House members overhaul Moore housing bill with ‘simpler’ amendments

Houses and businesses lining the streets of Annapolis on March 24, 2025. (Photo by Danielle J. Brown/Maryland Matters).

Lawmakers are scrambling to push through a heavily amended version of Gov. Wes Moore’s (D) priority “Housing for Jobs Act,” which may be the governor’s bill in name only at this point.

The bill that originally would have tied increased housing development to job growth in the state now calls for studies, the setting of housing goals and limited guarantees for developers.

The House Environment and Transportation Committee approved the amended version of the House Bill 503 Friday and will send it to the full House next week, when there will be just a week left in the session. The Senate is waiting for the House bill.

“This was the path forward that we found, and I think will provide meaningful changes while also setting, hopefully, a roadmap to the future to make even more meaningful changes,” Del. Dylan Behler (D-Anne Arundel), a member of the committee, said this week. “I know that there were a lot of conversations [between] … the governor’s office and other groups that care deeply about this and focus on lowering the cost of housing for Marylanders.”

Despite the changes, the Moore administration said in a statement that it’s “proud” of the amended bill and will “continue to work with legislative partners to pass it into law.”

“Maryland is facing a housing supply and affordability crisis and this legislation directly addresses it by creating regulatory certainty for housing production in Maryland,” the administration statement said.

When introduced, the governor’s bill was framed as an expansion on his housing package from last year. The original version aimed to expedite housing development by requiring counties to automatically approve most qualifying project requests if the state determines there is an imbalance between housing and jobs in the county.

Representatives from the Maryland Association of Counties quickly expressed “significant” concerns over the bill, particularly the language that would have forced counties to approve housing in some situations. MACo officials said in a recent statement that the bill is now more “streamlined” and that many of its initial concerns have been addressed.

Now, the bill creates a housing commission to study the state’s housing crisis and make recommendations to address the lack of affordable units in the state. It also calls on the state’s housing secretary to set a 10-year target for housing production in the state, while creating create subtargets for specific regions in consultation with county governments.

The bill also sets up “vesting rights” for developers, meaning that they would have a guarantee for five years that they can build on a property once a project is approved, and ensures that the developer is governed by the laws and policies issued at the time of a projects application.

MACo Executive Director Michael Sanderson believes the current, “simpler” version of the bill will have an easier time navigating the remaining legislative hurdles than the initial language. He said the administration bill was not helped by the fact that it did not get a hearing until March.

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX

“It’s just kind of unfortunate that this ended up being one of the bills that got a late hearing. Maybe if this whole process had started on Valentine’s day instead of March … we might have been further along,” Sanderson said.

He added that the amendments narrow the goal of the bill to the “essential elements that they (the administration) think could move the needle the most.”

“Nobody loves the idea of a task force or a commission as a resolution,” Sanderson said, “but sometimes on big issues, having the forum where you go hash this stuff out, that might be a more productive way.”

There is a Senate version of the legislation, Senate Bill 430, but Education, Energy, and the Environment Chair Sen. Brian Feldman (D-Montgomery) said he is waiting to see how the House settles the bill before the legislation moves in the Senate.

Housing Secretary Jake Day said that despite the language overhaul, the bill still incorporates an overarching goal of improving housing supply in areas that need it.

“I am grateful now that it seems like we are at a place where this can move, and I think many of the most important concepts remain intact — and look to me like they are going to move forward,” Day said. “I know we’re nearing the end, but … I still think it’s a bill that can move the needle on housing production and housing affordability.”

Citing the complete language overhaul, Del. Ryan Nawrocki (R-Baltimore) said the initial bill language was “clearly not ready for primetime.”

“It says to me that the bill was a flawed bill as it came to the committee, if we’re kind of rewriting the whole bill through amendments,” he said. “The significant rewrite … is the committee also acknowledging that there were serious flaws with that initial version of the bill.”

Nawrocki voted against the bill during Friday’s voting session, noting that he had some “heartburn” on the new vesting rights language, which could be a point of contention as it moves through the legislative process. But it still received overall approval in the House committee.

Day hopes that the bill passed this year will inform additional housing legislation in future sessions to help tackle the affordability crisis in the state.

“We’ll have to see what gets passed this year,” Day said. “Time is of the essence, and housing isn’t getting cheaper … We’ve got a lot of work to do on production. I think what comes back in future years really depends on the progress that is made this year.”