Howard County Executive Allan Kittleman is taking a new look at a countywide home revitalization loan program that was defunded earlier this year.
RENEW HOWARD – an acronym for Revitalizing Neighborhoods EveryWhere in Howard County – would leverage Howard County Housing Commission bonds to provide some $20 million in loans for Howard County homebuyers who want to renovate or expand an aging house or townhouse.
The hope is to breathe new life into older neighborhoods, where some houses are beginning to deteriorate.
"Loan programs such as RENEW HOWARD are important incentives to prospective homebuyers," Kittleman said in a statement. "They help ensure our older housing stock remains attractive, especially to our younger adults who are looking to purchase their first home with limited resources."
Housing Department Director Tom Carbo said the idea was modeled on a similar program in Baltimore City.
"Obviously, we have communities in Howard County that are growing old," Carbo said. "There's the concern that property values could decrease if properties are not improved, and this is a way of incentivizing new homebuyers to come in and update communities. I think it's a strong effort at community revitalization and community development, and it's worked in other communities."
Kittleman's staff said he plans to submit legislation to the County Council detailing RENEW HOWARD on Thursday.
The council created a similar program last summer as part of a multi-pronged housing bill that prohibited new affordable housing development in areas of the county where the poverty rate is greater than 10 percent. Part of that legislation broadened the guidelines for an existing loan program, the Housing and Community Development Rehabilitation Loan Fund, to allow loans for home expansions and renovations in addition to essential infrastructure repairs.
Kittleman cut funding for rehabilitation loans this spring as part of reductions he made to balance a $15.8 million budget deficit in fiscal year 2015. No one had yet applied for a loan at the time the program was defunded, county spokesman Mark Miller said.
The loans weren't funded in 2016 because there was no money available to support them, Miller said.
But Kittleman said he considers improving housing stock an important goal. "I have always been a proponent of revitalizing our older communities," he said in a statement.
Councilman Calvin Ball, the lead sponsor of last summer's bipartisan housing bill, said he was "disappointed" to learn of the funding cut earlier this year.
"However," he said in an email, "I'm pleased to see that County Executive Kittleman will now follow our lead and support this program."
To fund RENEW HOWARD, the Howard County Housing Commission would sell $2 million worth of bonds, which could in turn leverage an additional $20 million in bank loans for homebuyers who want to renovate or expand a house built before 1980.
To pay debt service on the bonds – a cost of about $250,000 annually – the county would contribute up to 50 percent of the revenue it collects from the moderate income housing unit fee-in-lieu program, an alternative method of complying with affordable housing quotas for developers who choose not to build moderate income units as part of their projects. The rest of the debt service would be covered by the Housing Commission.
The loan program would be open to Howard County homebuyers who make up to 120 percent of the average median income, according to Miller.
Kittleman wrote a letter last week soliciting input from stakeholders, including Bridges to Housing Stability and the Full Spectrum Housing Coalition, two organizations that advocate for affordable housing in the county.
Jane O'Leary, the executive director of Bridges to Housing Stability, said she's "pleased that the new administration is focusing its attention on the community's need for housing that's affordable to all its citizens."
However, the loan program would not be within reach for the people her organization serves, who make $60,000 or less and are at risk of becoming homeless.
"I'm hoping that his interest in this issue will not stop until we're addressing housing at the lower levels of the spectrum," O'Leary said.