This is a multi-part series making yet another effort to correct misinformation and false narratives surrounding housing in Howard County. See the post Tale As Old As Time for the first part in the series. See Perception vs. Reality for the second.
In the other posts in this series, I dispelled a number of myths and popular false narratives surrounding housing in Howard County. One of the most popular narratives you’ll hear in this county is that developers are greedy, profit-driven, and control everything. In this post, I’m going to tell you about one of the most profit-driven and powerful groups in the county: homeowners.
Like many of us in Howard County, my home is in a neighborhood with a homeowner’s association. I have very mixed feelings about these organizations, mainly because the Scots-Irish in me begins to twitch with rebellious ire when I think about the fact that I have to ask for permission to paint my own front door. At their core, HOAs are about giving homeowners collective power and control in the name of protecting property values. What I’ve noticed, however, is that the power of homeowners can extend beyond their own neighborhoods. Homeowners also have enormous political power on a macro level, where they band together to organize letter-writing campaigns, petitions, public testimony, resources, and rallies in opposition to anything in the greater community that might threaten their property values. Even a relatively small neighborhood full of homeowners has the power to tank an entire project if they’re loud enough.
And in Howard County, they can get pretty loud.
Jeremy Dommu of the Merriweather Post has written excellent coverage lately of the redevelopment of the Hickory Ridge Village Center. Hickory Ridge residents and their elected village board have managed to gum up the works of this project for five years, as they find the developer’s proposed plan to build apartments in the village center unacceptable. Some of the responses to a community survey about the village center proposal were patently offensive, as they predicted the apartments’ bringing crime, loitering, “transients” who aren’t “committed to the neighborhood,” and turning the area into “inner city Baltimore with slums galore.” (Wow!) Others used less inflammatory language to bemoan the belief that their neighborhood – most of which isn’t even within spitting distance of the village center – would have its character forever altered and property values irreparably harmed by the presence of apartments in the village center.
It gets worse when you consider whether these sentiments are representative of the entire community. Hickory Ridge is made up of three sections: Clary’s Forest (2,800 households), Hawthorn (1,309), and Clemens Crossing (649). Out of 639 responses to the community survey, the largest portion (41%) came from Clemens Crossing, the smallest area of Hickory Ridge by far, and 76% of respondents opposed the redevelopment proposal. And when an anti-redevelopment candidate slate was elected to the village board in 2021 – ensuring that the obstruction of the redevelopment is likely to continue – the total number of votes cast out of roughly 13,000 residents was only 815. This demonstrates clearly how a very small cohort of Hickory Ridge residents are exerting power over decisions that affect the entire village.
And then there’s the saga of the North Columbia Fire Station. A critical piece of infrastructure given the increasing density in downtown Columbia, the North Columbia Fire Station was originally planned for the site of the old Cedar Lane School to relieve pressure on the small, aging Banneker Station. But local residents and District 4 Councilmember Deb Jung pushed back on the project due to its proximity to Harper’s Choice Middle School and the potential disruption to students. (I guess it’s escaped their notice that Swansfield Elementary School is less than 1,000 feet from Howard County General Hospital’s ambulance bays and helipad and somehow everyone manages to get through the day.)
The county changed its plans, opting instead to place the fire station on a portion of Cedar Lane Park East, which would ensure better emergency access to Route 108. The station would have been situated on what is currently a soccer field, but the park would have been improved with an additional turf field, pickleball courts, and fitness areas. The homeowners living adjacent to the park pushed back on this, too, making disingenuous claims about destroying the park and increased traffic on Route 108. With the assistance – yet again – of Councilmember Jung, the project was sent back to the drawing board for a third time. Now, County Executive Calvin Ball has proposed placing the fire station on the HCPSS Central Office campus, which is on Route 108 and has two schools onsite. Suddenly, homeowners are no longer concerned about traffic on Route 108 and disturbance to schools. Interesting.
This is the power of homeowners, folks. A relatively small group of people can exert enormous control over what happens in this county. Whether it’s school redistricting, affordable housing, a fire station, or selecting a site for a desperately-needed high school, Howard County has shown how the power of homeowners protecting their property values can waste enormous public resources and money and impede progress to the detriment of the community at large. And this power negatively impacts housing affordability, school overcrowding, and public safety infrastructure while these homeowners cash in on our high housing costs.
Perhaps developers aren’t the only ones motivated by power and money.