>> Good morning. Thank you for the introduction. I am with the Maryland department of planning and zoning, and I will bring an architecture view to the issue. I am honored to have been invited and open the symposium. I feel a little out of place.
We'll talk about Howard county and take questions at the end.
Or maybe I'll make bird images. Let me tell you about Howard county to begin with. It's a very small county in Maryland, fairly small state in the U.S., on the East coast, wedge wedged between Baltimore and D.C., a population of 300,000 and growing. The median next is the fifth highest in the nation, presenting a number of challenges: 84% of the people live on 64% of the land serviced by sewer and water. You have hopefully heard of Columbia, the pioneering community planned by the late James James Rouse. Brings challenges to us in the planning profession, developing plans for the aging population and the rest of the jurisdiction. >>
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This will just take about five minutes to fix this -- Steve Jacobs: I wanted to apologize for this delay. I tried fixing a PowerPoint presentation just before the speaker went on, I messed up the original, 34R50EZ stand by, and in five minutes we will have it reloaded up to the server, and we will begin again. Thank you for your patience. I appreciate it. >>
this is the first presentation of the morning, so we hope this will be the first bug, and last. Your audio will not be available to you, text is the way you will communicate. And your comments and questions will be brought up to the presenters.
And thank you for joining us. >>
we're going to start at the beginning for all the people who -- I am going to turn it over to Steve later. Good morning.
I am Laffer thety. I hope we have our technology under control now.
As I indicated, Howard County is a small county, second smallest in Maryland, between Washington D.C. and Baltimore, in a small state. Approximately 275,000, median age a little under 35. A lot of parts of the country, we are aging as well. A lot of highly trained professionals because of the Washington D.C. /Baltimore out commuting. Also the home of Columbia, one of the leading planned communities, planned in the 60s, by the late James Rouse, gone on to develop Woodlands and other such communities.
Howard County also has the top-ranked school system in the state, as we get into age-restrictive senior housing -- also has -- adding additional challenge from a planning perspective, we have other cultural influences we need to take into account and we are probably a little behind the curve right now, appreciating that impact.
One thing the county faces, housing crises, average pricing for homes is over $450,000. New houses average over 650,000, and if one looks at average next of $82,000, you can rapidly see it's difficult to afford house ing in our jurisdiction. You can probably see in the graphic, in 2001 the average condo was 90,000, as of last fall it was over 240,000. On the single family detached side, now over 600,000. Prices have rapidly escalated, true across the country and dramatically true in Howard County.
I will tell you a little about the aging of Howard County itself. A median next of less than 35 years, 19% of the county is 55 or older. We use 55 because of our definition in zoning of age-restrictive communities. The growth rate over the next few years, we are expecting a 82% increase, and by the year 2020, 126% increase in the number of people over 55. So actually, by the year 2030 we are expecting well over 30% of the county to actually be over the age of 55. Fastest growth rate is in the upper range, people basically between 75 and 79, and the age group over 80. Like many other parts of the country, challenged because people are living longer, and housing needs are going to have to change.
I'll pretend you can see this. It was a housing chart of the population growth, and we expect over over 97,000 people to be over the age of -- by 2030. A sharp increase that will challenge us as we move forward.
This map, which I am probably in the way of some of you -- trys to indicate basically the location of the aging population in the county. It's concentrated largely in the East, Columbia community, and -- city. We don't have any municipalities, the location of the aging community, and I will probably use senior, older adults, aging, I apologize. Locating servetion services near senior centers, bus routes. You will we Cookville, rural areas, beyond the service boundary.
In 2004 we undertook the creation of a senior housing master plan. This came about through -- efforts over a few years looking at changing demographics, and going through -- process, the senior community stepped forward and said we need to focus on housing needs of people as they age. The purpose was to examine the current housing situation, and ways to address people as they aged in place or a different type of housing to live in. A county initiative, workgroup set up, different agencies from department of housing, office of aging, license and permits people, as well as department of planning. We then set up an advisory group realizing if it was going to be successful it could not be agency or governmental driven. We were able to bring together advocates, realtors, developers, attorneys that do zoning work. One failure was that we probably needed a couple of engineers at the table because of issues we subsequently addressed.
