Of Course They Did

In 2019,  Baltimore County passed a law mandating impact fees through new developments.

In FY 2021 and FY2023, this law generated no money at all because the developers are aggressively gaming the system.

In the last two years, Baltimore County developers received almost 1,000 exemptions from having to pay fees that would have gone toward building public infrastructure, generating far less money than the county expected to recoup.

In 2021, developers received 539 exemptions. The following year, they received 459 exemptions, for a total of 998 exemptions, according to data from the Baltimore County Planning Board.

The Baltimore County Council passed a law in 2019, first introduced by Councilman David Marks, imposing fees on new construction to offset the effects of development on public schools, sewers and roads, which has become more urgent as almost a third of Baltimore County public schools are at or over capacity.

But a series of carveouts rendered the impact fees law largely ineffective, as the county did not recoup any money in fiscal year 2023, and only netted about $14,000 in fiscal year 2022, far short of the $5.7 million Baltimore County expected to reap when the council passed the bill in spring 2019. 

A law is proposed, and there is no politically supportable reason to propose it, so the developers proposed some tweaks, and these tweaks made the law worthless.

And you wonder why I hate real-estate developers.  (OK, actually it was my dad's experience as a city planner dealing with those rat-f%$#s)

………

Marks, a Perry Hall Republican, initially proposed the legislation known as the Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance in April 2019 that would have implemented a $3 per square foot fee on new construction, required developers to pay the cost before receiving a building permit, and required developers to start paying fees in July 2020.

“The bill that was passed was much different from the one I proposed,” Marks said.

The day in May 2019 when the County Council passed the bill, there “was a flurry of amendments authored by my colleagues” that “watered down the bill,” he said.

………

The county netted no money from impact fees in either fiscal years 2021 or 2023, Palmisano said.

Lori Graf, chief executive of the Maryland Building Industry Association, said she was not surprised at how little Baltimore County had recouped. Her group opposed Marks’ draft legislation on the grounds that levying more fees on construction would make homeownership more costly, particularly for lower-earning residents.

“We have concerns about adding costs to people’s houses when there is little supply,” said Graf, referring to a dearth of residential building in the Baltimore area.

Real estate developers are so evil that a Republican is one of the good guys.

Yeah, I know.  It buggers the mind.