Ronald Moore, a 49-year-old single parent who said he lives in rented quarters in Long Reach with his 18-year-old daughter and his mother, was delighted to win the right to buy one of three new town houses in Elkridge in the county's Moderate Income Housing Unit Plan. His new mortgage payment promises to be slightly lower than the $1,800 a month he's paying now for rent, he said.
"They're awesome," he said of the new Village Towns homes Ryan Homes is building between Interstate 95 and U.S. 1.
"I didn't want to move out of Howard County. It's a beautiful place to stay," he said. Moore said his daughter expects to attend Howard Community College this fall.
Moore's name was chosen Aug. 6 from four pre-qualified hopefuls along with two other families for the three-bedroom, one-car garage home. The homes sell under the program for $218,653, while they sell retail for more than $250,000 each.
County housing officials awarded the right to buy three Village Towns units that will be finished either late this year or early in 2010, and another drawing is scheduled for later this summer for four townhouses at Belmont Station, also along the U.S. 1 corridor, and three age-restricted condominiums at Jefferson Place on Montgomery Road in Ellicott City.
"Hah! Thank you," Moore celebrated as his name was chosen. He said he's a first-time home-buyer. He's retired from a 20-year military career, he said, and works for a major telecommunications firm in Laurel.
Another event celebrated a much more expensive new building.
The Johns Hopkins University may be thought of primarily as a Baltimore-based institution, but aside from the Hopkins-owned Howard County General Hospital, the university's nonprofit Applied Physics Laboratory is building a five-story, $60 million office structure - the first of a potential three new buildings in a new South Campus.
The official groundbreaking was Aug. 7, with U.S. Rep. John Sarbanes, who represents the area, and County Council chairwoman Mary Kay Sigaty both in attendance.
"I think it's fabulous for the county," Sigaty said. "It's help for an industry [construction] that's really hurting."
Sarbanes and Richard Roca, APL's director, talked about the close relationship the government has built up with the research center since it moved to the 399-acre Howard County campus from Silver Spring in 1954.
