Category: Housing

Policy Priorities for 2025

Frederick County Affordable Housing Council

By Gary Bennett and Hugh Gordon


On March 10, Frederick County’s Affordable Housing Council (hereafter referred to as “the Council”) released its 2025 affordable housing policy priorities.

The Council advises Frederick city and county government officials on housing policy and advocates for safe, sanitary and affordable housing for all Frederick County lower- and middle-income households.

The policy priorities for 2025 do not take into consideration matters likely to be covered by Frederick County’s new housing needs assessment and strategic plan currently in the planning stages. The study is being conducted by TPMA Consultants and the county’s Division of Housing. Once the draft is presented for public comment, the Council will respond. Following final county approval of the study, the Council will incorporate recommendations from the study into its policy priorities for 2026.

The 2025 policy priorities outlined below are matters deemed important enough to go forward without waiting for completion of the housing needs assessment study.

  • Streamline Frederick County’s and the City of Frederick’s building permitting process.

At a September 2024 meeting hosted by the Council, non-profit and for-profit developers and builders indicated that the permitting process is overly cumbersome and costly. The Council has contacted city and county officials to establish a strategy and action plan to resolve permitting obstacles, working with the public sector and developer/builder stakeholders to address these matters with established timelines.

  • Encourage municipalities, the public and other stakeholders beyond the City of Frederick and Frederick County to develop relationships with the Council regarding housing policy best practices.

The Council will develop a strategy and action plan in the second quarter of 2025 to address specific municipalities at public forums. Independent of this effort, the Council will reach out to invite municipal officials, the public and stakeholders to monthly Council meetings.

  • Continue working with Frederick County and municipalities on implementation of area plans as part of the Livable Fredrick Master Plan.

As such, the Council will continue its active participation with the Housing Element Advisory Group and offer recommendations. It is also working with the county on attaining the goals set out in the 2023 county executive’s Housing and Quality of Life Transition Plan. 

  • Appoint a Council member or consultant to act as liaison with county and city legislative officials with a goal to accomplish the recommendations of the forthcoming Frederick County Housing Needs Assessment and Strategic Plan.

Hugh Gordon, chair of the Council, commented that accomplishing these priorities demonstrate a proactive effort on the part of the Council to address one of the greatest needs existing in the Frederick community: “The need for affecting implementation and the potential for assisting seniors, school teachers, police officers, firefighters, restaurant workers, and other vulnerable residents of Frederick County to achieve their dream of living in a safe, sanitary and affordable home.”

Historically, the Council has been quite successful in developing housing priorities and encouraging elected officials to give them fair consideration.

Last year, the Council was instrumental in advocating to update the city’s Moderately Priced Development Units (MPDU) ordinance. The ordinance now encourages increased development of affordable housing in the city by requiring developers to pay $2 per square foot for every unit in the development if they opt out of building the required number of MPDUs.

The Council also pushed for updating the 2016 Frederick County Affordable Housing Needs Assessment study to better reflect current housing and economic realities and to develop a strategic plan to address the findings. This project is now in the early planning stages.

Finally, the Council has helped institute the implementation of the City of Frederick’s rental registration and inspection program and encouraged municipalities in the county to allow construction of accessory dwelling units (ADUs), many of which are doing that.

The Frederick County Affordable Housing Council meets the second Tuesday of each month at 2:30 pm at a location designated by the Council. Confirm meeting dates and location by checking https://www.frederickcountymd.gov/6371/Affordable-Housing-Council or by calling the Frederick County Division of Housing at 301-600-3518.   

The issues are difficult but the stakes are high for all of us. The Frederick County Affordable Housing Council invites you to participate.

Meetings are open to the public and public participation is highly encouraged. Agendas can be obtained at the website noted above. Public comment is welcome at all meetings.

Gary Bennett is a retired association executive with no stake in the housing market except for being a concerned citizen. Hugh Gordon is the association executive for the Frederick County Association of Realtors and has decades of experience as a mortgage banker. They are long-time Frederick County residents and members of Frederick County’s Affordable Housing Council.

Regional Housing Infrastructure Gap Act

By Gary Bennett

This article appears in the March 2025 edition of the Woodsboro-Walkersville News-Journal, page 5.

Municipalities around Frederick County that deny housing projects because they will “change the neighborhood character” or because they simply “don’t want any more housing,” should be ready to prove in an objective, measurable way how new housing will adversely affect their community if Maryland House Bill HB053 (cross-filed with Senate Bill SB0430) passes the Maryland legislature and ends up on Governor Moore’s desk.

