The Delaware Office of State Planning Coordination releases its Annual Report on State Planning Issues, highlighting concerns in Sussex County.
According to the report, New Castle and Kent Counties both experienced a substantial decline in residential development applications while Sussex County more than doubled with a one-year 101% increase – the highest since 2008.
This hefty total of applications is solely responsible for the 51% statewide increase. The 7,676 potential units in Sussex are 89% of the 8,617 statewide total in 2022.
Director of the Office of State Planning Coordination David Edgell says deaths have now exceeded births in Delaware, and the state is instead growing by net migration – the overwhelming majority of those moving in set their sights on Sussex County.
Homebuilders have a niche market in coastal Sussex for retirees moving to Delaware and those looking for second homes. Many residents come for the tax savings versus higher cost metro locations.
Edgell says conventional wisdom would lead us to believe that more development means more housing supply which means more affordable housing, but this is not the case in the southern county.
“What we found in Delaware, particularly in Sussex County, is that these homes are not being designed to be affordable to the median Delaware family, and they’re not marketed to them," he said.
Edgell notes another issue this type of growth has on the housing market is when people move to Delaware from out of state, they don’t leave behind a home for sale in the state that is available for other residents to buy.
He says the county is taking a step in the right direction by continuing to update its Sussex County Rental Program, which encourages the inclusion of affordable rental housing and new developments.
But affordable housing isn't the only problem brought on by new developments.
The report says 65% of all residential construction permits in 2022 were in Sussex, the highest in over 5 years, and this development is disproportionately located in Level 4 areas where conservation and preservation are the goals.
Edgell says this pattern continues because most of the county’s rural land is zoned Agricultural Residential, which allows two dwelling units per acre.
“That doesn’t sound like a very high density – if you’re not familiar with densities, it doesn’t sound too bad – but it’s high enough to allow subdivisions that have hundreds or even thousands of houses," he said. "When you get to that size of a development or a subdivision, it's not really rural residential use. It's essentially putting a small town in the middle of a rural area without anything at all except houses."
The report says there is a long-term cost burden for developing in Level 4, and the loss of natural land is counterproductive to the state’s quality-of-life and environmental protection goals.
In 2022, 24% of Sussex County’s residential activity was in Level 4, compared to 14% in Kent County and 5% in New Castle County.
The report concludes with 21 recommendations in 8 different categories developed by the Cabinet Committee on State Planning Issues.
Edgell says implementing these recommendations will take several years to complete, but the Office of State Planning Coordination has already started to address some of them.
"A lot of what we're working on right now is basically foundational data that's going to help us do better planning and help local governments do better planning and for us to work together better in the future."
You can read the full annual report here.
