Release No. 02142006

Date: February 14, 2006                                                              FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Ron Cramer, President
             Romey Brooks, Public Relations
             Habitat for Humanity of Frederick County, MD
             4 East Church Street
             Frederick, MD 21701

Habitat Needs Affordable Lots

Something is wrong in a community when public servants like teachers, firefighters, police officers and other public servants need to go outside the county---and the state, even---to find a home they can afford. This problem is even more acute for all those others who make less money than these public servants. For sure, there is an affordable housing crisis in Frederick County. The issue has been in the public eye for some time and one can only applaud the efforts of the Affordable Housing Council, local officials and various other entities to remedy the problem.

So it is no surprise that Habitat for Humanity of Frederick and other affordable housing advocates find building lower-priced homes increasingly difficult if not nearly impossible because of escalating land costs. Ironically, there is plenty of land in Frederick County, as mushrooming, up-scale housing developments show. But the homes in these developments are out of reach for most people.

Meanwhile organizations like Habitat desperately look for affordable lots on which to build. Volunteers, corporate and business partners and local churches have proven their support of Habitat (23 homes in ten years!) and are ready to build more Habitat homes. But getting enough lots is tough given the intense building competition.

Working with local real estate agents, Habitat has identified some affordable lots. But on further inquiry Habitat found it would need to install either lengthy water or sewer connections because currently one or other of these public utilities does not serve these lots. Installing hundreds of feet of water or sewer pipe can be a costly proposition, as Habitat found out a couple of times, once in Frederick City and once in Brunswick. To build on its lots there, Habitat had to install water and sewer connections respectively. It had no choice but to sink tens of thousands of dollars in the streets, adding to the development costs. Sadly, the future homeowners ate these costs with higher-than-hoped-for mortgages.

Clearly, Habitat needs lots very close to existing public utilities in order to avoid excessive connection costs. Impact fees are already very high and additional utility installation expenses just compound the problem, burdening future homeowners.

There is a little-known section of the county code (Sect. 1-19-311) that can benefit the land owner, as well as providing Habitat a source of lots. This ordinance allows a property owner in an agricultural zoning district to subdivide and set aside one lot for affordable housing purposes. And the remaining property retains all subdivision rights permitted before the set-aside occurred.

The ordinance further states that in all residential districts, except for the Mobile Home Park zone, a property owner with a parcel of twenty acres or more may dedicate up to
five percent of the parcel along with the corresponding new zoning density for affordable
housing purposes. The owner can still develop the remainder of the property to the full density which would have been allowed on the original parcel prior to the dedication.

There are two other approaches which have previously benefited Habitat. The first is an outright lot donation and tax write-off like the five Habitat got in Frederick, Adamstown and Emmitsburg. The second approach is for owners of lots already adjacent to public utilities to sell at a substantially reduced price and also take a tax write-off. Habitat has benefited a few times from this perfectly legal and above-board practice. For example, the three duplexes on the corner of Maryland and Sagner Avenues in Frederick sit on a lot Habitat purchased through such a deal. There have to be more opportunities like this elsewhere in Frederick County!

In these three cases, lot owners would not only reap their fair, market-value compensation; they would also be making a substantial contribution to their communities by helping solve an increasingly challenging problem. Their decision would epitomize well the Habitat motto, “Giving a hand up, not a hand-out!”

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