The Baltimore County Council is expected to decide Monday whether it will give a $2 million loan to the developer of Red Maple Place.
The seven year debate over the 56-unit development in Towson has pitted the county’s need for affordable housing against an historically Black neighborhood that doesn’t want it.
It’s an issue that has scrambled the county’s political universe.
Two state legislators, Del. Cathi Forbes and Sen. Mary Washington, both Democrats, as well as the leader of a progressive group in the county oppose the loan for Red Maple. So does conservative Republican Councilman Todd Crandell, who noted that unusual alliance at a public hearing Tuesday night.
“I don’t know how often that’s going to happen,” Crandell said.
Here’s why Red Maple Place has made strange bedfellows.
Residents in the historically Black East Towson neighborhood have aggressively fought having the project next door. They say over the decades, their community has been chipped away.
Forbes, who represents East Towson, listed them: the Towson library, the district court, a BGE substation and the Towson Bypass.
“Which unfortunately did not bypass East Towson,” Forbes said. “They bulldozed more historic homes for a road that by all accounts is extremely underutilized.”
East Towson resident Nancy Goldring said she has traced her family back to formerly enslaved people at the Hampton plantation, about two miles away.
Goldring told the council, “The community of East Towson has been butchered to make the passage of traffic easier for people who do not live here.”
But the need for affordable housing is real, with the average cost of a home in Baltimore County pegged at around $370,000. Supporters of Red Maple Place said its site on Joppa Road is ideal. It’s close to jobs, bus routes and schools.
Red Maple’s developer is the non-profit Homes for America. Its president, Dana Johnson, said the apartments will be for working families.
“The subsidy, including the investment by the county, allows us to keep the rents low despite the fact that it costs us the same amount to build a building as it does a market rate developer,” Johnson said.
Opponents have also criticized the project for being a flood risk because it would sit on top of a tributary of Herring Run. But Terry Hickey, the county’s director of housing and community development disagreed, saying the development plan would actually improve stormwater runoff.
Hickey said, “I don’t say this to be dramatic, factually speaking, Red Maple Place may be one of the most scrutinized developments in county history.”
It’s that scrutiny, officials say, that has driven up the cost of Red Maple Place by nearly $10 million. Through years of legal challenges construction costs increased, so the developer is asking for the $2 million loan. That’s in addition to a similar loan the county agreed to give the developer in 2019. But Councilman Izzy Patoka doesn’t like the idea of using county money to develop what is now a rare wooded site in Towson.
“It just seems like we’re doing the wrong thing if we are subsidizing the loss of open space in inner beltway neighborhoods,” Patoka said.
Housing Director Hickey said a portion of the property would not be developed and that even if Red Maple Place doesn’t move forward, another building most likely will be developed there.
That building likely would not do what Red Maple does: 50 apartments in Red Maple would help the county reach its goal of 1,000 new affordable housing units by March of 2028.
That goal is part of a 2016 Voluntary Compliance agreement Baltimore County entered into with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to settle complaints that the county had violated the Fair Housing Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Hickey said the county currently has 908 approved units, including the 50 in Red Maple.
Dana Johnson with Homes for America warned that the loss of workers who can’t afford to live in Baltimore County could damage its economy.
“I’ll take the risk of trying to articulate what I think your role is, is to do what is in the best interests of the county at large and not what’s in the best interests of the neighbors,” Johnson said.
It looks unlikely that the loan will pass. A majority of council members confirmed they are opposed to it.
Johnson said if the loan is not approved, they will try to find a way to build Red Maple Place.
