Why it never got a vote

The action history is short and tells you most of it:¹

• 4/3/25 — Introduced and Assigned to Housing & Land Use Committee in Senate
• 5/7/25 — Amendment SA 1 to SB 87 — Introduced and Placed With Bill
• 5/7/25 — Reported Out of Committee (Housing & Land Use) in Senate with 5 Favorable

And then nothing, for fourteen months.

The likeliest procedural explanation is on the bill's own face: it carried a two-thirds vote requirement, because it may indirectly affect municipal charters. A bill needing a supermajority is not called unless the votes are counted first. SA 1 — a technical amendment from the sponsor on state housing authority ordinance reporting and technical assistance — was only “Placed With Bill,” never adopted.

The prime sponsor was Senator Russell Huxtable, with Representatives Harris and K. Johnson as additional sponsors and six further cosponsors — a well-sponsored bill that cleared committee unopposed and was never brought to the floor.

The negative finding that matters more than the bill

Delaware did enact a major housing law in 2026, and it contains none of this.

Senate Substitute 2 for SB 23, the Housing for Every Delawarean Act, was signed on July 13, 2026 (85 Del. Laws c. 343). We had its full text checked for “covenant,” “common interest,” “unit property,” “declaration” and “deed restriction.” Zero occurrences of any of them.²

Beyond that, a sweep of the entire 153rd General Assembly found no enacted covenant-preemption provision of any kind — not for ADUs, not for solar, not for clotheslines, not for flags, not for electric-vehicle charging. Delaware's 2026 housing package does nothing to private community covenants.

That is the single most useful thing a Delaware board or owner can take from this session, because the assumption runs the other way. Density mandates aimed at local zoning are frequently reported as though they reach recorded restrictions. In Delaware, so far, they do not.

Where that leaves ADUs in a Delaware community

Two independent permissions, and both must be obtained.

Public. Local zoning still governs whether an accessory dwelling unit is allowed on the lot at all, and Delaware's counties and municipalities differ. SB 23's by-right provisions change how municipal approval works for qualifying projects, which is a separate question from whether the use is permitted.

Private. The recorded declaration and any validly adopted architectural rules govern independently, and a covenant that prohibits a second dwelling, a separate kitchen, a rental use or a detached structure still binds — whatever the zoning says. Our Delaware ADUs and modifications page sets out how the two layers interact.

One caution for boards reading this as a clear win: an ADU restriction is still subject to ordinary Delaware covenant law. It must be unambiguous, it must not rest on purely subjective criteria, and it is construed against the association where it is ambiguous. A board relying on a general “single-family use” clause to bar an ADU is relying on an interpretive argument, not on an express prohibition.

What to watch next

Reintroduction is the only route, in the 154th General Assembly from January 2027. The June 30, 2027 date written into SB 87 has no significance now; a new bill would carry a new one.

Nothing is pre-filed — the legislature's database shows zero bills in the 154th General Assembly — and Senator Huxtable has made no public statement about refiling it. Note also that his sponsorship energy in 2026 went into SB 23, which passed, and which pointedly left covenants alone. Whether that reflects a strategic choice or a drafting one, we cannot say from the record.

The related ADU-adjacent measure worth tracking is any local ordinance that permits temporary structures or recreational vehicles on residential lots — Lewes is drafting one now — because those produce the same ordinance-versus-covenant collision from the other direction.