Frequently asked questions

To nominate a project, go to de.gov/jobsfirst and submit an application. See the application guide.

Once you apply, the Governor's Office will review your nomination and determine whether to designate it as a Priority Project.

The Governor — or someone the Governor designates — makes the call in writing. A designation can include conditions that the project must meet to stay in the program.

A project can also lose its Priority Project status. If a project stops meeting the eligibility requirements, if the applicant isn't meeting their obligations, or if the project is no longer in the public interest, the designation can be modified or revoked. The Governor's Office will give the project sponsor written notice and a reasonable opportunity to respond before pulling the designation.

Every Priority Project category gets its own dedicated Ombudsman — one person whose job is to follow your project through the entire permitting process across all relevant agencies.

The Ombudsman works with agency leadership to map out all the permits your project needs, flags any potential issues early, and keeps everyone — the applicant and all agencies — coordinated and on schedule. If a project is approaching a deadline and things aren't moving, the Ombudsman escalates the issue to agency heads and, if necessary, to the Governor's Office. The goal is to resolve disagreements or logjams quickly rather than letting a project stall in silence.

The public dashboard will show the following for every designated Priority Project:

• Project name, location, sponsor, and which Priority Project category it falls under
• Which agencies are involved and their points of contact
• All required permits and approvals, and where each one stands
• The date when the application was determined to be complete (the date the clock started)
• The target deadline for all decisions
• The current status of each agency's review — and if a deadline is missed, the reason why and what the remediation plan is

The goal is full transparency: anyone should be able to look at the dashboard and know exactly where a project stands and whether the state is on track.

Agencies are expected to work hard to meet the 120-business-day window. But if an agency genuinely cannot make the deadline due to real constraints — such as a required federal review, a legally required public comment period, an incomplete application despite the applicant's best efforts, or a health or safety issue that needs more investigation — the agency must notify both the Governor's Office and the applicant in writing by day 100.

That notification has to explain specifically why the deadline can't be met and lay out a concrete plan to get to a decision as quickly as possible. Simply being busy or understaffed is not an accepted reason. The written explanation becomes part of the public record.

Generally, no. JobsFirst exempts Priority Housing Projects from the traditional requirement to conduct or fund a Traffic Impact Study. Instead of a full TIS, these projects can pay an Area Wide Study Fee, which contributes to regional transportation planning without requiring a project-specific study.

There are two narrow exceptions where DelDOT can still require additional traffic review: (1) if there is a documented high-crash intersection immediately near the project entrance where the development would make existing safety conditions materially worse, or (2) if there is an operational safety concern at a specific intersection that DelDOT has already committed to addressing through its capital program. In those cases, DelDOT has to document the specific safety issue in writing — it cannot use a general concern about traffic congestion as a reason to block a project.

There are exactly two:

First, if there is a known high-crash intersection immediately adjacent to the project's access point and DelDOT can document — specifically and in writing — that the project will materially worsen the already dangerous conditions at that intersection, DelDOT can require additional review.

Second, if there is an intersection with a specific operational safety problem that DelDOT has already formally committed to fixing through its capital program, and the project would create conflicts with that planned fix, DelDOT can flag that as a concern.

What DelDOT cannot do is use general traffic congestion — the fact that adding homes will add some cars — as a reason to delay or block a Priority Housing Project. The reform is specifically designed to prevent that.

For new water infrastructure, the target is a decision within 90 days of a complete application. For projects that need multiple permits from different agencies at the same time, all those reviews are supposed to run simultaneously rather than one after another.

DNREC's Division of Water and the DHSS Division of Public Health are required to coordinate their reviews jointly rather than separately. The goal is a single coordinated submission that triggers all the relevant reviews at once — so an applicant doesn't have to navigate each agency independently. DNREC and DHSS are establishing a formal written coordination agreement to make this work, targeted for May 2026.

The Housing Fast Lane is the coordinated, time-limited review process for Priority Housing Projects. DNREC, DelDOT, the State Fire Marshal, and DSHA are all required to participate together — with a single point of contact for the applicant and reviews running in parallel rather than in sequence.

The 120-business-day clock (approximately six months) starts from the date the application is determined to be complete — not from the date it's submitted. This is an important distinction: agencies have to first confirm that the application has everything they need, and then the clock starts for everyone simultaneously. If agencies need more information after that point, the clock may pause while the applicant responds, but the agency's review time continues to count toward the deadline.

The promise is a decision — not necessarily an approval. Within 120 business days, every participating agency must issue its portion of the review: approved, denied, or approved with conditions.

Within 90 days of EO 18 being signed, DNREC is required to establish a streamlined "Residential Development" permit pathway specifically for Priority Housing Projects.

