Why Should Delaware Care?
Community activists often cite traffic congestion concerns as the primary reason to stop controversial projects. Gov. Matt Meyer’s executive order will speed up the construction of in-demand affordable housing by barring state transportation officials from considering those concerns.
Gov. Matt Meyer removed a traffic regulation last month that he said acted as an obstacle to the development of new apartments, townhomes and other affordable housing in the state.
The new policy, created through an executive order, lifts a state requirement that developers of large affordable housing projects pay to study the impacts of those developments on local traffic.
Builders of other developments, including commercial buildings or market-rate housing, must still conduct those impact studies. And in Sussex County — where growth and traffic have been at odds for years — local officials say they can still require traffic studies through the county’s land use approval process.
The state rule change is part of a broader set of reforms outlined in the executive order that Meyer says will speed up “priority projects,” including affordable housing and energy infrastructure developments.
He said that development plans have too often been stuck in a regulatory limbo while waiting for the results of traffic impact studies and other state requirements.
The policy comes after decades of growth in Sussex County, where large tracts of farmland have been regularly transformed into subdivisions and strip malls. In recent years, critics of the transformation say that growth has brought too many cars onto roads that were built for a more rural landscape.
Asked about Meyer’s reforms, some of the loudest critics responded with ambivalence. While they noted that the county still has the authority to require developers to make road improvements, they also argued that the state for years has treated road upgrades as an afterthought.
“Transportation infrastructure cannot simply be treated as irrelevant when evaluating new development,” Sussex resident Gary Vorsheim said.
Vorsheim is a member of the advocacy group, Route 24 Alliance, which last year protested plans to build commercial and housing developments on fields that sit inland of Rehoboth Beach.
In January, the group asked a Delaware judge to force the Sussex County Council to deny a proposal to build shops and apartments — some of which will be affordable — at the site of former horse farm. They argued that local officials misunderstood the timing of traffic improvements, among other issues, when approving the development, which is called Belle Mead.
In response to traffic-centered pushback against housing developments, Mike Riemann, former president of the Delaware Homebuilders Association, said the priority of the state should be building affordable housing.
“Do we not support [an individual’s] ability to find a home because someone has to sit at an intersection for an extra five seconds?” Riemann said.
Delaware is short almost 20,000 rental units for households that earn less than half the region’s median income, according to a 2023 study prepared for the Delaware State Housing Authority. Many people struggle to find homes that fit their budgets, especially near the Delaware beaches where home values have skyrocketed.
Under Meyer’s new rules, a housing project can avoid paying for a traffic study if at least 15% of its units are affordable to people making either 80% or 120% of an area’s median income, depending on if they are rentals or properties for purchase.
The housing project also has to be in an area that is either already served by public water and sewer infrastructure or that local officials designated for future growth.
The removal of the traffic study requirements is part of Meyer’s broader edict to state agencies to create a “permitting accelerator” for his priority projects.
Through the accelerator, he wants the timeline for state approvals for priority developments to go from the current average of 18 to 24 months to under six months. Review delays, he argued, drives up housing and energy costs.
“Affordability is the defining challenge of this moment in our state, and what we’re doing today is addressing one of the most practical drivers of affordability,” Meyer said at the press conference announcing the order.