Three Wilmington City Councilmembers unveiled an affordability plan for the city Monday.
Councilmembers Shané Darby, Coby Owens and Christian Willauer put the plan together and called for community action to make it happen. The strategy is split into four parts, addressing homeowners, renters, water bills and homelessness.
One of the plan’s priorities is to help renters by passing rent stabilization. They hope to do that by collecting 6 thousand signatures to trigger a referendum.
Darby said there’s another way to have a referendum: City Council can vote for it.
“Sometime this year, maybe a City Councilmember might put it up, but I don't think it will pass,” Darby said. “But I think the important part is making people aware and putting it on record that City Council won't vote for the community to vote for it.”
Owens said City Council had an opportunity to call for a referendum but chose not to, voting 6-7.
“We strongly encourage everyone to sign that petition,” Owens said. “If you truly believe that rent is too high in the city of Wilmington and want to do something about it, rent stabilization is a tool that can work and benefit so many in our community.”
The plan also aims to find and fix errors in property assessments. Willauer said the city needs to make sure average residents aren’t overcharged.
“I think the solution is to make the property tax assessments fair, so that everybody is paying their fair share of taxes,” Willauer said. “And that's the path. It's not limiting. I believe in rent stabilization. In order to make rent stabilization work, you also have to make property taxes fair.”
The trio also hopes to enact an ordinance that would require new city development to include affordable units to make sure Wilmingtonians can stay in the area.
They also want to bring back pre-rental inspections and stop water shutoffs for overdue bills.
Owens said Wilmington required pre-rental inspections almost 15 years ago but got rid of them due to budget constraints.
“It was very beneficial for the city in the past, especially when it came to addressing the high rises as well…” Owens said. “Through our research and everything, we found out that under the Purzycki administration that these type of buildings, senior high rises, were not being inspected by L&I. So we want to make sure that we can codify language to make sure that that never happens again.”
Mayor John Carney joined Councilmember Darby on a visit to Lancaster, Pa. to learn from their systems. Darby said Wilmington should model its pre-rental inspections after those in cities of a similar size like Lancaster.
“They do pre-rental inspections, and they have less inspectors than us, and they get all of them done,” Darby said. “They have a very efficient program.”
Darby said she is also continuing to fight to lower water bill costs.
“I think no family, regardless, no individual should have their water shut off,” Darby said. “But that got turned down, so today I'm just going to say no family with young children, seniors or people with disabilities should face water shut offs.”
The affordability plan includes a goal of ending foreclosures for homeowners with overdue water bills and creating an affordable water billing system.
The final part of the plan seeks to address homelessness in the city. Mayor Carney announced Christina Park would become a city-sanctioned unhoused community site in October 2025. It’s now partnered with Friendship House to manage the site.
The Councilmembers involved in the plan hope to instate more sustainable solutions for the unhoused population.
“In the City of Wilmington, we have shelters that already operate here, but some of them are high barrier, which causes more people to be out on the street at the end of the day, right?” Owens said. “So we want to make sure that we are fighting for that stability. And when it comes to the shelter side of the actual structure being built, we have a ton of vacant factories and buildings that are brownfields that need to be cleaned up by DNREC already.”
Owens said Councilmembers can look to find additional money to repurpose some of these buildings.
“Affordable Wilmington is not radical,” Darby said. “It's responsible, and it's long overdue.”
The plan does not include a strict timeline as the priorities listed are at different stages, with some ready to present to Council and others still being drafted.
