On February 13, 2024, Associate Policy Director Dominic Butchko submitted written testimony to the House Environment and Transportation Committee in support of HB 477- Landlord and Tenant- Residential Leases and Holdover Tenancies- Local Just Cause Termination Provisions. This bill authorizes counties to establish laws preventing landlords from failing to renew a lease without just cause.
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 rising sea levels, 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.
Several counties have sought the authority from HB 477 to protect vulnerable constituents facing eviction for reasons outside of their control. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, evictions have received increased scrutiny as average household debt due to unpaid rent and volatility in the employment marketplace reached significantly elevated levels. HB 477 simply provides a tool for counties to prevent housing instability and inequity tailored to the needs of their respective communities.
HB 477’s cross-file, SB 644, was heard on February 16, 2024 in the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee. Dominic Butchko submitted written testimony in support of this bill.
HB 477 was heard in the opposite chamber, the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee, on April 2. MACo submitted testimony in support.
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