The City Council is on a roll! In one week it all but ensured Baltimore residents will be plagued with horrible – and horribly expensive – water service for decades. And Friday, to top it off, Mayor Catherine Pugh and members cut a deal with housing advocates to make certain real estate more pricey in the name of “affordable housing.”
The kicker: they made the pact with housing advocates without a public hearing. That means opponents have zero say on how it could impact housing costs for the vast majority of residents whose homes and apartments will remain unaffordable after the proposed 4,100 are fixed up and sold or rented to people who meet the right criteria. For advocates who constantly talk about the “backroom deals” developers make with the city, this smells just the same. And it will have the same results: a few will benefit at the expense of the rest.
The agreement would make buying and selling housing above $1 million more expensive by raising transfer and recordation taxes on property at or above that price. Supposedly this will raise $13 million annually, with the city kicking in up to $7 million annually to fund a trust.
The figure assumes a steady number of people will want to buy houses at that price. What if they don’t? What if buyers in that range choose Baltimore County or Florida, like so many other former city residents who have left the city for lower-taxed regions in and out of state? Remember, this is a city whose population reached a 100-year nadir in 2017 after historic outmigration in recent years.
