Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszewski backs down from development fight with County Council
Baltimore County Executive John Olszewski Jr. suffered another setback this week in a long-simmering conflict between his administration and the County Council over how Baltimore County should strategize housing production.
In a letter sent Wednesday to the council, Olszewski reneged on a threat to veto a bill that he previously said would have given developers “too much of a blank slate” to disregard otherwise mandatory design standards.
The council passed that bill Monday, which allows for construction of up to 220 two-unit townhome condos, or “stacked townhomes,” if they meet certain criteria, like being located in a mixed business and residential district, and are within the Liberty West area in northwestern Baltimore County. It is sponsored by Councilman Julian Jones, a Woodstock Democrat.
The vote passed 6-0; Republican Councilman Todd Crandell of Dundalk was absent.
The council and Olszewski have sparred in recent months over the administration’s attempts to spur more housing production by modifying zoning regulations, which council members have seen as undermining their land-use authority. The legislative body recently passed a master plan after four years of delay and months of debate over whether to include specific development areas that the planning department said would allow the county to repurpose underutilized, aging strip malls and shopping centers for housing.
Olszewski said in the Wednesday letter that he would allow Jones’ bill to pass without his signature despite expressing reservations about it in a different letter he sent last month, where he announced his veto of a separate zoning bill from Republican Councilman Wade Kach of Timonium. The council overrode that veto earlier this month.
Jones’ bill allows “a project to be approved by limited exemption, removing the opportunity for a community input meeting,” Olszewski wrote in a March 20 letter. “While we acknowledge that similar laws have been enacted in the past, we believe it is time for Baltimore County to curb such practices.”
The bill targets a cluster of lots on Liberty Road and Owings Mills Boulevard in Randallstown owned by developer Jay Attar, according to Jones, who called the bill a “win for affordable housing.”
Jones said Attar previously had approval to build high-rise apartments, but he negotiated a deal for Attar to build affordably priced townhomes in exchange for exempting Attar from paying impact fees, which have generated almost no money for the county.
Attar said Friday that he initially bought the property with the intention of building mid-rise apartments, for which the land was already zoned, but due to “market shifts, we determined stacked townhomes was a more appropriate project.”
“The reason for the bill is because the county regulations haven’t caught up to this particular style of housing,” Jones said of the stacked townhomes concept during a Friday interview.
Attar and his company, Attar Enterprises, are frequent donors to Democratic politicians. He donated $1,000 to Jones in September 2022.