural space that are suitable for them.
While many of these new homes would come in at market value, Manville said increasing the supply will help to keep older homes more affordable.
“Most people in the country, when they buy their first car, buy a used car,” Manville said. “Used cars are less expensive than new cars because we build new cars.”
Reid Ewing, a professor of urban planning at the University of Utah, said master-plan communities offer a higher-density suburban option than the current model, where homes are far more spread out.
People are able to live, play, shop and work within the confines of their neighborhoods, and are able to keep most of their trips from home in the community.
When it comes to measuring the traffic impact of these larger developments, Reid said it’s not proportional to the amount of homes being built. The impact of a community can be measured in “vehicle miles traveled” (VMT) per home, but with master-plan communities, he said much of the travel is captured internally.
“So 1,000 homes generate more VMT than 100 homes do, but not 10 times as much,” Ewing said.
Where would these homes end up?
Master-planned communities are not a new idea in Delaware. In the Middletown area, both the Bayberry and Town of White Hall communities have been building such projects, also known as planned-unit developments or village communities, over the past decade.
But the idea once relegated to the most ambitious project has become an increasingly viable trend in building. Right now, there are five subdivisions each looking to build more than 1,000 homes in towns across Delaware.
These developments are part of a total of more than 25,000 homes proposed in towns all over the state, which if completed, could bring more than 62,000 new residents to Delaware. The average development size in all of these considerations was 507 new homes per project.
Developments in Camden, Frederica, Laurel and Milton plan to add a combined 7,774 homes to their respective communities. The populations in some of these towns would double if the developments see the finish line.
The Villages of Mill Wood, which is a 458-acre proposal in Laurel, would bring more than 2,400 homes to the area. Its application shows plans for single-family homes, townhomes and apartments, as well as future commercial development and green space, all in one subdivision.
Two other Kent County proposals, Savannah Farms in Camden and the Villages Westowne in Frederica, would bring a combined 2,732 homes to the heart of Delaware.
A proposal in Milton, Cool Spring Crossings, considered building 1,900 homes in the community. But after blowback from both the state and locals, the development filed a secondary application with 1,260 homes. Both proposals are still on the table.
The Granary at Draper Farm, another Milton development, recently started construction on its 1,350 planned homes.
The development is set to be built out over the next 20 years.
Sussex County Councilman Mark Schaffer represents the district where the two Milton projects are planned. He said the intent of the communities is to limit sprawl in the area and improve access to different services for residents in those subdivisions.
Schaffer said he believes by having those services closer to residents, it will limit the amount of traffic on the roads.
“It will provide walkability and the ability to bicycle to services and purchase goods in your community, so you don’t have to get in an automobile and drive 10 miles,” Schaffer said.
Brian DiSabatino, who co-founded the Town of Whitehall, a $1 billion mixed-used development looking to bring 2,500 residents to southern New Castle County by 2044, said committing to a development this large can be “harder and more expensive.”
With that in mind, he said not enough developers might commit to a large project like that of Whitehall. The plans for Whitehall were initially much larger, but he said some of the land was sold to other developers.
DiSabatino said a major focus with Whitehall was to build so that people always had something they could walk to within a quarter mile of their home.
“The long view was to create a place where people just didn’t have houses, but people had community,” he added.
Locals push back on plans
A major concern for many residents living in areas where development is booming is its impact on roads and other infrastructure. In a statement, the Delaware Department of Transportation (DelDOT) said the organization works “proactively” to find any impacts a new project would have on roads.
In the event that builders are required to make changes to the roads, DelDOT said any road improvements are phased with the development progress.
“DelDOT utilizes traffic analysis to identify impacts to the transportation network and to determine appropriate mitigation for those impacts,” the agency said in a statement. “DelDOT then seeks to obtain that mitigation through its advisory role in the local government’s land use approval process.
At a July 17 Sussex County Planning & Zoning Commission meeting, members of the public rattled off opposition statements for nearly three hours of a nearly seven-hour meeting. The commission considered a proposal from Northstar Property that would add 758 single-family home lots, 94 apartments and 96,000 square feet of commercial space to Lewes, right along Route 9 in an already congested area of coastal Delaware.
The public comment period came after a three-hour presentation from the developers and members of DelDOT. At times, residents heckled the developers or DelDOT representatives. The Sussex County meeting room had nearly every seat filled, as residents waited to share concerns with the project.
David Selby said his family has a home on Jimtown Road, which is adjacent to Beaver Dam road and asked for a traffic study to be done on his street, if the developer goes through with the project.
Selby, a builder himself, said he’s not asking the council to stop the project completely, but would like to see more thought about how a project of this size would affect people already living near the development.
“The developers I have no problem with, but implore them to really take a serious consideration of the people who they’re actually affecting,” he said. “Instead of just focusing on the money to come from the future residents.”
Get Involved
Delaware’s Preliminary Land Use Service (PLUS) meets virtually and in person, on Aug. 28. This month’s agenda can be accessed here.