Right now Council is exploring the Administration’s proposed amendments to Laurel’s affordable housing legislation passed back in 2023.

If you’re curious to see the conversations thus far, I’ve queued up the following two videos to the related agenda items at the:

In addition to thoughts shared there, I also thought it might be helpful to mention additional ideas for bringing about affordable housing in Laurel:

  • One thing to acknowledge about the legislation, is that while it impacts new developments, it doesn’t really impact the wider Laurel housing market (which we all hope would be affordable as well).

  • Some solutions being pursued by other jurisdictions around the country to impact housing prices in their general markets are: (a) streamlined process to make larger homes duplexes or similar, (b) provisions around Additional Dwelling Units (ADUs) on existing real estate, (c) infill of existing land parcels with starter home kits, (d) pre-approved starter house building plans that thereby reduce the cost of building, and similar.

These types of solutions help create supply on multiple rungs of the ‘housing ladder’, and set anchor points at the low end, which has the effect of creating a much broader impact on housing prices. I suspect these ideas and ones like them may also be part of a solution to creating affordable housing for all.