Why We're Opposed

We’re Not Against Development

We want to say this plainly: we are not opposed to development on this site. The parcels at Bancroft Parkway and West 11th Street have been underutilized for years, and we recognize that Wilmington has real housing needs. The current C-1 zoning already permits retail, a coffee shop, a restaurant, or a modest mixed-use building. Responsible development could happen here without a rezoning.

Our opposition is specific: we believe that rezoning these parcels — to R-5-B and C-2 — is the wrong decision for Bancroft Parkway, and does not align with the City of Wilmington's Comprehensive Plan. 

The Rezoning Is a Blank Check on Height

The developer is showing a nine-story building. the rezoning request is not for a 12-story building — it is for R-5-B and C-2 zoning. Both designations legally permit structures up to 15 stories and 180 feet under Secs. 48-151 and 48-211 of the city's zoning code. The developer amended the application and changed the label on the Bancroft-facing parcels from C-2 to R-5-B — but the height ceiling is identical under both. 

Without a binding height condition recorded as part of the approval, the rezoning would allow any owner of the property to build up to 180 feet on this corner — permanently, and without further community input. The developer is not legally bound to the renderings they have presented. The only thing that binds is the zoning.

The Amended Application Doesn't Fix the Problem

In May 2026, the developer filed an amended application that replaced the C-2 zoning request on the Bancroft-facing parcels with R-5-B, a residential designation. We want to be direct about what that change does and does not mean.

It does not lower the height ceiling. R-5-B permits structures up to 15 stories and 180 feet — the same maximum as C-2 (Sec. 48-151). The zoning label changed. The blank check did not.

It does not satisfy R-5-B's own compatibility standard. The city's zoning code describes R-5-B districts as designed so that "density and yard controls would assure that they could adjoin one-family neighborhoods without impairing the value of homes therein" (Sec. 48-138(a)). The parcels in this application are adjacent to Bancroft Village and sit across Bancroft Parkway from single-family homes. A building that steps from 4 stories on the parkway frontage up to 12 stories behind it does not meet the compatibility standard the code sets for this very designation.

The "buffer" rationale doesn't apply here. R-5-B is sometimes used as a transition zone between single-family residential and commercial districts. But there is no commercial district on the other side of this site requiring a buffer. The site backs up to the CSX railroad. The stepped massing the developer is proposing is not a buffer — it is a large residential tower positioned behind a lower street-facing facade.

The amendment appears designed to address the optics of C-2 zoning on a residential parkway. It does not address the substance of our concerns.

C-2 Doesn’t Fit Bancroft Parkway — By the City's Own Definition

Wilmington’s own zoning code describes C-2 districts as intended for “main highways” serving “large segments of the city” (Sec. 48-193(a)). Bancroft Parkway is a residential greenway. It is not a main highway. It has no high-rise buildings, no regional commercial centers, and no precedent for the kind of development C-2 is designed to accommodate.

Today, the only C-2 zoned property on Bancroft Parkway is the public library. This proposal would create the second — and unlike the library, it would be a private, for-profit development that would permanently alter the scale and character of the corridor.

It Contradicts Wilmington's Own Comprehensive Plan

Wilmington's 2028 Comprehensive Plan designates this corridor for "Neighborhood Mixed Use" -- a category that supports small-scale street-facing commercial and medium-density residential development. Not high-rise residential. Not a 320,100-square-foot apartment complex.

The plan's specific goals for the Bancroft Parkway and Delaware Avenue area call for strengthening neighborhood character, enhancing the parkway as a pedestrian and bicycle connection, and encouraging infill that fits existing development patterns. None of those goals point toward a building of this scale.

It is worth noting that in the city's own resident survey conducted for the 2028 Plan, the Bancroft neighborhood was rated highest in Wilmington for safety, sense of community, and local amenities. This is a neighborhood that is functioning well. The rezoning puts that at risk with no corresponding public benefit.

Traffic Concerns Are Real and Have Not Been Independently Verified

The project includes a proposed one-way conversion of West 11th Street and would add significant new vehicle traffic to Bancroft Parkway — a corridor where speeding is already a documented concern for residents, pedestrians, and cyclists.

The only traffic study in the record was paid for by the developer.

No independent review of the developer's traffic analysis has been completed. No mitigation commitments are on the table. Approving a 198-unit residential development under these conditions -- without requiring an independent study and binding mitigation -- is irresponsible.

Parking Overflow Will Fall on the Neighborhood

The amended application proposes 290 (previously 325) underground parking spaces for 200 (previously 198) units of housing plus ground-floor retail. That ratio may look adequate on paper. In practice, high-density residential developments routinely generate parking demand that exceeds structured capacity -- from residents with multiple vehicles, retail customers, delivery traffic, and visitors.

When that demand overflows, it lands on the surrounding residential streets. The neighbors on Bancroft Parkway, Fairfield Place, Highland Place, W. 11th and 9th Streets, and the adjacent blocks have no mechanism to prevent it and no recourse once it begins.

Infrastructure Capacity Has Not Been Addressed

A 320,100-square-foot (previously 315,000) development generates significant additional load on stormwater, sewer, and public service infrastructure. Increased impervious surface area means more runoff. No public analysis has been presented showing whether existing systems can absorb that load, or what mitigation would be required if they cannot. These are not hypothetical concerns -- they are standard due diligence questions that have not been answered.

Many Neighbors Were Not Notified

The city’s official notification requirement covers property owners within a defined radius of the application site. Residents living directly across Bancroft Parkway — some of the people most directly affected by this project — fell outside that threshold and they did not receive formal notice. 

Rezoning Sets a Precedent That Cannot Be Undone

There are no buildings taller than three or four stories anywhere along Bancroft Parkway today. That is a result of more than a century of consistent development patterns, across administrations, across owners, across market cycles.

Rezoning would upend this -- not just at this corner, but as a matter of precedent. Future developers considering a site along this corridor could point to this rezoning approval to support their projects. The corridor doesn't transform all at once. It changes one rezoning at a time, each one citing the last.

William Bancroft spent more than two decades building something that has defined western Wilmington for over a hundred years. That legacy isn't abstract -- it's in the trees, the setbacks, the scale of the buildings, the way the neighborhood feels to walk through. It doesn't have to be lost. But it can be, and rezoning decisions like this one are how it happens.