We focus focussed on three areas: Existing, and currently being developed, and affordable housing in the county. Other key concepts that came throughout that we knew would distract us because of the intensity we would have to focus on. One was provision of services, transportation services, need for senior centers, in-home healthcare, other range of considerations, as well as yiewfersdz as well as universal design elements.
didn't like -- they included, changed it to make it consider. So we will consider improving the house, not improve the housing. That was a little disturbing, nonetheless we have moved forward to implement many elements of the plan.
elected officials, their timidity at times puzzles me. We have about 97,000 housing units in the county, and of that that nearly 2300 beds in satisfying living and nursing homes. We have another 2000 senior apartments, age-restriktd units in the county as well. This is a housing type that's growing.
We have a range of housing, age-restricted adult housing, a separate category for people 55 or older.
Continued care, satisfied living, nursing homes, a number of tax credit projects, as in many places, competitive, and obviously a lot of independent living opportunities, not only in facilities, but the largest percentage of people remain in their own homes. L i k e other jurs dictions, we have NORC's, intengessifying in the 60s and 70s, those of us a little older -- 30, 40 years ago, a number of communities that developed in the aging population stay ing in place. The naturally occurring communities where the children are older, no longer in the community, and the housing needs remain significant. Heaviest concentration is in the Columbia community and we have a lot of people literally pioneers, moved into Columbia in the 60s and remained because of the social consciousness that developed in the community, individuals in their 60s and 70s, and almost by definition, a retirement community because of the -- in place.
Most of the housing has actually been built on land -- a third half-acre, some larger, the ability of people to remain in their house, stay in control of decision-making is increasingly an issue. People who want to remain in their home, we have seen by our statistics, about 70% prefer to stay in or nearby their current home. Yet there's an increasing number of people, almost 50%, demo graphic study done in -- need for modification, improvements, increasingly significant concern because of the availability of contractors, cost of home repair, and third, this is particularly -- don't mean to sound gender biased, but widows who relied on spouses to take care of -- reluctant to have contractors come into their home. To find contractors, reliable contractors. A lot of gypsies that go from house to house and take advantage of people.
Then the last element is most of this housing, may be ranch homes, two-story or not, readily accessible, with steps, other impediments to the use of the home, and a half acre of land is a lot of maintenance and upkeep.
You see, especially with some of the older, more frail seniors the need for more modifications, such as ramps, replacement of door handles, grab bars, other access rees within the house in order to allow people to remain in the house and be accessible does provide -- in the home. To help people make home assessment assessments, and make improvements, finding contractors to do this is another challenge. And the national home builders have a category of certified aging specialists, to focus on the aging need, we have five in the county, not that many in the entire state.
The last element is zoning related, the need for seasessible apartments -- we would like to encourage more to be built. We think one, allowing children to come back in the house, letting the parents stay in the -- that's not as big, or parent and children and access ree unit to give satisfiance to the parents, or older individual who finds themselves without -- [audio a little choppy]
Couple of nursing homes, the state of Maryland regulates the number of beds that can be in continuing care facilities, other nursing facilities, and at this point we worked hard to provide Medicaid waivers to fund in-home modifications to provide healthcare, other care so people can stay in place. We are looking to the state to actually provide more resources through the Medicaid waiver provisions.
we looked at existing housing stock, recommendations we came down to. Part of this is an education process in the community. Home-building community, civic community essentially, to involve people in helping us to help the seniors. We have as many places -- building together -- can be of support -- creating partnerships with businesses and other organization. We look to increasing the size of access ree apartments, limited limited to 800 square feet, we have asked to go up to 1200. One thing we hear continually, wouldn't it be nice to provide more units that are smaller so people could down size. As we have seen in the new housing piece as well. When people look to down size in Howard county they are coming from a 3800 square foot unit to -- when people down size they have possessions, lifestyle, they want to get rid of the exterior responsibility responsibilities but keep the interior the land to be built out is extraordinarily limited still. We have an annual housing modification process now, in order to measure the growth, and one respect it's back-fired. Allowed us to manage the build out, pressure on services and systems not to great, but by limiting allocation it's ratcheting up the pricing because the demand is there but units not there to meet the demand. For age-restricted units we now have actually a set-aside of 250 units. Annually 250 can be given the right to move forward in the development process.
