To the average person, the recent Charles County Housing Summit at the Jaycees Hall might have appeared as simply another moment in an endless history of academic discussions about social problems without any bother about coming to actual conclusions. However, the Charles County Commissioners had a goal in mind for this seminar beyond the usual aim of education which such meetings usually have. The commissioners wanted to come away from the day with workable suggestions.

The increasing popularity of Charles County as a settling place for people in the Washington, DC area and the general housing boom in the first half of this decade dramatically increased the cost of housing in the county since 2000. A four bedroom, single family house in a moderate, established Waldorf neighborhood which sold for around $175,000 in 2000 is now approximately worth $345,000 only seven years later.

Since salaries have not increased at an equal pace to housing prices, most local homes are beyond the reach of people at moderate or lower income levels. New apartment complexes are now billed as ‘luxury apartments’ and new neighborhoods under construction around the County are advertising their homes for sale in the $400,000 to ½ million dollar range. Not one current development offers modest ‘starter homes’ at anything approaching affordability for a working class salary.

The Department of Housing and Community Development’s list of local residents waiting for assistance from the county’s allotment of funding from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development is more than 2,300 names long. Housing and Community Development only gets enough funding from HUD to help about a little over 200 of those people annually. At the March 13th Board of County Commissioners meeting, Rita Wood of Housing and Community Development reported to the commissioners that her department was now serving applicants to the assistance list from 2004.

All of that makes the creation of affordable housing (also known as workforce housing) a very important topic locally. According to Board President, Commissioner Wayne Cooper, the commissioners wanted to get five suggestions out of the day’s effort at the Summit. To the board’s pleasant surprise, they came away with twenty workable ideas, many of which the commissioners are confident they can begin before the end of the calendar year.

Two suggestions from the Summit participants (denser housing units and a requisite percentage of homes in a new development set aside to be affordable for lower incomes) will require the cooperation of area development companies.

“We were impressed that developers wanted to work with the county [on this],” Cooper told The Bay Net. Several development firms were represented at the Summit. Commissioner Sam Graves was fascinated by a unique building plan presented by a developer: an apartment house which looked like a single family farmhouse on the outside. 

Commissioner Reuben Collins II appreciated that all the seminar participants now had the same definition of workforce housing. He left the Summit feeling certain everyone in the room was committed to finding or creating ways to make housing more affordable. Collins told The Bay Net he expects and hopes his fellow participants will keep pressure on the board of commissioners to act on the results of the Summit, to keep things progressing.

Board Vice-President, Commissioner Edith Patterson told The Bay Net the Summit was the first step toward affordable housing solutions. She expects the participants of the seminar to return to their agencies and educate the rest of their staff and co-workers. Patterson was quite pleased with the number of Summit participants and the variety of organizations they represented.

Commissioner Gary Hodge told The Bay Net, after hearing all the suggestions from that day, he left the Summit confident for the first time that the combined efforts of the people in attendance could really work out ways to make housing affordable for the county workforce. The goal suddenly seemed concrete, achievable.

The 2007 Housing Summit Report, including those twenty ideas, which inspired the commissioners with such confidence, will be available on The Bay Net as soon as it is finished and released. .