Few issues in Howard County are as complicated and contentious as affordable-housing policy and growth-management controls. A new County Council bill appears to renew a clash between the two.
The tussle erupted at a council public hearing Monday night, but in some ways it echoed past debates.
Until now, local lawmakers have been reluctant to relax growth-management laws to allow county-required affordable housing to be built faster. In July, the council sharply restricted an Ulman administration bill that also sought to bend growth controls to speed redevelopment along U.S. 1 - another county priority that includes developments that incorporate lower-priced housing.
But as different administrations over time have enacted laws and provisions to help specific projects and ideas, the increasing complexity has created policy conflicts.
The current measure, Council bill 62, which is sponsored by three of the five council members, seems to have a lofty purpose - allowing faster production of more lower-priced housing (called Moderate Income Housing Units or MIHU), but it encompasses the same policy clash.
The idea, according to prime sponsor Calvin Ball, an east Columbia Democrat, is that since the county is requiring developers to build lower-priced housing units in some areas, the county should not let growth controls unduly delay them. Ball is joined by co-sponsors Mary Kay Sigaty, and Jenn Terassa, both Democrats.
The bill would accomplish that by exempting these lower-priced units from a growth-control system that limits the number of new housing units approved each year to 1,850 allocations divided among five county areas. The MIHU units would still be subject to laws delaying development around crowded schools and near failing intersections.
"The MIHU program is assisting with the public good by creating housing units more affordable to young workers, first-time homebuyers and retirees," Ball said in introducing the bill during the hearing at school board headquarters.
Because these units are required under county law, he said, an exemption for them is equitable.
"Maybe if we feel this is so important, we shouldn't add an extra hurdle," Ball said later in an interview.
All eight speakers at the hearing, representing affordable-housing advocates and the League of Women Voters, supported the bill.
