Delaware Vice Chancellor Sam Glasscock has ruled in favor of Wilmington Friends School in a dispute over the sale of the property to fast-growing pharmaceutical company Incyte.
Glasscock expressed disappointment that the school and the Alapocas Maintenance Association, a homeowners association or HOA, could not come up with an agreement regarding the sale in mediation.
The private school operates under the Friends’ (Quaker) tradition of reaching consensus and the peaceful resolution of issues and took the dispute to court after not gaining the approval of the association for consolidating the schools in a project that would take away lawn and athletic field areas.
“There are no bad actors here. Nonetheless, it falls to me to decide the legal issues presented; the facts are not in dispute,” Glasscock wrote. The vice chancellor relied on the body of case law that sharply narrows the power of deed restrictions to alter or halt development.
The civic association claimed the sale violated deed restrictions at the residential community outside the city of Wilmington.
Friends School is selling property at what is known as the lower school, a term used by private schools for buildings housing primary grades to Incyte and consolidating all grades in its upper school.
Incyte operates a headquarters and research center adjacent to Alapocas and has continued to expand its square footage.
“A decision to deny improvement based solely on aesthetics is not enforceable, regardless of whether such authority was explicitly granted to an HOA in the deed covenants. Covenants restricting use may not be enforced beyond their explicit terms, nor may they be applied if vague or otherwise permissive of arbitrary enforcement,” Glasscock wrote.
The Alapocas association argued that the sale would reduce green space within the development.
The Apapocas neighborhood is tied to the Quaker history of the area with Woodlawn Trustees, a group formed to manage the holdings of Quaker industrialist Samuel Bancroft and serving as a predecessor to the Alapocas homeowner group.
Homes in the community built in the 1940s and ’50s range from the 700s to the 900s.
Woodlawn has bought and sold property in the Wilmington and north Wilmington areas with the goal of using proceeds to provide affordable housing and open space that will not be developed. It has recently been involved in redeveloping The Flats, an affordable apartment community in Wilmington that had fallen into disrepair and needed to be reconstructed.
Over the years, Woodlawnhas sometimes clashed with civic associations over its plans.
(See a copy of the decision below)
