BALTIMORE – In June 2022, Angela Coleman filed with the Baltimore County Department of Housing and Community Development. The Owings Mills nonprofit wanted financial assistance to build 22 apartments after purchasing a one-acre site on Eastern Avenue near Beasley Lane in Bengies-Chase, a historically Black village in Middle River.
These units likely would have counted toward a looming deadline that Baltimore County must meet in 2027. Under a 2016 agreement reached with three county residents, a now-defunct nonprofit and the local NAACP chapter, the county must create 1,000 affordable housing units to solve a problem. 2011 federal housing complaint accusing the county of adopting racist housing policies.
Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszewski Jr. is confident the county will achieve that goal, but others, such as NAACP First Vice President Roland Patterson Jr., are skeptical, citing community resistance to similar, albeit the bigger, developments.
Coleman’s organization, Sisterhood Agenda, wanted to build housing for women experiencing trauma, with units reserved for people making up to 60% of the area’s median household income. While a typical developer would have built the maximum number, Coleman said she wanted to create distributed, “environmentally friendly, safe, climate resilient” housing while preserving 90% of the property.
In a federal housing complaint she filed earlier this year, she accused Baltimore County Councilman David Marks of targeting her company in a “personal vendetta” over zoning and violating “fair housing rights for us and the residents of Baltimore County during a housing crisis,” according to the complaint and a letter to Olszewski.
She also sued a neighbor who criticized the project for defamation, seeking $225,000, court records show. The Baltimore Banner first reported the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s investigation into Coleman’s complaint. Marks disputed Coleman’s claims, saying he was trying to preserve green space for one of Baltimore County’s oldest black areas.
That 1,000-unit deal came after the local NAACP chapter and the now-shuttered nonprofit Baltimore Neighborhoods Inc. complained that the province’s housing policies perpetuated segregation by concentrating low-income housing in poorer neighborhoods and demolishing 4,100 subsidized homes without replacing them.
By the end of this year, Baltimore County is on track to approve 979 units, with 865 scheduled for construction, said Olszewski and County Housing and Community Development Director Terry Hickey. Both are optimistic that the county will achieve its goal by 2027 of creating units affordable to households earning less than 100% of the region’s median income. In recent years, the county has created a housing agency, increased oversight of vacant properties and struck a deal with Harborplace developer P. David Bramble to set aside some units for affordable housing in exchange for tax breaks.
Olszewski said his administration recognizes that it often takes years for new developments to be built and approved. He encouraged his officials to repair existing units and look for ways to preserve existing units, with an eye toward achieving what he calls “feasible housing” aimed at middle-income people who earn too much to qualify come for subsidized housing, but not enough to buy. or rent without assistance. The median household income in Baltimore County is $122,200.
“Affordability is important. There is a certain stigma attached to it [affordable housing]and we don’t always think about the important parts,” he said. “We want high-quality buildings, but we also want it to be close to businesses and public transport. We want to look at what this project does to uplift surrounding communities?”
Maryland Housing Secretary Jake Day is also optimistic, noting that the political terrain has changed since 2016. Politicians in the US are now openly pro-housing and recognizing the national housing shortage. One-third of Maryland’s 96,000-unit shortage is concentrated in the Baltimore region, prompting passage of a statewide law that will allow some developments to bypass local-level obstacles when they pass in January becomes powerful. The legislation requires local governments to allow denser developments if they meet certain standards, such as if they are within 0.75 miles of a public transportation hub.
“People in positions of trust now realize that families are being crushed [by housing costs]”, said Day. ‘We can get out of here by building [more] housing.”
Patterson is skeptical that the excitement will extend to Baltimore County, where the council maintains strict control over land use and zoning.
“I hope they prove me wrong,” he said in an interview. “But there is a mentality of resistance to affordable housing.”
He pointed to the resistance to the Sisterhood Agenda and the hurdles faced by another affordable complex, Red Maple Place. Annapolis developer Homes For America has been trying to build 56 affordable units on a 5-acre property on East Joppa Road since 2017, but only recently declared victory after years of legal challenges that prevented its construction.
Residents near the East Towson project say it would take away green space and further degrade the historic district, which was home to descendants of formerly enslaved people and has since gentrified.
Patterson also pointed out that Olszewski is running for Congress and will not be the county executive in 2027. Not everyone in Towson shares Olszewski’s willingness to make this a priority, he said.
He pointed to the council’s recent vote during the 2024 comprehensive zoning process, at Marks’ request, to maintain a zoning ordinance that does not allow more than 5.5 units per acre on the property Coleman wanted to purchase.
“There have been several attacks on every phase of the project,” he said. The council expanded its authority over land use this year, vetoing a piece of legislation that Olszewski proposed to create mixed-use development and overriding its veto of an ordinance that would ban construction in areas with overcrowded schools ties.
HUD is investigating Baltimore County for alleged discrimination against Coleman, a Black woman, on the basis of race and gender, according to a May 1 letter from the agency.
Marks, a Republican from Upper Falls, disputed that he had a vendetta against Coleman, noting that the Bengies-Chase community has historically been a black enclave.
“I will not support merely transferring parkland, especially without strong review and support from the surrounding community,” Marks wrote to The Baltimore Sun on Friday. “I stand with those residents and will support protecting public lands from development, just as I have done throughout the Eastside.”
Day said he doesn’t think the latest state legislation will go far enough to boost housing production.
“The Baltimore County Council still has incredible local control,” he said. “It is normal for local officials to be very sensitive to pressure against change. They are exposed to the loudest voices saying, ‘Don’t do this.’
Marks and Council President Izzy Patoka, a Pikesville Democrat, dispute that characterization. Both agree the county has a mandate to create housing, but they want to preserve parks and green space, especially in more developed areas like downtown Towson.
Patoka, a former planner, said the answer was to redouble efforts, such as building more schools, redistricting to reduce overcrowding, and adding more capacity to the county’s aging sewer infrastructure to allow for more residents .
For his part, Marks said the province needs to acknowledge the recent population decline. More emphasis should be placed on smaller, spaced-out homes rather than “packing residents into denser developments,” he said.
“There’s no perfect answer to this,” Marks said.
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