In high-rent Howard County, where new apartment rents can top $1,800 a month, anything less expensive is welcome. So county officials are bending over backward to help a developer buy a large Elkridge apartment complex before year's end.
By helping the Bozzuto Development Co. close a $66 million deal to buy the 634-unit Sherwood Crossing complex, the county hopes to extend moderate-income status to 20 percent of the apartments and perhaps get up to 20 more units of Section 8 rental housing. Howard also would collect most of a $1.3 million real estate transfer tax fee.
The County Council is scheduled to approve the sale by Sherwood Crossing Ltd. Partners in an unusual midmonth vote tonight. The county's housing commission and housing policy board gave it their combined unanimous blessing at a meeting Thursday.
"Any rental housing is of value," county housing director Leonard S. Vaughan said, simply because it is less expensive than buying a house.
Vaughan said rents for new apartments in Howard are headed toward the $2,000- a-month mark, making anything below that worth preserving. In addition, the heated real estate market has made it harder for federal Section 8 renters to find available rentals, worsening the crunch for low-income families.
The county has a say in this case because Sherwood Crossing, near Interstate 95 just north of Route 175, was partially financed in the mid-1980s with the help of industrial revenue bonds (IRB), giving the developers a lower interest rate.
In exchange, 20 percent of the units were reserved for people whose income is no more than 80 percent of the Baltimore area's median income. That provision has expired but, by approving the sale, county officials can renew the moderate-income provision for up to five years.
And if a major restructuring of the complex's financing occurs after the sale, as Bozzuto officials said is likely, the county might get another chance to lock in the income ceilings on 126 units for years to come.
For now, however, Vaughan said, "moderate" income means a family of four can earn up to $53,000, and pay just more than $1,300 a month for rent, including utilities.
Because the market rents at Sherwood, an upscale complex of wooden three-story beige garden units, are $1,325 a month -- plus utilities -- for three-bedroom units, the moderate-income advantage is minimal. A two-bedroom unit rents for $1,045 a month.
But Vaughan told board members that Bozzuto has a record of cooperating with the county on moderate-income housing, and company President John B. Slidell said he will consider attaching federal Section 8 rent subsidy certificates to 10 or 20 units if the deal goes through.