Carroll officials ask: How affordable is it to live in the county?
In 2005, a Carroll County study found that median-income households earning $65,000 annually could afford fewer than 10% of the houses on the market in the county. Nearly 20 years later, the county is conducting a new study to determine if the affordability of housing has improved, remained the same, or worsened.
The Carroll County Housing Study Project asks residents to answer a series of questions about their own housing situation, including describing their current housing, whether they have moved in the last five years, and their opinion on the affordability of housing for seniors and young families.
Staff from the county’s Department of Planning and Land Management will attend a number of upcoming community events to gather input, including the Sykesville Arts and Wine Festival on Saturday and the New Windsor Fire Department Carnival on May 25.
The Board of Carroll County Commissioners voted unanimously at a meeting in November to hire Mosaic Community Planning, a consulting firm, to gather the input via the survey and analyze the answers, at a cost of $81,160.
“Mosaic’s Housing Study will provide Carroll County with a detailed analysis of the current housing stock, its availability, accessibility, adequacy, and affordability, as well as an assessment of the housing needed to meet future demand,” a county new release stated.
The information obtained from the survey will be a part of the county’s update of its master plan, a framework for future development decisions. The plan was last updated in 2015, and preparations are under way for another update.
The plan will map out how land is used in the future and will include a component on the types of housing needed for seniors, families and young couples.
The Carroll County Housing Study is intended to first identify the need for affordable and age-restricted housing. The study will also meet the requirements of the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Act of 2015, that requires an extensive analysis of local fair housing concerns, and a remedy to address any concerns, a county document states. The Fair Housing Act requires the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and its recipients of federal financial assistance, to do more than simply not discriminate.
The timeline for the study includes gathering input from residents through June, analyzing the survey answers collected and finalizing data in August. A final presentation on the information will be made to commissioners at a meeting in the fall.