Entitlement pathway election — Delaware

Who actually controls zoning: three counties, each with its own code, plus every incorporated municipality's own home-rule authority

Delaware's three counties each administer zoning only over unincorporated land within their own borders, and each does so under its own separate chapter of Title 9 of the Delaware Code: New Castle County under Chapter 26, Kent County under Chapter 49, and Sussex County under a combined Planning and Zoning framework spanning Chapters 68 and 69. There is no single, unified county zoning code shared across all three -- a screener checking one county's ordinance text cannot assume the same numbering or structure applies to either of the other two.

Any site inside one of Delaware's incorporated municipalities is governed instead by that municipality's own zoning ordinance, adopted under the state's municipal zoning enabling statute at Title 22, Chapter 3 -- which grants the "legislative body of cities and incorporated towns" the power to regulate building height, bulk, density, and use, and to divide the municipality into its own zoning districts. This authority runs independently of county zoning entirely; an incorporated town surrounded by a given county's unincorporated land answers to its own municipal code, not the county's, regardless of how rural or small the municipality itself is.

What DSHA's own QAP actually asks for -- and scores -- on zoning status

QAP Threshold Requirement 18 (Local Zoning/Planning Approvals) requires every applicant to document the status of its zoning and site plan approvals and to demonstrate that status does not jeopardize timely use of the credits. If a variance or exception is required, the applicant must submit documentation from the municipality's legal counsel describing the present status of the requested zoning change, a description of the local planning and zoning process, a timeline to approval, and evidence that approval can realistically be obtained before a timely closing. If no zoning or site plan approval is required at all, the applicant instead has to submit evidence of that fact.

Separately, Readiness to Proceed (up to 10 of the QAP's 231 total points) awards 3 points for Final Zoning Approvals already obtained at application -- one of five equally-weighted 3-point items alongside local design/site plan final approvals, DNREC final approvals, DelDOT final approvals, and a prior-allocation construction-closing track record. This is a meaningful distinction from the threshold requirement: a project can satisfy Threshold 18 by documenting a credible pathway and timeline to zoning approval without having final approval in hand, but only a project with zoning already final at application earns the Readiness points. This research found no separate QAP scoring category tied to site control status itself -- unlike zoning, site control functions purely as a threshold requirement (see the Site Control and Due Diligence phase) with no corresponding points.

A final Zoning Letter reappears as a required closing-stage exhibit 30 days before construction closing, per DSHA's Guidelines -- so entitlement status is documented, then potentially scored, then re-verified in final form at three distinct points across the development cycle: application threshold, application scoring, and construction closing.

A real, current statewide law the QAP does not yet reflect: the Housing for Every Delawarean Act

On July 13, 2026, Governor Matt Meyer signed Senate Substitute 2 for Senate Bill 23, titled by its own text as "The Housing for Every Delawarean Act" -- a genuine, verified statewide zoning and housing-supply law, read directly from the enrolled bill text rather than from a search summary. It amends Title 9 (each county's planning chapter), Title 22 (the municipal comprehensive-plan statute), and Title 29 (state planning coordination) of the Delaware Code. DSHA's own QAP was originally approved January 3, 2025 and updated again January 7, 2026 -- roughly six months before the Act was signed -- and even that most recent QAP update's Local Zoning/Planning Approvals and Readiness to Proceed language does not account for it. A Delaware entitlement screen run after mid-2026 has to track this law separately from the QAP itself.

The 11 production-tool options a jurisdiction can choose at least 5 of include several genuinely useful items for a LIHTC developer to watch for locally: density bonuses or other incentives for including affordable units, transit-oriented-development zoning with significant density increases, expedited or accelerated permit review for developments that include affordable units, fee waivers/reductions/deferrals for affordable-inclusive developments, reduction or waiver of local impact fees for affordable units, form-based codes, single-room-occupancy or supportive-housing permitted uses, commercial-to-residential conversion as a permitted use, and designation of at least one residential zone allowing multifamily housing by-right (or a substantial expansion of one that already exists) -- plus a catch-all allowing any other DSHA-approved strategy.

One nuance this research could not fully resolve: some of the comprehensive-plan sections the Act amends carry a code-formatting split between text "Effective until Nov. 15, 2026" and text "Effective Nov. 15, 2026" -- but that split traces to a separate, pre-existing scheduled amendment to those same code sections from an earlier, unrelated act, not to a delayed effective date written into the Housing for Every Delawarean Act itself. The Act's own by-right and affordable-housing-plan provisions (Sections 9220-9224 of Title 29) carry no separate delayed-effective-date language in the bill text, and Delaware acts generally take effect upon the Governor's signature absent a stated delay -- meaning the Act's substantive obligations most likely took effect July 13, 2026, not on a later date. A developer relying on specific by-right zoning language in late 2026 or 2027 should confirm current effective status and local implementation directly with the relevant county or municipality rather than assume immediate, uniform applicability from this research alone.

This research found no prior Delaware law resembling a statewide "Live Local Act"-style density or use preemption predating the Housing for Every Delawarean Act -- it appears to be the first law of this kind in Delaware, not an addition to an existing framework. That absence was checked deliberately, given that AI-search summaries have repeatedly overstated similar states' housing-credit and zoning-preemption laws in this research series; nothing found here contradicts the QAP's own, more limited Local Zoning/Planning Approvals and Readiness to Proceed provisions.

Downtown Development Districts: a state redevelopment designation that scores, but does not by itself speed up entitlement

Delaware's Downtown Development Districts Act of 2014 lets local governments designate districts (certified by the Governor) that carry state redevelopment incentives, and a site fully within a certified DDD earns QAP scoring points under Community Revitalization (2 points alone, or 5 points if the site also contributes to an eligible Concerted Community Revitalization Plan -- see the Site Sourcing and Screening phase). This research found no QAP or statutory provision giving a DDD site an accelerated or different zoning/entitlement process in itself; the DDD's benefit in the QAP is scoring and (separately, outside the QAP) a rebate program referenced in DSHA's Guidelines, not a faster path through local zoning.