New Castle County wants to extend the time developers have to get through the land use approval process.
The change, set to be voted on by Council at its Sept. 30 meeting, would allow the developer an additional three months to complete the engineering and studies required by the county’s development code.
County attorneys asked the Department of Land Use to draft the code change because there have been an increasing number of lawsuits by land developers over the timeframe being too restrictive. Plans that are not completed by the end of the allotted time are sunset and must go back through the process to gain approval.
George Haggerty, acting general manager of the Department of Land Use, said developers would have to prove that situations beyond their control forced them to file for the extension.
“You can’t just walk in and say you need more time,” he said. “There must be some circumstance, something specific like waiting for a report…from the Army Corp of Engineers or DelDOT that requires the extension.”
The extensions would be available to the developers both at the exploratory and preliminary stages.
