2026-08-29 · Delaware · Legislation · Did not pass

Speeding on private subdivision streets is one of the most common complaints a Delaware board hears and one of the least soluble, because a homeowners association has no police power. A 2025 bill was written specifically to address it. Its synopsis said so in terms: it was “intended to assist homeowners associations with the troubling, challenging public-safety issue of speeding on subdivision streets.”

SB 167 was reported out of committee on June 11, 2025 and never called for a floor vote. It died when the 153rd General Assembly adjourned on June 30, 2026.¹

What it addressed

The bill concerned extra-duty law-enforcement services — the arrangement by which a private party engages off-duty officers, in uniform and with police authority, to perform enforcement work. Its prime sponsor was Senator Bryan Townsend.

The problem it targeted is structural. Streets inside a Delaware planned community are frequently private, owned and maintained by the association or a maintenance corporation. An association can post a speed limit, and it can fine an owner under its own notice-and-hearing procedure — but it cannot issue a traffic citation, cannot stop a vehicle, and has no remedy at all against a driver who is not an owner or a tenant.

Enforcement therefore depends on whether a police agency will patrol private roads, and on what terms. That is the arrangement SB 167 dealt with.

1. SB 167, 153rd General Assembly — bill record and synopsis (“intended to assist homeowners associations with the troubling, challenging public-safety issue of speeding on subdivision streets”; out of committee June 11, 2025, never passed) ↩
2. Olivia Marble, “Delaware General Assembly roundup: Housing reforms,” Spotlight Delaware, July 14, 2026 — contains no coverage of any community-association bill ↩