Press Release | 8.14.25

Yorklyn Residents Call on Gov. Meyer to Protect Water Supply, Stop Reckless Development

Developers Drake Cattermole and David Carpenter—longstanding Meyer donors—have exploited a legal loophole to bypass water protection regulations and county code.

Yorklyn, DE—Residents of Yorklyn and neighboring Hockessin have been fighting for years to preserve natural lands and a historic village along the northwest edge of New Castle County. They made progress in the latest legislative session, but now they are taking their fight to Governor Meyer.  

Only Meyer, they say, can stop a project that developers slipped into a state-managed plan under the Carney administration, without community input or notice. Developers Cattermole and Carpenter first tried to build in Yorklyn in 2008 but were denied by New Castle County. But when a loophole was added to the state’s bond bill in 2011, the developers were exempted from the county code and review process. This allowed them to clear-cut 10 acres of forest without public notice and to ignore the County’s land use regulations. 

Now, residents are sounding the alarm because construction will soon begin on 61 luxury townhomes located in the Cockeyville Water Resource Protection Area—a 3-mile stretch from Yorklyn to Route 7 that sits atop a vulnerable aquifer that supplies water to local residents. The Cockeysville water protection area is tightly regulated in the county code. But because the developers were exempted from the county code, they did not have to comply with those regulations. 

DNREC, which oversees the project, has told residents that it will not intervene because it signed an agreement with the developers, who have donated to Meyer’s campaigns since his time as county executive. 

Meyer can instruct DNREC to halt construction until the developers have complied with all relevant regulations, and to end the agreement with the developers when it expires in December. Residents first asked Meyer’s office for a meeting in May, and are now launching a petition drive and email campaign after Meyer recently declined to discuss the issue with them.