The streamlined pathway is supposed to recognize that infill sites — already developed, paved, or surrounded by existing development — are lower environmental risk than greenfield sites and don't need the same level of review. DNREC is expected to use general permits and categorical determinations wherever possible to avoid requiring full individual permit reviews for routine situations.

DNREC also has to coordinate with county and municipal programs that have been delegated some of these environmental review functions, so that the streamlining applies consistently across the state and isn't blocked by local program variations.

Parallel review means all the agencies that need to weigh in on your project review it at the same time, rather than one agency finishing before the next one starts.

Under the old system, a project would move from agency to agency in sequence — sometimes waiting months just for one agency to finish before another would even open the file. If agency A took 4 months, agency B wouldn't start until month 5. Parallel review means agencies A, B, and C all start on the same day when your application is determined to be complete. Issues get flagged simultaneously, and you respond to all of them at once rather than cycling through each agency separately. This is one of the single biggest changes in EO 18 and the main reason the target timeline drops from 18–24 months to approximately 6 months.

EO 18 directed the State Fire Marshal to convene a working group to review Delaware's fire and building codes and recommend changes. The group includes local government representatives and had its first meeting on April 9, 2026. A report with specific proposals is due by June 26, 2026.

The working group is looking at three things in particular: whether statewide fire and building code standards should be updated; whether there are ways to speed up permitting for infill development in urban areas that are already built up; and whether different types of projects — single-family homes versus large apartment buildings, for instance — should be reviewed differently based on their actual risk profile. Any code changes recommended by the working group would require a separate regulatory process before taking effect — the working group's report is a recommendation, not a rule change.

General permits and categorical approvals are tools that let agencies handle routine, low-risk projects through a standardized process rather than requiring a full individual review every time.

Think of it this way: if dozens of solar projects all involve the same basic installation on the same type of land, it doesn't make sense to put each one through a from-scratch environmental review. A general permit sets pre-approved standards — if your project fits within those standards, you're automatically covered without a lengthy individual review. Categorical approvals work similarly: they identify classes of projects that have been pre-determined to meet applicable requirements.

EO 18 directs agencies to expand their use of these tools for energy projects wherever the project is routine and the environmental impact is low. This can significantly reduce both cost and time for developers of common energy infrastructure like solar installations, battery storage, and grid upgrades.

Yes. Within 120 days of EO 18 being signed — by approximately June 26, 2026 — agencies are required to review their technical requirements for energy facilities and identify anything that is outdated, duplicative, or more restrictive than it needs to be without a good safety or environmental reason.

The catch is that identifying a problem and fixing it are two different things. Agencies can flag outdated requirements quickly, but actually changing a regulation requires going through Delaware's formal rulemaking process — public notice, comment period, and agency action — which takes additional time. The 120-day review is the starting gun, not the finish line. What comes out of that review should drive a regulatory cleanup effort over the following months and years.

EO 18 specifically directs DNREC to coordinate with federal energy regulators — including the U.S. Department of Energy, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission — to avoid redundant reviews, align state and federal timelines, and pursue demonstration project funding.

This matters because large energy projects often need both state and federal approvals, and historically those processes have run on completely separate tracks with no coordination. A developer might clear all state hurdles and then wait years for a federal decision — or vice versa. EO 18 directs the state to actively engage with federal agencies early so that state and federal reviews can run in parallel rather than in sequence. The state cannot force federal agencies to move faster, but it can position projects so that state approvals don't add to the wait.

Yes. EO 18 sets a hard deadline of December 31, 2026 to clear the existing backlog of community solar projects waiting to connect to the grid. It also requires agencies to put transparency systems in place so that future solar projects don't face the same backlog problem.

The PSC was already working on this issue before EO 18 was signed. One proposed fix that the PSC has put forward to the General Assembly is legislation that would allow community solar developers to build the connection infrastructure themselves rather than having to wait for Delmarva Power to do it — which is currently the main cause of delays. That legislation is pending.

Yes — at least as a goal. EO 18 directs the Governor's Office, OMB, DNREC, and the Sustainable Energy Utility to work together to expand solar and battery storage on state property. The specific steps required are:

• Conduct a statewide inventory of state-owned facilities that are good candidates for solar or battery storage installations
• Enter into agreements with solar developers or storage companies to actually get installations built — using lease agreements, energy savings contracts, or purchase arrangements depending on what makes the most financial sense
• Assess potential for solar installations on DelDOT rights-of-way, with a pilot project targeted by the end of 2027
• Analyze the solar potential of Delaware's cities and counties to inform broader planning

The Division of Facilities Management is procuring an outside consultant to conduct the facility assessments. Installation agreements are targeted for December 2027 at the earliest, after the feasibility work is complete.