Known as the Regional Housing Infrastructure Gap Act (or Housing for Jobs Act), this proposed legislation will tie a region’s number of jobs to the housing needed to support those jobs. The legislation purposely aims to make it more difficult for jurisdictions to oppose reasonable housing projects.

The proposed legislation is similar to “Fair share” planning and zoning rules in New Jersey, Connecticut and other states that require each municipality or region to provide a proportional amount of affordable housing based on factors like population, jobs and land availability, essentially ensuring that the burden of providing low-income housing is distributed equitably across different areas, preventing concentration of affordable housing in only certain neighborhoods.

The housing gap in Frederick County was estimated to be 5,700 units in 2016, and we all know the gap has widened since then. It is especially dire for those at the bottom rungs of the economic ladder. To update our estimated gap, Frederick County is now in the early stages of a new housing study that will also lead to the county’s first housing strategic plan.

Even with people suffering with homelessness, overcrowding at others’ homes and doing without enough food, medicine and clothing to pay their exorbitant housing costs, some municipalities around Frederick County (excluding Frederick City) have made it abundantly clear that no residential growth or very slow residential growth are the only policies they will accept and support. We read about this time and again.

It shouldn’t be this way.  Just like it takes a village to raise a child, it will take the entire county to solve our housing problem.

All municipalities in the county should share in the expected growth we cannot stop. There is not much we can do to quell demand to live in our county short of ripping up Carroll Creek, razing our delightful downtown and walling off our picturesque scenery and open spaces, which are already protected by the state and county and can’t be built upon.

Sure, we could shutter our windows and stop all housing projects in their tracks if we wished, but then we would become like other no-growth counties that eventually wither and then try to get back on track. This stance may work for people who live here now, but what about our children and aging parents who wish to stay. Where do they go?

The proposed legislation aims to peg needed housing to jobs. Specifically, the bill says that for every 1.5 jobs within our county, there should be one housing unit. Under our current jobs-to-housing ratio, the county would need to build 7,000 homes to reach that ratio, a number not far from our estimated 2016 gap of 5,700.

Pegging housing to jobs makes sense. People want to live close to where they work, and for a host of environmental, energy, family and community reasons, we should want that, too. Under the bill, planning and zoning boards and town councils must approve housing projects unless there’s a very good and objective reason not to.

Municipalities would be able to stop housing development projects only if:

  • It would have a specific adverse impact on the public health or safety to the residents who would live there, and there is no feasible way to mitigate it.
  • It is in an area with inadequate water or wastewater facilities to adequately serve the project, and there is no feasible way to mitigate it.
  • It is in an area zoned for heavy industrial use or on conservation property.
  • It is in a school attendance area that has verifiable current or projected full-time enrolment that exceeds 100% of the school’s estimated or state-rated capacity, and there is no feasible method to comply.

The bill authorizes the state’s Department of Housing and Community Development and Department of Planning to calculate regional housing infrastructure gaps, provide the apportionment of regional housing infrastructure gaps to all counties and incorporated municipalities and establish that certain local jurisdictions have an affirmative obligation to expeditiously approve housing development project applications.

The “affirmative obligation” clause is a big one and a paradigm shift in how business is done now.

Currently, municipalities are under no obligation to help solve our county’s housing problem and often do not even see it as their problem. They are perfectly happy for most of the development to happen in Frederick City. Under the bill, a local jurisdiction may not deny a housing development project unless it has a justification that “clearly outweighs the need for housing and is supported by clear and convincing evidence.”

Indeed, if a local jurisdiction denies a housing development project, the local jurisdiction must provide in writing the reason for denial, specifying how the denial complies with the law. The proponent of a housing development may bring an action in the appropriate circuit court to enforce it. If passed and signed by the governor this session, which is likely, the Act will take effect on January 1, 2026.

This potential shift in state housing policy is not surprising. We should remember that land use control is constitutionally guaranteed to states, not municipalities. States have often delegated this authority to municipalities, as they’ve done in Maryland. But it can be taken back when local decision makers misuse the privilege.

It’s too bad doing the right thing has to be mandated, but we suspect the state has had enough new housing developments stopped in their tracks for specious reasons to warrant action. The days of simply not wanting more housing to stop projects may become a thing of the past.

The bill is still in draft form and there’s a very long way to go. It is currently in the House of Delegates with a hearing scheduled for March 4 at 1:00 pm. Frederick County Delegate Ken Kerr is a co-sponsor.