The intent is obvious, to create smaller units you have to incentivize the community, something needed, for seniors and also people just starting in the housing unit. Age-restrictive units require 10% be set aside for -- next people, moderate. At 80% of the area median or less. We acquire universal design features to be in place in all of the units, in the facility. Require. And also require a community center to be built. If you are builting a facility for -- you need to provide a gathering place for people to foster or maintain socialability. If your unit is smaller, you want a birthday party or something, let the community have something useful. Four districts in the county allow age-restrictive units, others by conditional use . With that comes certain density -- >> R are
our first -- build out by 2030 to -- u nits annually. As I said earlier, our schools being top-ranked in the state, that put a lot of people interested in coming to Howard County for their children to be educated. That was one reason for setting aside age-restrictive units. The school's capacity won't allow construction, because if you go over 130% of the school's capacity you can't build in that planning area. So by taking allocations for seniors, seniors don't have children, therefore you can build the units, also allows for the needs of the aging community were built and 700 more approved for construction, both in 2005 and 2006, approximately 1200 age-restrictive units are in the pipeline. Because of school capacity and development process it generally takes three years from the time you start the plan to actually begin building. In some parts of the county, because of schools, we are expecting leech a actually a longer period of time, because school capacity is that constrained, and the school system has not been forward enough looking, unfortunately. >>
this map is intended to show the location of the projects approved or in the pipeline, all in the East, all on sewer and water, near roads, transportation systems, and senior centers have built up near these projects. >>
The two maps that do not show, you simply intended to show the amount of available land, or lack of available land. There's certainly land in the rural West outside the sewer and water area. The challenge there is because sewer and water, well and septic make it much more difficult to support big units, the number of units to be built is very limited, and part of the challenge we face, people who grew up in the rural West don't want to move to Columbia or -- they want to stay in the communities they knew, small village areas, former farm land that's now been built out a little bit. How do you provide for the individual's needs, so they can age in place, in an area that's tough to support larger communities.
In the East, because the land is actually limited, we're starting to see more tear-downs, two acres of land with one older house, the house being torn down, multiple units being built on the land. We will be seeing a different type of housing stock and a loss of some of the older. The challenge of zoning is on a number of fronts. Making sure there's enough moderate next housing urk housing units, zones to increase density, that legislation just changed, they can go up to 12 units per acre but provide more modern -- if they go to that range. We have pretty steer ill housing types. We have been looking at, been curious about something we are referring to as multiplexes, if anybody here is engaged in that kind of construction I would love to have a conversation with you. We have seen this in Virginia in Fairfax county, looks like fairly large single-family houses, but actually have several units in the structure, separated by vertical walls, three or four entrances, and we proposed a zone as opposed to this housing type, no more than -- square feet, if you want to build -- units, four units, about 1200 per unit, trying to simulate smaller unit construction, but also have the house not be so incompatible with the surrounding communities. That's an issue that's been very big. Part of the senior housing management plan, a lot of the discussion had to do with compatibility, how do you do it respectful of the existing community and meets the needs of the residents of the new facility. Buffers, set-backs, architectural types. We don't have design review but we're moving in that direction, an element to look at.
We want to look at different ways to actually create drchght create different products, and the image on the previous slide, if anybody has seen that in the Louer part, looks like a single family home, but you see in Howard County, big houses, called McMansions in our parts.
Howard County back a few years ago actually started acquiring universal design be incorporated in all age-restrictive units. This means accessible paths to cars and -- in single-family detached we have requirements, no-step entrance, front door width of 36 inches, all interior doors have 32-inch clearance, you close or open a door it reduces clearance. Successful -- on first floor, and master bed room on first floor or if not, having an elevator installed. We encouraged builders to look at stacking closets, first and second floor closet above each other to install an elevator later. At least it's already set up that way. A reason we had license and permanents people involved with our master plan.
Talking about our builders, we have an organization called Homes for Life, advocating for universal design and accessibility, they acknowledged two builders in the county, one is national -- homes, for their efforts on universal design. Although it's a struggle, unfortunately we have some trying to be more creative and open, one problem is we have a lot of national builder and they do one type of house and it's hard for them to just, create the units that meet the needs of the community.
I mentioned we didn't have an engineer on the work group, that person could have helped us understand some of the engineering challenges we have met as we build out. A couple of other features required, lever handles on interior spaces as opposed to knobs. If people have limitations with grip that will be important. Wall switches, clearance space in bathroom and kitchens, recognizing the need for people to be mobile and more flexible in their own houses. We also set out two other features. ne is desirable and custom. This is based on our negotiation with home builders, advocates, understanding the advocates, every front entrance should be covered because people are waiting to get in the house, have a chair, walker or something, they need to be protected from the elements. Builders balked at that, also door approaches having clearance adjacent to the handle of the door so people would have adequate space if they are trying to get in the doorway. And on sinks and kitchen facilities to have -- handles as well. Custom features include handrails on both sides of stair ways, closet rods that are justable. Things that could be negotiated between the builder and the buyer.
