CDN Members and Friends!

We have just come back from being in Annapolis full-time to work on legislation and increase funding to meet the needs of people in our communities and further your efforts.

I am excited to report we had a very successful General Assembly, passing 9 of 13 priority bills and increasing funding for for Community Legacy.

More details are in this newsletter. Click on the bill numbers to get the full description and see the language of the bills.

Stay tuned for details about our upcoming Regional Coalition meetings. Legislators will join us for those to give their reflections about the General Assembly, we will report in detail on our successes, and get feedback from you as to what we should starting working on for next year.

Thank you for all your help this year! Thanks also to all of our bill sponsors and legislative champions!

PASSED! HB109/SB821 Community Development Fund . This creates the Community Development Fund, which will include operating and capital dollars. This is the third year we presented this bill and it finally passed. There is no funding in this fund at the moment, we are working with a consultant to come up with a good funding source. Sponsors: Delegate Lafferty, Senator Madaleno.

INCREASED FUNDING! After many long years, Community Legacy funding was increased by $2 million, to $8 million total! Thank you to all of you who came to Annapolis, called and wrote your legislators. This is an important step to provide more funding for community development!

Thank you to the House Appropriations Capital Budget Subcommittee and the Senate Budget and Taxation Capital Budget Subcommittee!



CDN led the Tax Sale Task Force established by legislation in 2017. This Task Force met four times over the interim, and came up with a package of bills to prevent homeowners from losing their homes due to unpaid water and tax bills, and address vacant properties that have tax sale issues with them. The full report can be accessed here . We were honored to work with the Maryland Association of Counties, Maryland Municipal League, Pro Bono Resource Center of Maryland, Maryland Volunteer Lawyers Service and many others to create and move this legislation. We also want to thank the staff of the Budget and Taxation Committee and Ways and Means Committees for their work as well. Our legislative champions listed under each bill deserve a huge medal!

PASSED! SB952/HB1465 Homeowner Protections. This legislation provides several protections for homeowners in case they are late on their water bills or property tax bills in order to avoid going to tax sale. Protections include a hotline to call to connect to a nonprofit to help the homeowner through the process and possibly get a payment plan or qualify for other discounts, and also notice about the Homeowners Tax Credit for those late on their property taxes. This is a statewide bill. Sponsors: Senator Eckardt, Delegate Walker

PASSED! HB556/SB466 Waiver of Estate Fees. This legislation requires the register of wills in jurisdictions to waive fees for opening estates in the cases for resolving tax sale issues and only in the case of financial hardship. Sponsors: Senator Eckardt, Delegate Sydnor

PASSED! SB709/HB923 Water and Sewer Bill Affordability. This legislation enables jurisdictions to create affordability plans and payment plans to assist low income residents. It also encourages jurisdictions to create “round up” policies, where homeowners can round their water bills up and the extra go into a fund that can be used to help those who might otherwise not be able to afford their bills. Sponsors: Senator Eckardt, Delegate Walker

PASSED! SB468/HB1073 Water Bills from Landlords to tenants. Under this legislation, landlords who own one and two-unit buildings must produce a copy of the water bill to the tenants and only when the lease says that the tenant is responsible for paying the water bill. Sponsors: Senator Eckardt, Delegate Holmes

PASSED! SB951/SB1112 Vacant Property. This legislation provides more tools to jurisdictions to address vacant and abandoned properties that do not sell at tax sale. The tools include releasing liens on properties that don’t sell at tax sale to be able to provide clear title to a third party, and removing properties from tax sale that are slated for redevelopment. Sponsors: Senator Eckardt, Delegate Holmes

PASSED! HB78/SB222 Foreclosed Property Registry updates: This legislation requires the secured party to provide any updates to the Foreclosed Property Registry and DLLR would send a notice to the relevant local government that an update had been made. This bill was left over from last session, and was one of the first ones passed this year. Sponsors: Delegate Holmes, Senator Kelley

PASSED! HB108 Baltimore Regional Neighborhood Initiative: This legislation makes a correction in the current Baltimore Regional Neighborhood Initiative legislation to remove local resolution and make some other small technical changes. The program requirements are now consistent with all the other programs in Maryland DHCD.   Sponsor: Delegate Lafferty

PASSED! HB 279 Maryland Mortgage Program changes: The legislation streamlines the homebuyer education requirements for participation in the Maryland Mortgage Program by taking out the provision that the jurisdictions dictate the requirements. This legislation also makes clear that buyers can take the required homebuyer education class online and the certificate is portable. Sponsor: Administration

INCLUDED! Affordable Housing Budget language: CDN also inserted language in the budget that requires Maryland DHCD to do two things to address the affordable housing crisis in our state: (1) conduct a comprehensive analysis of the affordable housing needs in the state every 4 years, with the upcoming year being the baseline, and (2) that DHCD has to come up with a plan to prevent 25,000 families from losing their affordable units by 2020 because the subsidies and financing on those units are about to expire.   



Thanks to all of you for your time and support! We look forward to working with you throughout the year and getting ready for next year.

If you are interested in joining our policy committee please let me know. That committee determines our agenda based on your priorities collected during the Regional Coalition meetings and conversations throughout the interim.

I look forward to seeing you soon.

Odette Ramos

Executive Director