A new way to finance affordable housing in Frederick County

By Gary Bennett and Hugh Gordon, members, Frederick County Affordable Housing Council.

Affordable Housing Crisis newspaper headline and related economic news, with coins

This article appears in the February 2025 issue of the Emmitsburg New-Journal, page 46.

In our last affordable housing column, we talked about all they ways developers scramble to fully fund affordable housing projects. This is important because a project is not feasible unless it covers 100% of its funding gap.

That is why Frederick County and the State of Maryland try to be aggressive when helping affordable housing developers. The county and state often step in with funding options such as:

  • Waivers or deferrals of impact of fees charged to buyers that meet income requirements for affordable housing purchases from a developer.
  • Loans from Frederick County’s Housing Initiative Fund’s (HIF) Deferred Loan Program. The purpose of this fund is to provide flexible loans to support affordable housing in Frederick County.
  • Maryland’s Department of Housing and Community Development’s (DHCD) nearly $24 million in federal funding to provide gap financing to affordable housing projects statewide in the form of HUD’s HOME Investment Partnerships American Rescue Plan Program (HOME-ARP).
  • County guidance in using “rental housing works,” a fund through DHCD providing $3.5 million in gap funding.
  • The use of some county owned-land for affordable housing projects combined with a federal loan for pre-development costs thereby reducing two key costs.

Other funding possibilities in various stages of discussion and could come online in the future include:

  • Implementing a Frederick County Rental Registration and Inspection Program to mimic the one Frederick city has in place and using the proceeds for rental assistance and affordable housing projects.
  • Waiving development fees for housing projects meeting certain income requirements.
  • Increasing the portion of the County Recordation Tax revenue going into the Housing Initiative Fund, which is then used to support affordable housing projects.

IDAs and TIFs

Even more creative help may be on the way soon.

The Affordable Housing Council wholeheartedly supports a push for enabling legislation to allow Frederick County to expand the use of funds under the State of Maryland’s Industrial Development Authorities (IDAs) to include affordable housing.

IDAs were created long ago to establish an entity that captures future tax growth for an area slated for development and reinvests it. It has been used mostly for industrial parks. It was never intended for affordable housing but could be used for that purpose in the future.  Prince George’s County has this authority now.

If enacted, the County Council would create the tax capturing entity, adopt a project area plan and how the funds can be used in that area. The board of the new entity would then approve specific projects like affordable housing.

This would be an important new revenue source for affordable housing projects. It has the possibility to be the gap financing that allows new projects to happen faster.

IDAs are based on well-established tax increment financing (TIF) districts. TIFs have been used in the past as a mechanism to fund public infrastructure improvements in connection with private development projects.

In the affordable housing realm, TIFs could be used for infrastructure needs for site readiness such as water, gas, and sewerage. Items like these need to be ready and paid for before an affordable housing project kicks off. As we’ve said before, tax credits are fine but developers need money upfront.

How do TIFs provide financing?

Under the TIF process, special obligation debt would be issued by the county to provide funding for infrastructure improvements benefiting a certain district. The incremental future real property tax revenues are pledged to the repayment of the special obligation debt. There will be incremental real property taxes created because the assessed value of the TIF district properties increases as a result of the planned new infrastructure.

Because only a portion of the future incremental tax revenue is pledged to repay the debt service, the TIF structure allows the county to continue to receive the tax revenue today that existed prior to the new development and to also receive today the future tax benefit of the project to fund the project.

It is important to note that this is not a new tax on citizens. The plan takes the place of issuing bonds.

Currently in Frederick County, commercial entities are responsible for 22% of the tax base. Citizens pay the rest. We cannot bring in more commercial development unless we have more affordable housing.

The plans for future housing development in the South Frederick Corridor is a specific example where this could work well since developers know the county plans to add value by creating affordable housing there.

Frederick is not alone. Many Maryland counties have expressed interest in this type of affordable housing funding.

A bill has been drafted to allow TIF districts in Frederick County and other counties to be used for more than industrial development. It is before the legislature’s Ways and Means Committee right now.  Delegate Fair and Senator Lewis-Young are supportive now. Maryland Secretary of Housing Day and Maryland’s Affordable Housing Coalition are also supportive of this.

Financing for affordable housing projects is intricate and arcane, but the more you know, the better you can help us advocate for creative financing that gets these critical projects off the ground. If we don’t, we’ll have few options for our children and parents to live in Frederick County, and economic development will suffer as a result.