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County Expands Housing Powers
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The county's expanded right of first refusal will be a useful instrument during negotiations with developers who might not otherwise include affordable units in their projects, said Richard Y. Nelson Jr., director of the county Department of Housing and Community Affairs.
Nelson, who co-chairs the affordable housing task force, said the right of first refusal "gives us another whole bunch of properties that we can be influential on."
"There is no single answer" to providing housing, he said. "We really need to have a bag of tools."
Among the other possibilities is building affordable housing on vacant county-owned land. Residences also could be built on top of libraries or fire stations, or incorporated into commercial areas, Nelson said.
"It's looking at all the different possibilities you have," Nelson said. "You're maximizing the use of land."
He emphasized the importance of keeping county-owned sites available for families with a wide range of incomes, such as two proposed developments in Olney and Bethesda, that would combine workforce and market-rate housing with units affordable for those earning 65 percent of the median income. Workforce housing is defined as being affordable to people who make between 80 and 120 percent of the local median income.
"You don't want to create enclaves of very poor families," Nelson said.
The county has regulations to ensure that large new housing developments include some affordable units, but prospects for large-scale construction are few.
"Because of limited new development, there's an interest on our part to help preserve the existing stock," Nelson said.
