February 6, 2018: CB1 and CB2 were passed on February 5, 2018. Amendment #3 to CB1 allows the County Council to approve construction of affordable housing in districts that are closed to new development due to school overcrowding. That is, schools that are too crowded to admit any new students are considered appropriate for additional low-income students. This is discriminatory. The lack of affordable housing in the county should be addressed in some other, more equitable, way.
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The County Council held a worksession on Monday, Jan. 22, 2018, to discuss a hastily assembled economic and fiscal impact assessment, prompted by "alarm" at the passage of CB60 and CB61 in November 2017. The essence of the fiscal and economic impact is that builders would lose money if not allowed to build homes in already-crowded school districts. An argument is also being made that slowing all residential development will also slow construction of affordable housing -- despite the fact that builders typically pay a fee-in-lieu rather than build affordable homes. Their estimates of lost building revenue are based on house values of $1,000,000 each!
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To the Howard County Executive and Council
From the Howard County Sierra Club
an entity of the Maryland Sierra Club, 7336 Baltimore Ave. Suite 102, College Park, MD 20740
Re: CB1 and CB2
Date: January 22, 2018
The passage of the final versions of CB60 and CB61 in 2017 represented the conclusion of untold hours of research and negotiation, all to effect a compromise between development and infrastructure. Our elected officials should be able to occupy the middle ground between these two imperatives. After all, developments are worth more if they are supported by adequate infrastructure: house prices depend on school quality, businesses require adequate roads, and so forth. We expect our elected officials to recognize the value of infrastructure to developers and tax-payers alike, and to equitably assign the cost of providing infrastructure to developers and tax-payers alike.
The accident of taking a vote on CB60 and CB61 after the bill expired gives the Council the opportunity to demonstrate respect for the process that led to the final versions of both bills. The process of revision and re-negotiation should be over. Extending that process further is granting an advantage to those who get paid to promote special interests, and a disadvantage to those who spend their time as private citizens engaging in advocacy for the public good.
The delivery of a report from the Howard County Economic Authority just hours before the public hearing on January 16, 2018 is especially suspect. Reports relevant to the bills must be available to the public -- and the council -- well before the hearing on those bills, or they must be excluded from testimony. In this case, even a cursory reading of the report reveals major flaws with the information presented.
A respect for public engagement explains having another hearing for bills that were already passed. Nothing can explain the apparently coordinated testimony claiming that slowing development would affect affordable housing more than the rest of the housing of which it is a percentage...a percentage that is often not built anyway. The implication -- that overcrowded schools, inadequate roads, and insufficient health and safety facilities -- should be acceptable to our least affluent residents, is also reprehensible.
The Sierra Club opposes sprawl development because of its irreversible damage to the environment and to society. The version of APFO and PlanHoward 2030 that were passed in November 2017 took steps to address the disparity between development and infrastructure in the county. Adding exemptions or revisions to the bills would diminish the effectiveness of the bills as well as the credibility of the County Council as public servants. It would be a violation of your contract with the public to prolong the decision-making process by tabling the bill, calling for more hearings or work-sessions, or procrastinating in any other way.
More than 1000 members of the Sierra Club are represented in this request to the County Council to pass these bills without further alterations or delays.
Thank you for your attention.
Joanne Heckman
Chair, Howard County Sierra Club
joanne.heckman@mdsierra.org
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Howard County Council Bill 1 and Council Bill 2, 2018
Public Hearing January 16, 2018
Testimony to APROVE the bills as passed in 2017
Submitted by Sierra Club Howard County
The Sierra Club of Howard County urges you to make no further changes to the APFO bill, CB1, but to pass it as soon as possible.
There is no need for more testimony, work sessions, amendments, or further delays.
Rarely do we urge passage of a bill because it's adequate. But it is imperative that we guarantee that we have enough facilities -- including schools, roads, and hospitals -- before we allow new development in the county. What's more, the developers who profit from construction should pay their fair share for the facilities necessitated by their projects. The Maryland General Assembly will address this issue, too, but they can't take action until the County Council takes action. The Council must vote to pass CB1 and CB2.
Limiting sprawl development and encouraging smart growth is a priority of the national Sierra Club and all of its chapters. Our position on CB1 has already been submitted to the Council, and can be found on our website.
Thank you.
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CB-61-2017 and CB-62-2017
Public Hearing: September 11, 2017
Testimony AGAINST
Submitted by Sierra Club Howard County
The Sierra Club opposes over-development and inappropriate development of land. One of the national goals of the Sierra Club is lessening sprawling development: “sprawl is a pattern of increasingly inefficient and wasteful land use that is devastating environmental and social conditions” (https://www.sierraclub.org/policy/sprawl-and-population).
Therefore the Sierra Club of Howard County does not support CB61 as written because this bill does not sufficiently protect the interest of the citizens compared to the interest of the developers. To lessen sprawl, we support the reduction in the Growth & Revitalization area from the current 1200 allocations to 1000. We also support increasing the Established Communities allocations from 400 to 600.
To reduce devastating social conditions, we believe that the School Capacity test guidelines should be amended. The guidelines allow chance after chance in consecutive years for a proposed development project to pass the test. In fact, the guidelines appear to assume that proposed developments will proceed at some point in the future regardless of test failure. Howard County doesn’t halt development near overcapacity schools for long enough waiting periods. Instead we end up reorganizing the school districts, always a contentious undertaking that is disruptive for students. Kids moved from school to school to school pay the price for developers’ profits.
What’s more, APFO guidelines Number 7, I, B allow annual housing unit allocations and school capacity charts to be altered by future Councils. So if a project fails the present tests it might be the test that changes, rather than the project.
In any case, we oppose allowing new development based on 115% of school capacity; especially since this bill doesn’t even include high school capacity. Sierra Club recommends a cap of 105% as both reasonable and feasible.
On the subject of county development impact fees and excise tax rates, how does Howard County compare? At $2.42 per square foot in FY ’16, the amount due for a 2,500 sq. foot house would be around $6,050. For Anne Arundel County, the fee for the same-sized house would be $12,275. Without reference to house size, the fee in Calvert County: $12,950. Charles? $14,095. PG? $22,757.
For Montgomery County, the taxes and fees in FY ’16 were $40,793. We should add that in Montgomery County, the school excise tax is increased by $2 per square foot for units between 3,500 - 8,500 sq. feet.
The cost of development should be reflected in the impact fee levied on the developers who profit from building the housing units. Having the developers pay more for their own impacts would also speed up improvements to infrastructure. Currently, too much of the improvement costs are shouldered by the taxpayers, who are basically subsidizing the developers. The lack of constraints on land development in the county results in environmental and social burdens that are borne by the citizens, solely for the sake of profit to developers.