| SB 310 | Committee | Huxtable | This Act creates a Disaster Recovery Fund (the "Fund") to provide disaster recovery assistance to Delaware residents and local governments affected by disasters. The Fund is intended to provide means for program creation following an extreme event with regard to short-term recovery needs, the provision of interim housing assistance, support for the repair, restoration, reconstruction, or replacement of occupied damaged or destroyed homes, assistance in addressing gaps in insurance coverage, prioritization of health and safety issues to ensure that housing remains habitable, and support for long-term recovery initiatives.
The Fund will be administered in accordance with guidelines set by the Recovery Advisory Council, or "RAC," which is established by the Act. The Fund will consist of any appropriations, grants, gifts, contributions, or revenues received by the Fund from any source. It will be divided into at least 2 components, including: (1) the DEMA Recovery and Resilience Program, which previously existed as Executive Order #44, or the Delaware Resilience Fund, and which will receive funding to focus on recovery initiatives, and (2) the DSHA Housing Recovery Program, which will receive funding to address housing recovery needs.
The RAC shall establish prescribed impetuses that trigger the use of funds for mitigation and preparedness projects, including establishing a dollar amount threshold for the fund beyond which funds can be spent on mitigation and preparedness, and establishing a minimum time period of at least one year beyond which, if the Fund is not utilized for its primary objectives, funds can be spent on mitigation and preparedness. Eligible uses would include funding for disaster risk reduction, hazard mitigation projects, or community resilience initiatives or use as a "match" for costs associated with federal mitigation or preparedness grant dollars for initiatives in mitigation and preparedness.
The RAC will convene biannually, upon activation request, when post-disaster assistance requests exceed the available balance of the Fund, or in accordance with its bylaws. The RAC consists of the Director of the Delaware Emergency Management Agency or designee; the Director of the Delaware State Housing Authority or designee; the State Hazard Mitigation Officer or designee; the Directors of the Emergency Management Agencies for Sussex County, Kent County, and New Castle County or their designees; the Disaster Coordinator of the Department of Health and Social Services or designee; and the following members, appointed by the Governor: representatives from the Delaware League of Local Government and the Delaware Community Foundation; a member of local government from an affected or impacted community; a member with expertise in disability services, independent living, or access and functional needs, and any additional cabinet secretary or subject matter expert.
The Fund may be activated when a disaster occurs and affects an amount of housing, residents, or property predetermined within DEMA or DSHA programmatic guidelines, if damage occurs that exceeds the capacity of the affected locality and assistance is requested from the corresponding county, if the support required for recovery exceeds the capacity of the corresponding county and the county makes a request to the Fund's program managers, or if the Governor declares a state of emergency or requests fund activation.
| AN ACT TO AMEND TITLE 20 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO THE DELAWARE DISASTER RECOVERY FUND. |
| SB 311 | Committee | Huxtable | This Act does the following:
1) On line 6, the Act deletes a provision about the Department of Agriculture issuing a biennial license for $100.
2) The Act requires certified private applicators to maintain records with respect to applications of pesticides and to make the records available for inspection by the Department.
3) The Act expands the definition of “Landscaper” to include commercial entities that install their own nursery stock.
4) The Act removes the requirement that Grain Inspector License applicants furnish satisfactory evidence of good character to the Department. | AN ACT TO AMEND TITLE 3 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO AGRICULTURE. |
| SB 312 | Committee | Poore | This Act prohibits state agencies, counties, and municipalities from entering into nondisclosure agreements that would restrict the public from accessing information about potential or actual large-scale data center development in this State. Large-scale data centers, defined in this Act as data centers that use or are capable of using 100 megawatts of power or more, can pose significant challenges for the communities in which they are located. When nondisclosure agreements are used to shield information about proposed or planned data centers from the public, it deprives those communities of the opportunity to understand and respond to issues that directly affect them. | AN ACT TO AMEND TITLE 9, TITLE 22, AND TITLE 29 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO DATA CENTERS. |
| SB 314 | Committee | Poore | This bill modernizes the Rape Shield provisions in Title 11 of the Delaware Code, § 3509 and provides that in any prosecution for any degree of rape, unlawful sexual intercourse, unlawful sexual penetration or unlawful sexual contact, any evidence that the complaining witness made a false accusation of unlawful sexual conduct against any person on another occasion is inadmissible unless it complies with the procedure set forth in § 3508 of Title 11, is relevant and is material to a fact in issue in the case, and the inflammatory or prejudicial nature of the evidence does not outweigh the probative value of the evidence.
Under Title 11, § 3508, if evidence of the sexual conduct of the complaining witness is offered to attack the credibility of the complaining witness the following procedure shall be followed:
(1) The defendant shall make a written motion to the court and prosecutor stating that the defense has an offer of proof concerning the relevancy of evidence of the sexual conduct of the complaining witness which the defendant proposes to present, and the relevancy of such evidence in attacking the credibility of the complaining witness.
