The schools, the parks, the location: Howard County — the birthplace of Columbia, a community designed to foster integration — has spent decades building up a reputation as a distinctly Maryland treasure, one where families have lined up to live.

But now it’s far and away the most difficult Baltimore-area community to get a foot in the door, and more people are questioning whether the county has opened itself wide enough for households of all incomes to step through.

Healthy real estate markets typically have about a six-month supply of homes at any given time. Howard County has just a few weeks’ worth.

In April, the median sales price stood at about $630,000, meaning half of all homes sold for more than that. That dwarfs the regional median sales price of about $435,000. A majority of Howard County homes sell in under a week, tied for the fastest in the area. The average rent price, meanwhile, has jumped to about $2,250, a nearly 40% increase over the same time a decade ago, according to Zillow data.

Though some progress has been made under County Executive Calvin Ball, the second-term Democrat’s administration has not solved the affordability crisis; home and rent prices have only ballooned.

Housing providers and advocates in Howard County say it’s become a full-blown crisis that threatens to displace first-time homebuyers, teachers and more.

“It’s a real and a very serious problem,” said Jessamine Duvall, executive director of the Columbia Housing Center, a nonprofit that offers a referral service for renters and landlords and other social services.

“We have, kind of, hit a tipping point where it’s not somebody else’s problem anymore.”

Howard County is, in some ways, running against both local and national trends. The number of houses for sale is perking back up nationwide and regionally, and homes are taking slightly longer to sell than they were last year, signaling some reduced pressure in the market.

And yet inventory in the Baltimore region has recovered more slowly since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic than almost everywhere else in the country, according to national data from Realtor.com.

Felicia Novotny Davis and her husband, Connor, are feeling that squeeze. The couple, a teacher and a research mathematician, live in Columbia and are expecting their first child this fall.

The first-time homebuyers had high hopes of raising their new addition in Howard County, and began to search in earnest earlier this year. They once thought they could wait for interest rates to cool before making a move. But it became “very clear, very fast” that finding the right house in Howard County would not be so simple, Novotny Davis said.

She said they rescinded one accepted bid after the home inspection found “monumental” problems that would cost them tens of thousands of dollars to fix. And they’ve seen homes in their range sometimes going for $40,000 more than the listing price. As the clock ticks, they’re starting to lose hope.

The couple live in a walkable part of town and had hoped to find a place nearby. After three months of looking, they’ve come to understand their best hope of staying in Howard County may be in more rural neighborhoods, in a much smaller home than they once thought they could afford.

The vanishing middle market

The pinch was predictable.

Consultants told the county in 2021 that supply had failed to keep up with demand for a decade. Howard County had less housing per job than anywhere in the region — as much as a 20,000 unit deficit.

The consultants’ 80 recommendations included allowing development of more kinds of housing than apartments and high-end single-family homes. It also urged the county to rethink its existing limits on growth, which have stymied more building and tax-base revenues.

Howard County housing providers and advocates said there’s no greater barrier to affordable housing there today than its adequate public facilities ordinance, a measure intended to pace the rate of building against infrastructure needs. Instead, it’s discouraging more homebuilding altogether.

Duvall, a 25-year Columbia resident who works with both housing voucher recipients and renters without government subsidies, is turning away many more clients than she can help. Fewer tenants can afford to compete for housing, she said, which in this climate favors those with extra savings and good credit scores.

For a time, Duvall said, Howard County’s unaffordability affected predominantly low- and moderate-income households. Now, she said, it has crept into the middle class, threatening to displace Howard’s young adults, as well as its service workers, small business owners and frontline government employees.

And the Baltimore area’s most expensive county has not acted quick enough to solve it, Duvall added.

Homebuilding dramatically slowed around the country in the wake of the Great Recession, and it has never recovered enough to meet pre-recession demand. The initial months of the COVID-19 pandemic further decelerated the pace of building, and its aftermath has led to higher mortgage interest rates and more expensive materials, labor and construction costs.

In Howard County, which reported a slight growth in population last year after a few years’ stagnation, zoning restrictions, environmental protections and cumbersome review and approval processes have all helped keep costs prohibitive. That is, except for current homeowners, who have been able to buy and move in Howard County with relative ease, said Jimmie Jennings, president of the Howard County Association of Realtors.

“For homeowners, their equity has built greatly,” Jennings said. “They’ve done very well.”

But the middle market — homes in the $300,000 to $500,000 range — has all but vanished, Jennings said, forcing entry-level buyers to compete with those with more cash.

The result has created an economic divide in Howard County that falls primarily along generational lines: Families, especially two-parent households, earn more than twice as much as singles in the county, U.S. Census data shows. It’s also left aspiring residents at a crossroads: wait for more inventory, or pitch your tent somewhere else.

Opposition to growth

Researchers across the U.S. have found that more housing supply — even that designed for higher-income households — alleviates some constraints on lower-income households by cooling off the rental market. But academics have also advocated for governments to intervene to ensure there’s enough reduced-price inventory to service people at all income levels.

In a statement, Safa Hira, a spokeswoman for Ball, said the administration has pursued measures including forming the county’s first housing trust fund to help subsidize certain projects; offering security deposit and rental assistance for public school students and their families; and allocating low-interest financing for down payments and home renovations to aspiring homeowners.

And yet, some of Ball’s other ideas, including a bill that would have set a cap on rent prices to prevent price gouging, have been shot down. Opponents said they fear its impact on enabling more development. But demanding homeowners, and voters, have made clear their feelings about development, which were on full display last month.

A volunteer committee looking at solutions for amending the county’s growth ordinance suggested developers pay a fee to circumvent the restrictions, with the revenue going toward building additional school capacity. It didn’t take long before the public comments turned heated.

One resident, Cat Carter, a PTA Council of Howard County board member, spoke of the free-range chickens she tried to raise in her backyard during the pandemic that ultimately were killed by outdoor predators. Then she built fences and a coop, and a new batch of chickens survived.

“Without fencing,” she noted, “my chickens didn’t stand a chance.” Development, she said, should similarly be contained to protect the county.

There’s some evidence that the existing restrictions have outperformed expectations. Howard County’s new housing starts have dropped to less than 1,000 per year, according to the Howard County Housing Affordability Coalition, and the school system’s capacity is projected to stay flat for at least the next decade.

The longer the county holds off on allowing more growth, the longer it misses out on bringing more money to support its budget — a dilemma some have referred to as a vicious cycle.

Some county residents aren’t sure how much longer they can wait.

Novotny Davis and her husband hope to figure it out by the time their baby learns to walk. Upgrading to a larger rental unit at their current complex near The Mall in Columbia would cost them an extra $1,000 a month.

To stretch their income a little further, they’re considering a move to nearby Catonsville — a 20-minutes drive across the border in Baltimore County.