Two bills that address the housing crisis in Maryland move closer to becoming law

Two bills that could help curb Maryland’s growing housing crisis recently passed in the House of Delegates, the first hurdle on their way to becoming laws. But one of those bills went through major changes to get passed in committee, and a third bill was killed along the way.

Just before the 2020 Maryland General Assembly legislative session began in January, Delegate Vaughn Stewart (D-Montgomery) introduced an ambitious set of legislation to address housing in Maryland which he dubbed “Homes For All” in reference to Medicare for All.

The legislative package originally consisted of a trio of bills: HB (House Bill) 744, or the “Tenant Protection Act”, HB 1149, or the “Social Housing Act”, and HB 1406, or the “Planning for Modest Homes Act” (formerly known as the “Modest Home Choices Act.”).

Each of these bills is aimed at a different aspect of Maryland’s housing problem. The Tenant Protection Act strengthens the state’s sometimes lackluster landlord requirements and tenant protections.

The Planning for Modest Homes Act would encourage the legalization of duplexes, triplexes, quadplexes, townhouses, and several other types of multifamily housing but directly tying them to access to transit in an attempt to kickstart both the state’s “missing middle” housing and its share of transit-oriented development (TOD), the latter of which has been accused of falling too far behind its counterparts in Virginia and DC.

The Social Housing Act, the only one of the three not to pass the House of Delegates, would have attempted to help expand and improve Maryland’s public housing and alleviate the rapidly growing cost of rent in the state by taxing homes which sell for at least $1 million.

Stewart’s other two bills in the package, however, stand a strong chance of succeeding where at least so far, similar pieces of legislation in California and Virginia have failed to become law.

Let’s take a look at the bills.

What’s in the Planning For Modest Homes Act?

The Planning For Modest Homes Act was the last of the Homes for All package to be introduced into and receive a hearing in the Maryland House of Delegates but also the one that’s drawn the most attention. Like HB 152 in Virginia and SB 50 in California, the Planning For Modest Homes Act attempts to alter the range of available legal housing in its state. But unlike its currently unsuccessful Virginia counterpart, the Planning for Modest Homes Act takes a somewhat more targeted approach, even more so because of the changes it underwent in order to ensure its passage.

“What this bill does is encourage legalizing modest home choices like duplexes and triplexes in areas of high opportunity,” Stewart said. Specifically, Stewart defines “high-opportunity” census tracts as ones that are close to transit, close to jobs, or close to affluence, as measured in median income by the US Census Bureau and Harvard and Brown Universities via the Opportunity Atlas.

“I like to say we’re legalizing duplexes and triplexes in transit-rich neighborhoods, job-rich neighborhoods, and just rich neighborhoods”, Stewart said. The transit requirement would apply for census tracts within one mile of a “high-frequency transit stop”, currently defined in the bill as either rail or high-frequency/headway buses.

If a census tract has double the area median income or higher, then it falls within the affluence component of the bill. For example, in Montgomery County where the area median income is about $103,000, a census tract with a median income of $206,000 would get upzoned, partly, according to Stewart, because many of those areas have some of the county’s highest-performing and least overcrowded schools. “That’s just kind of an easy, straightforward way to promote integration, both socioeconomic and racial,” Stewart said.

It’s also important because as Lori Graff, the CEO of the Maryland Building Industry Association, pointed out when she testified at the Planning for Modest Homes Act’s House bill hearing on March 4, from 2000 to 2015, Maryland underproduced by almost 260,000 housing units.

But while the bill was supported by housing advocates like GGWash’s own Alex Baca, construction unions like LiUNA, and construction trade groups like the Maryland Building Industry Association, it did draw some opposition from the Maryland Association of Counties and the Maryland Municipal League in its original form, in part because they may have seen it as preempting too much of their own authority. That seems to have inspired many of the amendments made to the bill, including its renaming.

“The intent of the original draft of the bill was to encourage the legalization of middle housing in transit-rich, jobs-rich, and high-opportunity areas,” Stewart said. “As amended, the bill doesn’t explicitly encourage middle housing in transit-oriented areas anymore, but makes municipalities explore middle housing as an option to add necessary housing units in their comprehensive plans.” Much like the Tenant Protection Act, Stewart said he does plan to address some of the issues left out of the final Planning for Modest Homes Act in future legislation.

What’s in the Tenant Protection Act?

Stewart said he was inspired to introduce this bill when he read about the properties owned in and around Baltimore by Jared Kushner’s company, Westminster Management. But what he quickly learned was that much to his surprise, Maryland was actually ranked the 20th most hostile state to renters in a 2018 survey by RENTCafe, a national apartment search website.

“I think the general perception, at least in Annapolis, is that our landlord-tenant laws are skewed heavily in favor of tenants,” Stewart said. “So to see that all these states across the Midwest and the Deep South are ranked ahead of us (or behind, depending on how you look at it) on this measure, to me was really shocking and depressing. The point here is that Maryland’s tenant laws are heavily biased in favor of landlords, who are also the party that disproportionately have legal counsel.”

Stewart’s plan to move Maryland into a better spot in those rankings involves a sort of omnibus bill of stronger tenant protections. “What the bill is really meant to do is to have a bunch of common sense measures where each individual one is kind of a no-brainer,” Stewart said,”but where you can package enough of them into one bill so that it’s really kind of an impactful change in our laws.” One such “no-brainer” included in the bill makes it easier for tenants to break their leases if they’re the victims of stalking, sexual assault or domestic violence. An earlier version of the bill would have also extended this option to tenants living in unsafe or unsanitary conditions like mold, pests, or structural defects.

“Right now in Maryland, to prove that you’re a victim of those calamities and those traumas, you basically have to either go to a court or a cop,” Stewart said. The Tenant Protection Act would add a third option for victims: have a licensed social worker or therapist attest that a tenant has been a victim of one of those situations. The bill also requires many landlords to allow tenants to use their apartment’s community room for free once per month for tenants’ association meetings, requires more transparency from landlords in how they bill for utilities, and mandates that they submit itemized receipts for deductions.

And while some provisions of the bill had to be cut, like one that would have shortened the amount of time landlords have to return security deposits from 45 days to 30, Stewart was opportunistic about the legislation’s chances to become law.

“I’m actually optimistic that even if the entire bill as introduced does not pass that something will pass,” Stewart said. “And that doesn’t necessarily at first blush sound like a big deal. But there are so few pro-tenant bills that have passed that do anything out of Annapolis in decades. So the fact that we have a window here where we may actually be able to do something is really exciting.”

What comes next?

As of this writing, the Planning for Modest Homes Act and the Tenant Protection Act are expected to become laws by the end of the Maryland General Assembly’s 2020 session, which is largely wrapping up early this week due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A special session during the month of May will be held to wrap up some legislative loose ends. We will update you on what happens.

And while the Social Housing Act didn’t make it out of committee, legislators are hoping to bring it back in 2021.

“The housing crisis is so deep and acute that we really need to throw the whole kitchen sink at it,” Stewart said. “It’s not sufficient just to strengthen tenant protections, it’s not sufficient just to create a public housing option, and it’s not sufficient just to relax zoning laws. We really need to do everything.”

Update: The Tenant Protection Act and the Planning for Modest Homes Act did not reach the Senate for a vote before the legislative session ended.