One of the challenges we faced has to do with n o-step entrances. One challenge is we want to see people have a front door entrance, however what we have seen because of product types, full basements require construction so beam is above grade, lots are smaller, hard to get the 1:12 slope, we are seeing construction methods that really don't facilitate steps on front entrances. Some builders are willing to work with us, but this is difficult. We don't have Sandy soil, more clay, the run-off and drainage presents a problem that we are grappling with, with the engineers.
Some of you may be familiar with bowel Bowling Brook, , Illinois, we don't this type of -- in Howard County. The lower picture, told by some builder builders, a lot of planting to mask the ramp, people don't want ramps. So in Howard County one of the builders came up with a clever idea that licensing people freaked out about. You can't really see, unfortunately, too well, the top one, but the doorway has a ramp that goes like this. If you have seen skateborders, it's like that kind of skateboard ramp, but a little more gradual. Their thought was one, you have to get the drainage away from the house if you have rain, but this would be sloped gradually enough. Actually a gentleman in an electrickified wheelchair was able to get up without a problem. They said the problem isn't someone in that kind of chair, but if you come out and there's any ice or anything, a person may have a problem. Can't do that. Only alternative then is an entrance through the garage which advocates say is acceptable, but frankly I find very disturbing. It's an issue of how to be respectful of people who don't have the physicallability to come into a house. We are still grappling with this no-step entrance requirement. It's not going to be easy. We have had stop-work orders issued for some because they literally haven't been able to make the grade.
Some of the policy recommendations, promoting universal design, improving compatibility and infill of existing communities; trying to promote more creative design approaches. Again, this has been well-received by the home-building community, but their challenges because of methodologies has not kept up with the changing need.
The last section we dealt with, last issue, actually wove throughout all of this, the affordability challenge. I indicated earlier, we serve the overall housing pricing in the county. Even new age restrictive units are selling for between -- and 500,000. An holder resident, you apply different standards, what most people have, 55 or 60, the eh quite coming of the house, it's not the regular next as much as the quite. At the same time, if you are selling your current house for the low number, 4 or 500,000, and you have to spend 650,000 for the new unit your quite is gone, and you have other health needs and family demands. This pricing challenge is one the county executive -- to look at higher range of issues, permeating the community, older residents are even more challenged.
Some of the barriers we see, because we have a lot of condominium communities, increased number of gated communities, the homeowner chip fees, condo fees, hoa fees, use of joint environment, and people moving into communities where they have lower outside maintenance because it's done by the condo association. The fees -- if you are 65 years old, paying 3 or 4,000 in a addition to other taxes. A very significant impediment. And paying as much as 50 to 60% of next as a rental -- diminishing -- >>
As I said earlier, we require new construction, 10% be set aside for moderate next, not nearly sufficient, and we will be looking at increasing that. & %F0 M aybe the key thing that did come through with this slide, shows housing prices are so high. This is intend to do show you that, you look at standard way of calculating next as opposed to affordability of unit, that nexts are not keeping up at all with the cost of units in Howard county. Often three times the gauge of what you can afford, no-interest loans, 40-year balloons coming into play don't make it easier for people to afford units. >>
So where do we stand as a way of trying to reduce pricing. One is to foster creation of 1- and 2-bedroom units, number of suggestions made, eliminate the requirement of community center, e limit eliminate that price, the HOA costs, these are ideas. Really, anything I said today that you want to share your ideas, thoughts, support, opposition, I welcome the opportunity. We are pioneering a little bit in what we are trying to do here in Howard count. W e a l s o know some of the older houses, ranch houses, candidates for people to age in place. If it's a quarter acre of land you can't subdivide, what do you do with the land if you are 70 and don't want to month the lawn every week. How do you take care of the property though the unit may be workable for a person to live on one level?
Also, looking at taxing and financing, incentives, ways for the community to be more creative. >> >> >>
The changing demands of cower our county require creative approaches. Not as creative as many of you in the room, but in ways not done in Howard County to date. We have to be creative in the zoning front, focus more and more on existing housing, where most older residents are still living, need to respect existing communities because of pressure on the land, greater infill, how you create facilities that are compatible, not overwhelming in size or scale and actually fit. We need to push universal design more, get the home building community to understand the ways they can reengineer their product, meet needs of residents. They are not asking for -- asking for these different things. I say are you asking them? They say no, waiting for them to ask us. National home building surveys show that of the builders they surveyed, 53% found people were resistant to having ramps and other modifications. Another 40% were not. To me it's an education issue, making sure the consumer and builders understand what their options can be.
