HOUSING
CPHA continues to unite citizens and community advocates to promote inclusive, diverse, and opportunity-rich communities throughout the Baltimore region. Over the years, informed citizens have made it clear that the success of Baltimore and the metropolitan region hinges on a two-fold commitment to:
- Reinvest, preserve, and reinvigorate urban centers and first suburbs (or communities and counties adjacent to a central city)
- Stabilize the region's housing market by meeting the demand for affordable housing in communities of opportunity with quality schools, growing job centers, economic prosperity, and low poverty levels.
Our current work in Baltimore City and the Baltimore Metropolitan Region includes the following initiatives.
Shaping an Accountable Land Bank Authority
Baltimore City's approximately 30,000 vacant properties reduce the quality of life in the neighborhoods, decrease property values, and are hazardous and costly to maintain. In an effort to reshape and streamline the city's process for handling and selling vacant property, Mayor Dixon has lead an effort to establish a Land Bank Authority with City Council bill 09-0261. To learn more about the proposed authority, click here.
After participating in the Land Bank Authority Task Force, where we advocated for governance and policies that would increase overall transparency and public accountability, CPHA, the Greater Baltimore Urban League, and our partners in the Inclusive Housing Coalition submitted these recommendations to the Mayor and City Council:
- Increasing board representation to include a majority of citizen representatives
- Include mechanisms for citizens and community-based organizations to receive notice and opportunity to comment prior to decisions by the Authority to sell, lease or transfer property.
- Establish clear priorities for the Land Bank Authority to guide disposition
- Build in evaluation, benchmark, and sunset requirements
As the bill works its way through the Taxation, Finance & Economic Development Committee, CPHA continues to monitor and stress these points as the Land Bank's governance and policies are determined by the City Council.
Maximizing Inclusive Housing in Practice
In September of 2006, after chairing Baltimore City's Task Force of Inclusionary Zoning, CPHA formed the Inclusive Housing Coalition to advocate for the passage of an inclusionary zoning law, which would require new residential development to include a percentage of units affordable to working families.
CPHA and members of the Inclusive Housing Coalition, AFSCME Council 67, 1199 SEIU, NAACP-Baltimore, Archdiocese of Baltimore-Beyond the Boundaries, BRIDGE, CASA of Maryland, BUILD, Greater Baltimore Urban League, and ACORN, were successful after many months of intensive advocacy work and an Inclusionary Housing Ordinance 07-474, was passed by the Baltimore City Council on June 11, 2007. The Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) issued final regulations to implement the law August 20, 2008.
The new law requires developments of 30 residential units or more where there is 1) a major public subsidy issued or 2) a major land use authorization or rezoning approval to include 20 or 10 percent affordable units (respectively). To learn more, download CPHA's Inclusive Housing Law fact sheet.
CPHA is serving as a vigilant watchdog to ensure that in practice the law and the Inclusionary Housing Trust Fund activity administered in a way that maximizes affordability standards with each eligible development.
To learn more about CPHA's housing initiatives, please contact Jennifer Will-Thapa, Director of Community Engagement at jenniferw-t@cphabaltimore.org or 410-539-1369, ext. 107.
