A vote by New Castle County Council has blocked, at least for now, developer Louis Capano III’s plan to build a mix of apartments, single-family homes and townhouses on the former Brandywine Country Club site, but Capano has plenty of options remaining.
That latest snag in a saga that dates back nearly 10 years, when a Capano subsidiary acquired the 111-acre property between Shipley Road and Concord Pike in Brandywine Hundred, came last week, when the county council, in a 6-6 vote, rejected Capano’s appeal of a county Planning Board decision denying a request for a variance that would have permitted construction of the community while having access from Concord Pike only.
The county code requires at least two access routes for residential communities that have 300 or more housing units. Capano’s latest plan calls for 300 apartments, 41 single-family homes and 24 townhouses. Earlier versions of the plan called for as many as 563 housing units and included access from both Concord Pike and Shipley Road, with a road through the community and the Capano-owned Concord Square shopping center connecting Concord Pike and Shipley Road.
Residents of communities along Shipley Road criticized the connector road, saying it would become a shortcut that would increase traffic close to their homes. Capano, responding to neighbors’ concerns, requested the variance to remove Shipley Road access from his plan. County council members who supported Capano’s appeal cited potential traffic issues on Shipley Road. Planning Board and council members who opposed the variance request cited concerns about traffic on Concord Pike and safety issues if emergency vehicles had only one entry way to access the community.
(In a separate filing related to the country club redevelopment, Capano did win approval from the Planning Board to tear down a portion of the shopping center to create the roadway from Concord Pike into the proposed community.)
“We are reviewing our options,” John E. Tracey, Capano’s land use attorney, wrote in an email to Delaware Public Media. “We are disappointed that a county that strongly encourages community engagement did not accept a design compromise overwhelmingly supported by large portions of the community,” he added.
Capano has multiple options, according to the county’s Land Use Department and others familiar with the proposal.
One possibility, said Richard Hall, the county’s Land Use general manager, would be to appeal the County Council decision in Superior Court, but that path would likely take longer to navigate than modifying the current plan and working through the Land Use Department.
As matters now stand, Capano’s plan – with the requested rezoning approved by the Planning Board but the variance rejected – is “non-compliant,” so the developer would have to make some changes to secure the approvals needed to proceed, Hall says.
If Capano submits modifications to his plans this week, it is possible that they could be considered by County Council in April, Hall says.
R.J. Miles, president of the Council of Civic Organizations of Brandywine Hundred, who participated in numerous meetings with Capano and his representatives, is suggesting that Capano go back to a concept considered in the early stages of those community meetings but never formally submitted to the Land Use Department.
In this scenario, Miles says, Capano would build up to 300 apartment units on the west side of the site, with access from Concord Pike only, and about 65 homes on the east side, with access from Shipley Road only.
Leaders of civic organizations along Shipley Road looked favorably on this plan when it was first discussed and would support it now, Miles says. By separating the apartments from the single-family homes and keeping the apartment count under 300, there would be no need for variances, he adds.
Other options mentioned as possibilities for Capano include:
- Building “by right” – without any need for a rezoning – between 145 and 174 units. The higher number could be achieved by applying “density bonuses,” awarded for designating a certain number of units as affordable housing, as permitted by the county’s Uniform Development Code, Tracey said.
- Building a mix of up to 299 homes and apartment units, the maximum permitted with a single access road. In this instance, that access would be from Concord Pike, since county planners have already approved that route.
- Building the proposed mix of 365 homes and apartments, with the connector road between Shipley Road and Concord Pike. Having access from both east and west would satisfy the county’s requirements for developments with 300-plus units, but it would not please residents of nearby communities.
- Building 300-plus units and using a second access point other than Shipley Road.
County Councilwoman Dee Durham, D-Brandywine West, whose district includes the country club site, said Tuesday that she had reached out to Capano to discuss his next steps but has not heard back. She said that having Capano re-engage with the community, as Miles has suggested, “is always a good thing.”
Durham did not express a preference for any of the options presumably available to Capano, but did say she was hoping for an outcome that produced “a win-win” for the community. In her view that would include setting aside significant acreage as open space or county parkland.
Whatever direction Capano takes in revising the plans could have an impact on the Brandywine School District. The planned 365 housing units would be built on 67 of the country club site’s 111 acres, and Capano has expressed an intention to donate the remaining 44 acres to the school district, which would like to build an “early learning center” for pre-kindergarten children on the site.
The current situation poses a couple of potential complications for the school plan.
One is that if Capano reconfigures the mix of housing units – with more single-family homes and fewer apartments – that could well take up more than the currently planned 67 acres, leaving less land available for the school district. There are questions about how much of the proposed 44 acres the school district would need for the building it is planning, so that cannot be resolved until the developer’s intentions are clarified.
In discussions last fall, the school district expressed eagerness to accept the 44 acres from Capano but balked at suggestions that it agree to deed restrictions that would set aside a portion of the land as open space that could not be used for future construction.
Durham, known as an advocate for open space, said she supports the proposal for an early learning center but hopes that any revisions Capano makes include setting aside a significant portion of the site as parkland.
The other complication concerns access to the potential school site from Shipley Road. If there is no access to the new homes and apartments, there would be no problem. But having entrances to both the residential area and the school just a short distance apart has already raised concerns from traffic-conscious residents of neighborhoods along Shipley Road.
The school district has already taken two successful steps toward starting construction. In 2019, before the site at the country club was offered, the district received a “certificate of necessity,” official acknowledgement that the school was needed, from the state Department of Education. At the time, the district planned to build the early learning center on the vacant site of the former Brandywood Elementary School, less than two miles from the country club. Last year, state Rep. Debra Heffernan (D-Brandywine East) chair of the House Capital Improvement (“Bond Bill”) Committee, was instrumental in securing a $25 million appropriation for the school district to begin construction planning. The district has estimated construction costs at $49 million, and the state has agreed to foot the entire construction bill.
In an interview this week, Miles noted that Brandywine officials have said they don’t have the space to serve all the special needs and pre-kindergarten students who reside in the district. He also said that is likely that the developer isn’t likely to transfer ownership of the land to the school district before the deed recordation phase of the project, which could be as much as two years from now.
If the district is serious about providing essential services to special needs students, Miles said, it could start sooner by building at Brandywood rather than waiting longer for the country club site.
Brandywine officials have not responded to requests for comment on whether they are still considering Brandywood as a site for the early learning center.
