Affordable Homes

Habitat for Humanity needs lots of help to build affordable homes for lower-income residents, but one particular volunteer is especially prized. Every year, former President Jimmy Carter dons a tool belt and joins construction efforts in a handful of communities for a week — and helps raise the profile of the international Christian charity. Every Habitat affiliate wants to be picked. This year, he's spending a day of his annual "work project" week in Baltimore and Annapolis, and leaders from the Habitat for Humanity of the Chesapeake are thrilled.

In Annapolis, where housing prices have soared until even the simplest places often cost $200,000, a non-profit community agency is offering 35 affordable town houses to first-time buyers.The Community Action Agency yesterday hammered out the last details in its long-awaited plan to develop an affordable town-house community near Bywater Road and Greenbriar Lane."This is an incredible opportunity for first-time home buyers," said Donald F. Wallace, the agency's deputy director of housing and community development.

A social worker, a research biologist and a kindergarten teacher are excited about spending the holiday season preparing to buy a new home, thanks to a county program that put new homes within the reach of moderate-income residents. They were among eight people awarded the right to buy a new condominium apartment or townhouse at a reduced price under the Moderate Income Housing Unit program at a drawing Tuesday at the county's Gateway Building.

Harford County's real estate market is stronger than other parts of the Baltimore region because houses are still affordable there, said Robert Head, office manager of the Bel Air-Abingdon office of O'Conor Piper & Flynn Realtors."

A bill designed to increase Baltimore's stock of affordable housing by requiring it to be mixed into certain market-rate projects comfortably passed a City Council committee last night. Supported by a politically powerful coalition of religious groups, urban advocacy organizations and unions, the inclusionary housing legislation will go to the City Council, where it is expected to come to a vote within the next few weeks. "There are people who still say [the bill] won't work, and if we do it, it will backfire," said the Rev. Richard Lawrence, pastor of St. Vincent de Paul Roman Catholic Church downtown, part of the coalition.

The diesel fumes are unmistakable as you pass the Overnite and A.P.A. truck terminals on U.S. 1. in Elkridge, and there's no missing the rusting hulks in Calton's salvage yard.As for the one-time tourist motels that pepper U.S. 1 -- the Tip-Top, Executive, and White Elk -- age and the occasional tuckered trucker seem their only friends.But Elkridge is hardly a forgotten industrial wasteland. Its skyline and demography are in the middle of a transformation. New condominiums, townhouses and single-family homes are joining Elkridge's hodgepodge of busy truck terminals, warehouses and factories.

One of Annapolis' oldest public housing communities will be razed and rebuilt as part of a plan to increase the stock of affordable housing downtown while also creating the city's first public senior housing, officials announced yesterday. The housing authority also plans to refurbish another aging complex and build a larger recreational center, while adding parking and open space. The announcement caps nine months of sometimes rancorous debate between housing tenants and agency officials about the two properties, Obery Court, built in 1952, and College Creek Terrace, which opened in 1946.

REMARKS BY Howard County Executive James N. Robey in support of the need to increase affordable housing were pleasing to those who agree. What was left unsaid, however, may be more important. Mr. Robey last week endorsed a goal of the county housing department to increase affordable housing, but he offered no suggestions about how to proceed.In years past, affordable-housing proponents suggested requiring developers to include a percentage of units for low- and middle-income families in their subdivisions.

A plan to build a sprawling $800 million biotechnology park adjacent to Johns Hopkins Hospital has some East Baltimore residents worried that they will not be able to afford to buy new homes in the area despite the roughly $150,000 they will receive for homes that will be demolished to make way for offices, shops and residences. East Baltimore Development Inc., a nonprofit organization created by the city to manage the project, has promised to come up with money from an equity fund and specially tailored mortgage loans to help residents buy new houses, which are expected to have a starting price of $250,000.

The elusive goal of owning a detached, single-family home in Howard County may soon be within reach for a few limited-income buyers as county officials develop plans for 10 affordable new homes in Savage, and perhaps more later. Unlike other government housing programs that depend on private builders' projects, these homes would be developed by the county's Housing Commission on land purchased six years ago. The nearly 4-acre plot is on Marys Lane, off Guilford Road. The commission owns about 20 acres elsewhere in the same neighborhood that could be developed later, said Stacy L. Spann, the housing director.