Rental Units

RISING LAND values and restrictive zoning codes have created a lack of affordable housing in Westminster, according to the city's land-use plan report.City zoning laws sanction only construction of single-family homes. At an average price in Carroll County of nearly $160,000, these houses are beyond the financial reach of many buyers.The comprehensive plan developed by city staff and citizen advisers urges a diversity of housing types, including rental units and multifamily dwellings.While the plan doesn't mention low-income or subsidized housing, the intent of such changes would be to support more affordable housing.

Carroll County's Board of Zoning Appeals yesterday upheld the planning commission's rejection of a developer's plans to build 250-plus rental units in South Carroll because the project would strain inadequate schools, roads and emergency services.The three-man board voted unanimously against Security Development Corp. of Howard County, which wants to complete construction of its Carrolltowne subdivision after almost 25 years. Its proposal calls for 254 rental units on 20 acres at Ridge Road and Kali Drive in Eldersburg.

The county Board of Zoning Appeals could not reach a decision yesterday on a controversial townhouse development in Eldersburg despite hours of testimony and scant new evidence.Security Development Corp., a Howard County builder, wants to complete its nearly 25-year-old Carrolltowne subdivision with the construction of 254 rental units on 20 acres at Ridge Road and Kali Drive.The project has bounced between the county Planning and Zoning Commission and the appeals board for nearly two years.

In a further tightening of city ethics rules, Baltimore Housing Commissioner Daniel P. Henson III announced yesterday that newly hired building and housing inspectors will not be allowed to own rental properties.The move comes as the department responds to revelations by The Sun this year that at least five housing officials were allowed to own blighted properties in the city for years with little or no enforcement action by the agency.One city housing inspections chief owned more than a dozen substandard rental houses in Baltimore.

OPPOSITION TO public housing initiatives in suburban areas lies only partly in class- and race-based fear and misconceptions. Some subsidized housing, indeed, looks awful. You can't blame people who take pride in their neighborhoods from objecting if existing Section 8 apartments are rundown and dirty. Part of the problem has been that Section 8 landlords have had little incentive to keep up subsidized rental units; they knew they would get their money even if their apartment buildings looked dreadful.

The Housing Authority of Baltimore City plans to demolish scores of rental units in Cherry Hill Homes, the city's largest public housing project, and replace them with houses that will be sold to local residents, according to executive director Daniel P. Henson III.Henson confirmed the plans during a meeting Thursday night with community association leaders from the 6th District. He told the group that the demolitions should be complete within a year."I'm not talking about something that will take years to do," Henson said in response to a question from Shephard Burge, a neighborhood newspaper publisher.

Baltimore City Comptroller Joan M. Pratt said yesterday that she will get out of the landlord business -- just two weeks after a 3-year-old child who lived in one of her rental units was reported suffering from lead poisoning.Though she gave no time when she would divest herself of ownership of her city rental properties, Pratt said that her attorneys are working out the final details."I think because I am a city official, I will have to get out of the real estate business," Pratt said. She added that questions surrounding her rental properties "distract me from doing what the citizens elected me to do."

Articles in the Sept. 4 and 5 editions reported incorrectly the penalty for failing to register rental properties built before 1950 under Maryland's lead poisoning prevention. The penalty is $10 per day per unit.The Sun regrets the errors.Thousands of people who own older rental homes in Maryland may have failed to register and fix up their properties under the state's new lead-poisoning prevention law, just as City Comptroller Joan M. Pratt did, state officials said yesterday.About 26,000 property owners have registered apartments or homes built before 1978 with the Maryland Department of the Environment, as required by the law.The law, which took effect in February, provides landlords limited protection from tenant lawsuits if they register their properties and make repairs aimed at reducing lead-paint hazards.

Unions representing more than 8,500 municipal workers in Baltimore are demanding that Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke withdraw an order directing all city employees to report whether they own rental properties in the wake of revelations that several housing inspectors are slum landlords.Two firefighters' unions and the City Union of Baltimore -- which represents white-collar and clerical workers -- have filed similar complaints charging that the mayor's directive violates collective bargaining agreements and poses an unnecessary invasion of privacy.

Public housing families who want to move to middle-income areas under a desegregation settlement announced this week should have plenty of rental housing to choose from -- but much of it will be far from their Baltimore neighborhoods.More than 120,000 rental units are potentially available to the 1,342 black families scheduled to move to mostly white, middle-income neighborhoods over six years, according to an analysis of census data by The Sun."There's a very large number of units and a relatively small number of people who have to be placed," said Barbara Samuels, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland, which brought the suit on behalf of black Baltimore public housing residents to break up segregated pockets of poverty.