Georgetown Town Council Approves Cottage Housing Development Ordinance

Since I supported the Town of Georgetown Ordinance 2025-07, I wanted to share my public comment:

Thank you, Council and Community members for the opportunity to speak. I’m Dr. Michele Williams, a long-time member of the Sussex Housing Group, and a member of the Policy subcommittee of the State’s Affordable Housing Production Task Force.

There’s been a lot of confusion in the community, so I am starting with the most important fact: passing this ordinance does not approve any development. Not a single home, not a single project — nothing changes on the ground tonight. This ordinance only creates the option for applicants to propose cottage housing, smaller houses, or starter homes, how ever you want to call them, in the future. Regardless of what they are called, every proposal would still go through full site review, Planning Commission hearings, public comment, and final Council approval.

Now, here’s two reasons why this matters.

First, across Georgetown, Delaware, and across the country, the people who keep our community running — teachers, police officers, hospital staff, retail workers, young adults, seniors, and like me, veterans — cannot find housing at a price their wages can support. When the workforce that serves a town cannot afford to live in that town, long-term stability is at risk. This ordinance gives us one practical, scalable tool to begin addressing that gap. Not THE solution, but A solution.

Delaware Housing Director Matthew Heckles put it plainly when he posited that we cannot meet today’s demand with yesterday’s development patterns. Our housing system no longer matches our economic reality. We need to modernize.

And that is exactly what the State Affordable Housing Production Task Force recommended:

• Expand zoning flexibility

• Allow cottage courts and small-scale homes

• Reduce barriers that prevent communities from meeting workforce needs

This ordinance that you are considering tonight (2025-07) follows those recommendations precisely. It is not radical. It is not experimental. Cottage courts, also called cottage clusters, micro communities, or pocket neighborhoods, exist all over the country. The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) estimates that about 1,000 small-scale neighborhoods had been built or were under construction in the United States as of 2021. This type of missing middle housing has proven to be stable, attractive, and low-impact neighborhoods for over two decades.

Second, I commend the Town of Georgetown for choosing to update your zoning on your terms, rather than waiting for Dover to impose statewide mandates. No question about it, those mandates are coming. But the Town of Georgetown is taking the proactive path: adopting a thoughtful, locally tailored ordinance before the state dictates something broader and less flexible.

This keeps control here, in Georgetown, where it belongs.

So let me close by bringing us back to the heart of this vote.

·This ordinance does not approve a project.

·It does not build a single home.

It simply gives Georgetown a modern, transparent, predictable tool to consider small-scale, modest housing options that support our workforce — while preserving every layer of public review.

Passing this ordinance helps Georgetown grow responsibly, maintain local control, and support housing options for the folks that make this town work every day.

I respectfully urge you to support the ordinance. Thank you.

/maw/

Michele A. Williams, PhD

Executive Director, Fuller Center for Housing of Delaware. fullercenterdelaware.org, 302-827-3596

Vice-President, LittleLiving.org