Attention Civic Associations: From NCC Councilwoman Dee Durham
Erasing the Vestiges of Redlining Language
Systemic racism is a result of decades of discriminatory political, social, and economic restrictions that have been imposed upon African Americans and other racial, ethnic, and religious groups. Criminal justice, lynching, voter suppression, funding of public education, and other practices have created a deeply embedded underclass of those for whom the American Dream is far less attainable. One of the deepest roots in this system of racial repression is the practice of “redlining” that started in the mortgage industry during the Great Depression.
One of the agencies from FDR’s New Deal alphabet soup of government programs, the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC), embarked on a program of “risk mapping” in cities across the United States. The purpose of these maps was to provide a general guide for which neighborhoods were considered “safe” for the government to invest its money (in the form of government-backed mortgages). Sound underwriting standards should have had the HOLC looking solely at the income, debt, and other financial characteristics of the people who live in those neighborhoods. Instead, HOLC created risk maps based on the race/ethnicity/religions of those who lived in the neighborhoods, with the “worst risk” neighborhoods (the Type D neighborhoods) colored red on their maps.
From their creation in the mid-1930s until 1977, when they were formally outlawed by the Community Reinvestment Act, these redline maps decided who did (and who didn’t) get a mortgage; as banks considered the properties located in the redlined areas to be “un-investable”. Redlining meant that African Americans and others who were targeted by these maps were excluded from being able to build their family’s wealth on the solid financial foundation that homeownership provides. Further it excluded them from better schools which served the “safe” neighborhoods, and relegated them to communities with higher environmental health impacts.
As far as we know, redline maps did not exist for New Castle County. Instead local bankers used their knowledge of the area, so they wouldn’t grant mortgages on the “wrong side of town” or to the “wrong people”. In the post-war era of rapid suburban growth, local developers also practiced a type of redlining through deed restrictions that simply prevented minority groups from purchasing homes in certain housing developments. Since the 1973 passage of §9605(b) of Title 9 of the Delaware Code, such language has been illegal. However, that law did not require that the deed restrictions that already contained such racist and exclusionary provisions had to be rewritten. To this day, there are potentially hundreds of older Maintenance Corporations, Condominium, and Civic Associations (collectively known as “Common Interest Communities” or “CICs”) that still contain this racially discriminatory and offensive language in deeds, deed restrictions, and CIC bylaws and governing documents.
Until recently, the process to remove such language from real estate instruments was complicated and time consuming. Before 2018, the Code required that a property owner must request that a meeting be held by their CIC organization and 70% of the homeowners in the CIC would have to be present to pass and amend their community by-laws. As a result, few of these provisions were actually erased from the record.
Passage of Delaware Senate Bill 243 in September 2018 simplified the process by which property owners and civic associations with deeds or related governing documents that contained racist language can remove those unlawful provisions. It is estimated that there are more than 1,000 CIC’s in Delaware that might be covered by SB 243. Homeowners who wish to remove this type of discriminatory language from their community’s deed restrictions or other governing documents now just need to complete this form: https://nccde.org/DocumentCenter/View/27249/Restrictive-Covenant-Redaction-Form and email the completed pdf to the Record of Deeds, michael.kozikowski@newcastlede.gov, or mail a hard copy to:
Office of the Recorder of Deeds
Louis Redding City/County Building
800 North French Street, Wilmington, DE 19801
The Recorder of Deeds will strikeout the prohibited language at no cost.
If you have any questions about this form or the process, please contact Sharee Cole at 302-395-7721 or sharee.cole@newcastlede.gov in the New Castle County Recorder of Deeds office.
With thanks to Recorder of Deeds, Michael Kozikowski, for his role in developing Senate Bill 243, and who has been working with New Castle County District 2 Councilwoman Dee Durham to raise awareness about the availability of this option for New Castle County residents and civic associations.
SB 243: AN ACT TO AMEND TITLE 9 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO UNLAWFUL RESTRICTIVE COVENANTS
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