The article on new housing laws leans heavily on familiar economic theory: loosen zoning, increase housing supply, speed approvals, and affordable housing will follow. That theory deserves a harder look, because Delaware has placed a large bet on it.

Taken together, Senate Bill 23 and House Bill 450 give property owners and developers valuable benefits: additional development opportunity, greater approval certainty and, for qualifying by-right residential projects, loss of the project-level public hearing.

Those are real and immediate benefits. What affordable-housing return does the public get? None is required at the project level. Meanwhile, local governments must make meaningful and measurable progress toward a goal of having 20% of their housing qualify as affordable.

Government gets the mandate. Developers get the benefits. Affordable housing gets the hope.

Proponents say more market-rate supply will eventually improve affordability. Some research supports indirect benefits: greater supply can moderate prices or free older housing as households move.

But did anyone read the studies? No study reviewed for this analysis demonstrated a significant increase in general market-rate supply produced a meaningful stock of housing affordable to households at 30%, 50% or 80% of area median income.

This distinction matters. A rent rising from $1,800 to $1,900 instead of $2,000 may be less expensive than it otherwise would have been, but if the household can afford only $1,200, we have not created affordable housing; we have moderated market price.

Sussex already tested the broader proposition in real life. Its 2019 housing study found the county added an average of 2,142 net new units annually from 2010 to 2017, yet concluded housing quantity was not the primary problem; affordability was. One reason? Sussex housing competes for retirees, higher-income households, second-home buyers and seasonal demand, not just local workers. The state later found housing production exceeded household growth in east Sussex, partly because of housing demand. 

We built a lot of housing. It did not make a meaningful dent in Sussex’s affordable-housing need. Sussex’s experience and context matter. Whatever other public value market-rate development may provide, don’t call it an affordable-housing solution unless it produces or preserves affordable housing.

Here’s a better bargain. Give major projects that provide meaningful, enforceable affordable housing valuable incentives and streamlined review. If a major project provides none, why automatically grant the same benefits under legislation justified by an affordable-housing crisis?

Housing-supply policy and affordable-housing policy are not interchangeable. If the problem is measured in affordable units, the solution should be measured in affordable units. Where, exactly, are the affordable units?