We have been asked to waive universal design requirements, you have to meet the need or you don't get the permanent. We talk every day on projects, and we also have to recognize you can't give in to -- nim beeby -- recognize there's a need for communities to be a little different than that's been there in the past. Changing population, we need better cultural sensitivity to small group homes, other facilities. We have a very substantial Korean community in Howard County, they advertise in Korea for the high school actually, but because of that other issues we need to undertake, look at technologies, new technologies to incorporate in design and be a better help to the senior community.
All of that being said, I think we are very proud of where we have taken this issue of senior housing product, and also recognize that zoning alone isn't going to do it, education alone isn't, and it will have to be a totality of efforts by the community as a whole. I want to thank you. >>
At this time we will open it up for questions. Stand up, let us know your question, and Steve is going to repeat the question for our online audience. >> q uestion about primary units, attachments, impact on social services and Benjamin Netanyahu fits eligible. Yes, has to be attached. Some people say I want to build access ree apartment in my garage, above garage. Well, a brees way to be attached. One way, now a limit on the length of the breezeway because 40-foot brees way is not really attached. Yes, it does have to be part of the main house in one form or another. The second, social services impact, I don't know the answer to that. I don't know if they retain ownership, have a life e state in the house, I don't know if that is considered a transfer of asset. Just the residency. If residence residency. If they rent it out they have to have a license in the county as well. >> >> >> Q u e s t i o n a b o u t handrails on two sides of the stairs, a custom feature, not required because so many people get hurt falling on stairs. As a matter of fact, my wife who is with us today fell and broke a vertebrae herself on stairs. I don't disagree, the stairwell would need to be wider, and goes back to the custom way in which most units are built. You have a standard staircase that they can drop in. You need to have a wider one to accommodate two rails, then. We have not, at least heard many other advocates raise that as an issue yet. But as that community is growing in the county, people age, become more limited in their abilities to move, I expect that to be an issue. I will take that back, thank you. >>
The question has to do with additional cost or costing out of these universal design element and what additional cost is that. Well, the builder who was trying the small ramp, the no-step access, I don't know if he's costed out the amount of concrete he would have poured to do that. What we have seen, it's been shown nationally, really, you are talking about 2% as additional cost audience comment -- $8,000. Well, except probably actually could be less, because lever handles are not that much more expensive than a doorknob. Having a little wider hallway for ADA, meeting standards anyway, you have doorways made wider almost by standard these days. I think the challenge becomes. No-step entrance cost and we haven't gotten to the point, seen many seen many units come online with no-step entrance. >>
question about the access ree apartment. A unit built on to the main house. You build a room to the back, one or two stories that's actually a accept rat apartment occupied by other members than the regular members of the household. >>
A question
a question about the funding used. The office of aging gets community development block grant funds through the housing of community development for low-next individuals. And funding staff and money into the operating cost for actual -- but primarily a block grant for community -- & % F 0
Modifications, repro-fit, nu new construction. It's for new construction. We haven't seen money -- for retrofits come in. >> >>
Question had to do with other accessibility, have we looked at other accessibility issues for people other than those who have physical limitations, such as anybody with -- or cognitive impairment. Why I mentioned about the need to look at technologies differently. We have not done that, from at least maybe too my Optically planning view, it's beyond our purview, more to -- the advocacy community is focussing mostly on physical accessibility. Clearly, people with limited sight or other impairments need to have their needs met, we just haven't gotten to the technologies in the same way. >>
The question is whether the universal design requirements are for all units or only age restrictive. They are only at this point for age restricted. The advocacy community urged every builder of every house in the county to install universal design elements. Makes sense, you don't have to be over 55 to need greater accessibility within the unit. I think it's -- most -- moves incrementally. Seeing it's do-able, not an additional burden financially will help the building community get on board with us, and will help them marketing their units. >>
a question came in online, who performs the home assessments to determine the owner's needs for modification. This is done in our office of aging, we have two staff members, one who is an occupational therapist, actually goes out, visits with the homeowner, helps make assessment about their mobility, limitations, and then to recommend whether it's grab bars in the baght room, other interior moddive occasions, exterior such as a ramp, and done by staff members. >>
question on -- wheelchairs, walkers, to go help with home assessment. My understanding is the home for life coalition, the gentleman is in a wheelchair, available to go out and work with them in that's required. Again, thank you very much, if you have suggestions for me, you are welcome to take them back, have a conversation with me before you leave today.
Thank you. >> prez
Because we had a later start, I invite you to go to the bathroom, stand up,
and we will take five minutes before we start our next presentation. Thank you.
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