2014 Delaware Code
Title 7 - Conservation
CHAPTER 75. DELAWARE LAND PROTECTION ACT
§ 7502. Declaration of policy

The General Assembly finds that:

(1) The provision of lands for public recreation and conservation of natural resources promotes biological diversity, public health, prosperity and general welfare and is a proper responsibility of government.

(2) Lands now provided for such purposes will not be adequate to meet the needs of an expanding population in years to come.

(3) The expansion of population, while increasing the need for such lands, will continually diminish the supply and tend to increase the cost of public acquisition of lands available and appropriate for such purposes.

(4) Rapid growth and spread of urban development is encroaching upon, or eliminating, many open areas and spaces of varied size and character. These areas and spaces, if preserved and maintained in their present open state, constitute important physical, biological, social, aesthetic or economic assets.

(5) The State must act now to protect and to help local governments to protect substantial quantities of such lands as are now available and appropriate so that they may be preserved and developed for the purposes enumerated herein.

(6) It is the public policy of the State and its political subdivisions that the preservation of open spaces shall be accomplished through the acquisition of interests or rights in real property, or donation of said lands, and that said acquisition constitutes a public purpose for which public funds have been expended or advanced and should be continued.

67 Del. Laws, c. 352, § 1.;