Housing proposal sparks debate

Thursday, Jan. 12, 2006

Sparks flew at Tuesday’s meeting of the Frederick Board of County Commissioners as it became clear affordable housing will be the hot political issue in this year’s county elections.

In a last-minute move Monday, Commissioner Michael L. Cady (R), who is running for re-election, added to Tuesday’s agenda his proposal to address the skyrocketing costs of new housing in the county.

But in a 3-2 vote, his colleagues removed the item from the agenda.

Cady and Commission President John ‘‘Lennie” Thompson Jr. (R) voted against removing the item. Commissioners Jan H. Gardner (D), John R. Lovell Jr. (R) and Bruce L. Reeder (D) were in favor.

Cady was clearly not pleased.

‘‘If we don’t do something now this board of commissioners won’t have done something on affordable housing,” he said. ‘‘What we have here is a turf war.”

Reeder, who has yet to announce his re-election intentions, disagreed and Cady countered with ‘‘we’ll see in November.” The general election is scheduled for Nov. 7.

Cady ended the discussion by sarcastically thanking his colleagues for discussing his ideas.

The exchange started at the beginning of the meeting, when the board traditionally discusses changes to the agenda. Gardner made a motion to have Cady’s item removed for a later discussion. Gardner felt that Cady’s proposal should be sent to the county’s Affordable Housing Council for inclusion in its current study on the high cost of housing.

The council is conducting a study in response to a request from commissioners in late October. The group had warned that if more affordable homes are not built, most children growing up in the county will not be able to buy a home or rent an apartment here later in life. The council is expected to present its study in March.

At Tuesday’s meeting, Cady said that was too late and the issue needed to be addressed now. Cady said he came to his Winchester Hall office over the weekend to draft his proposal. But both Reeder and Gardner, who has yet to announce whether she will run for a third term, said progress is already under way to address the issue.

‘‘The first (Moderately Priced Dwelling Units), there are eight of them, is coming on the screen... I think it’s moving along, Reeder said.

Cady replied: ‘‘I think it’s broke.”

Gardner countered, ‘‘we’ve had the discussion [on affordable housing] several times and we asked [the council] to develop an action plan and bring it back to us. I support those actions and I support the discussion on your ideas.”

Gardner also has a bill this legislative session that would convert the current impact fee — charged to developers of new homes to pay for schools and libraries — into an impact tax to help tackle the problem.

Commissioners would have greater flexibility in imposing the impact tax on developers, meaning that exemptions could be given to builders of homes that are priced for low- and moderate-income families and nonprofit groups that construct houses.

Cady, who does not support the impact tax, said that the Affordable Housing Council considered his ideas at its meeting Monday and were ‘‘very supportive of it.”

But Reeder, liaison to the council, immediately shot back that he and Lovell both attended the meeting and members did not support all of the five suggestions Cady proposed.

‘‘That’s not true,” Reeder said. ‘‘I was there and they were very disturbed. They had no problem with 1 and 2, but they do not want to discuss 3, 4 or 5.”

Lovell, who is running for re-election, wants the county’s finance department to look over Cady’s proposal to determine if it is fiscally possible.

Cady’s proposal

Cady met with representatives from the Interfaith Housing Alliance Inc., Habitat for Humanity and the county’s director of Housing and Community Development, Jenny Short, earlier this month to present his proposal.

The first two items include creating an affordable housing trust that would pay all fees associated with new residential construction for affordable units only and providing grants to nonprofits that build low-cost homes. The money would come from the county’s operating budget surplus.

Cady also suggests increasing the number of Moderately Priced Dwelling Units by stipulating that 35 percent of the homes in large residential developments be single-family units priced at the current market value. This would allow for more moderately priced homes to be built, since currently 60 percent of the homes can carry the market price.

The program now requires 12.5 percent of housing in a new development to be moderately priced.

Cady would also like to adjust the costs of moderately priced units. A moderately priced home is currently defined as a duplex that costs between $63,479 and $112,213; a townhouse that costs $80,311 to $104,000; or a single-family home that ranges from $123,395 to $139,925.

But after Tuesday’s meeting, Cady made it clear in an e-mail to Short and Jim Upchurch, a member of the Affordable Housing Council and president of Interfaith Housing of Western Maryland, that because of his colleagues actions his ‘‘proposal is dead.”