(2) The written motion shall be accompanied by an affidavit in which the offer of proof shall be stated.
(3) If the court finds that the offer of proof is sufficient, the court shall order a hearing out of the presence of the jury, if any, and at such hearing allow the questioning of the complaining witness regarding the offer of proof made by the defendant.
(4) At the conclusion of the hearing, if the court finds that evidence proposed to be offered by the defendant regarding the sexual conduct of the complaining witness is relevant, and is not inadmissible, the court may issue an order stating what evidence may be introduced by the defendant, and the nature of the questions to be permitted. The defendant may then offer evidence pursuant to the order of the court. | AN ACT TO AMEND TITLE 11 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO CRIMINAL PROCEDURE, WITNESSES AND EVIDENCE. |
| SS 1 for SB 23 | Committee | Huxtable | This Act aims to increase this State’s supply of housing. Despite rapid development, Delaware is facing a significant and growing shortage of affordable housing. Senate Joint Resolution No. 8 of the 1st session of the 153rd General Assembly created a pilot program designed to encourage local zoning reform efforts that would help increase affordable housing. While several local jurisdictions have taken advantage of the assistance offered by Senate Joint Resolution 8, the scope of the problem is statewide, and it will take more than isolated local reform to scale up housing production, particularly affordable housing production, to the degree necessary to meet this State’s needs. This Act seeks to address those needs by increasing access to housing for all income levels while allowing local jurisdictions the flexibility to develop their own strategies for doing so.
This Act is a Substitute for Senate Bill No. 23 and differs from Senate Bill No. 23 as follows:
(1) Senate Bill No. 23 gave the comprehensive plans for New Castle County, Kent County, and Sussex County the force of law, as is the case with the comprehensive plans in municipalities. This Substitute removes this provision for all 3 counties, so that only the land use map or map series part of the county comprehensive plan have the force of law, as is currently the case.
(2) Like Senate Bill No. 23, this Substitute reduces the amount of time a County has to rezone to conform land use with its comprehensive plan from 18 to 12 months. This Substitute also adds a provision that if a County does not complete this rezoning within the 12 months, and a property owner makes, within 24 months of the adoption of the comprehensive plan, a rezoning request that is consistent with the comprehensive plan’s future land use map, the rezoning request must be approved within 90 days of delivery of the rezoning application. If more than 24 months have passed since the adoption of the comprehensive plan, this provision does not apply. However, during that 24-month period, as long as a public hearing was held in connection with the comprehensive plan, all hearing and notice requirements otherwise required for zoning and rezoning will be deemed to have been met.
(3) Under Senate Bill No. 23, counties and municipalities were given 20 days to complete revisions to comprehensive plans that were returned by the Governor for further revision. This Substitute increases that period to 45 days. It also clarifies and provides additional detail regarding the revision and certification process.
(4) The requirements for the affordable housing plan under newly created Subchapter III of Chapter 92 of Title 29 have been reduced to reflect the fact that local jurisdictions already include some of the information required under Senate Bill No. 23 in their comprehensive plans.
(5) Senate Bill 23 required a minimum of 4 mandatory elements of an affordable housing plan. This Substitute increases the number of required elements of the affordable housing plan from 4 to 5, with the addition being that an affordable housing plan for a jurisdiction with greater than 10,000 population must include the identification of 1 or more zoning designations that allow and are suitable for residential uses where emergency shelters, group homes, recovery homes, or other supportive housing are allowed as a permitted use without a conditional use or other discretionary permit required.
(6) This Substitute clarifies the conditions under which discretionary reviews of residential development applications are replaced with a by-right process. Specifically, this Substitute provides that if a residential development application conforms without conditions, variances, or exceptions with the zoning requirements of the local jurisdiction and the comprehensive plan, by-right approval applies. Under the by-right process, the local jurisdiction determines whether to hold a public meeting about the application. The local jurisdiction’s determination to hold or not hold a public meeting and the procedures of any public meeting held supersede the provision of 9 Del. C. §§4811, 6811 and 6812, regarding public hearings.
(7) This Substitute removes some of the reporting requirements included in Senate Bill 23 to simplify the process for local jurisdictions. Reporting is still mandatory, and the Delaware State Housing Authority and the Office of State Planning Coordination are still required to publish reported information on the Housing Authority website on an annual basis so that the public can see how local jurisdictions are meeting their obligations under this Act.
(8) Senate Bill No. 23 included technical corrections intended to make current code consistent with the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual. This Substitute removes those technical corrections to avoid confusion over which changes were technical, and which were substantive.
Under § 1 of Article IX of the Delaware Constitution, this Act requires a two-thirds majority vote because the amendments it makes to Title 22 of the Delaware Code would indirectly amend the charter of one or more incorporated municipalities. | AN ACT TO AMEND TITLE 9, TITLE 22, AND TITLE 29 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO HOUSING SUPPLY AND HOUSING AFFORDABILITY. |
