Baltimore County Council approves new accessory apartment statute

According to the bill’s text, an accessory apartment is defined as a second living space that {span style=”font-size: 12px;”}is detached from a main house structure, or building constructed on the same lot of a main dwelling structure.

Previously, the statute only allowed for immediate family members to reside in accessory apartments. Now, the statute includes anyone who is related by blood, adoption or marriage to the residents of a main dwelling structure.

The legislation also removes a former provision that prohibits residents of a main dwelling structure from collecting rent from those residing in an accessory apartment.

“We are grateful to our Council colleagues who voted tonight to help ensure more families will be able to live together and more seniors will have the opportunity to age in place with dignity, surrounded by those that they love,” Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszewski said in a statement following the vote.

District 7 Councilperson Todd Crandell and District 3 Councilperson Wade Kach were the only two seats to go against the rest of council.

Crandell says the accessory apartment bill is “a subversion” of the county’s zoning classifications.

“Zoning classifications spell out this is the amount of dwelling units allowed in a particular area,” Crandell said. “This is an erosion of our land-use authority on the Baltimore County Council.”

The Republican councilman had previously said the bill will set up “further abuse” of rental properties throughout District 7, where he admits the council already has trouble enforcing the previous rental statutes.

Thus, the county council wants to monitor its implementation over the next three years to assess the impact of the accessory apartment bill.

“We have reports to our office numerous times of 10 or 20 people living in a household, and it’s largely unenforceable,” Crandell said. “We just don’t have the resources to surveil a property to see who’s coming and going, and see who’s actually living there.”

The passing of this bill completes a housing reform package introduced by Olszewski in January that included establishing a housing opportunity fund, modernizing county townhomes and establishing a new process to identify vacant properties.

Prior to the announcement of the housing reform package, an affordable housing work group listed Dundalk and Essex as potential pilot projects over the next two years to asses housing needs.

“Moving forward, Baltimore County remains committed to doing all we can to further expand access to safe attainable and equitable housing, and transform Baltimore County into a model for growth and inclusivity,” Olszewski concluded in his statement.

Meanwhile, the accessory apartment legislation did find bipartisan support from District 5 Councilperson David Marks, who was the only council Republican that voted to approve the bill.

Before the vote, Marks expressed how he was “conflicted” with the bill because the councilperson felt the accessory apartment legislation should have gone through the planning board.

“I thought that was a good advisory opinion that would help get us to a final bill,” Marks said.

Additionally, Marks was concerned over the re-zoning of the bill as the District 5 councilman has downzoned the most property in Baltimore County. However, the driving factor for Marks’ yes vote on the matter came from Baltimore County’s aging population.

“On the other hand, I do recognize the fact that we have 25 percent of our county population that are senior citizens, and we need to be encouraging more housing for those types of residents,” Marks said.