The League of Women Voters of Howard County is a member of the Housing Affordability Coalition. The League of Women Voters has a longstanding history of robust support for governmental policies and programs that help meet basic human needs, which includes “an adequate supply of decent, affordable homes that provide a suitable living environment for every American family.” We sorely need more such housing here in Howard County.

We support the APFO recommendations from the Housing Affordability Coalition, which includes support for the Housing Affordability Coalition’s recommendations to change the APFO regulations. These recommendations will help contribute to a strong and sustainable economic base for our County while meeting our needs for both affordable housing and high quality schools.

The APFO ordinance as it currently stands has stymied economic growth and caused Howard County to forfeit school construction money available from the State. This situation must be remedied.

As the county faces a projected $1.45 billion revenue shortfall (cumulative) through FY2029, increased revenue is critical to maintaining high-quality county infrastructure, programs and services, including the building maintenance and expansion of schools to resolve overcrowding. At the same time, additional housing development is essential to expanding Howard County’s business sector and its workforce, which in turn will generate higher county revenues through corporate and personal property and income taxes.

We therefore ask the Committee’s consideration of the following Coalition recommendations that can substantially contribute to ensuring that APFO works better to support both housing and schools:

1. Support the prioritization of affordable housing by adopting mechanisms to make the development process more efficient by exempting rental and sale developments with a qualifying amount of affordable housing from APFO restrictions.

2. Consider new revenue sources to support affordable housing and schools by reexamining and revising the Transfer and/or Recordation fees.

3. Incentivize mixed income affordable housing development around public transit hubs.

4. Revise the school capacity test in APFO to match the Maryland State requirements to obtain more state funding for school construction. In addition, the League recommends that APFO be refined to estimate the numbers of new students based on the number of bedrooms in a unit.

Thank you for considering our position.