On January 30, 2024, Associate Policy Director Dominic Butchko testified before the House Environment and Transportation Committee in support of HB 3- Land Use- Expedited Development Review Process for affordable Housing- Requirements with amendments. This bill requires counties to establish and implement an expedited development review process for nonprofit and local housing authority projects that meet certain conditions.
For the 2024 Maryland General Assembly Session, MACo has made it a priority – one of the Association’s four legislative initiatives – to Advance Comprehensive Housing Solutions. Much like climate change and sea level rise, the challenges surrounding affordable housing are vast and call for a large, multipronged effort. While in other policy areas, it may be easy to deduce a simple cause-and-effect relationship, housing is a complex web of multifaceted factors. Addressing challenges like workforce, financing, interest rates, broad economic trends, supply chain, and large out-of-state corporate interests – among many other obstacles – requires an all-hands-on-deck effort from policymakers at all levels.
MACo is working with sponsors to cross-file legislation to target several components of this crisis: abandonment/blight disincentives, corporate owner transparency, and short-term rental oversight. Additionally, under this initiative, counties will be supporting other pro-housing legislation which helps to advance the conversation, balances local flexibility, and ensures more Marylanders can afford a place to call home.
While counties support that the intent of HB 3 is to precisely target certain affordable housing projects, the legislation does need minor adjustments to achieve full impact while being implementable
HB 3’s cross-file, SB 356, was heard on February 1, 2024 in the Senate Education, Energy, and the Environment Committee. Dominic Butchko testified in support of this bill with amendments.
More on MACo’s Advocacy:
