Recovery Zone designation proposed for Stimulus Bond Funds to Assist Commercial Development Projects
(Bel Air, MD) – The Harford County Office of Economic Development will host a pre-application meeting for businesses interested in the Recovery Zone and Recovery Zone Facility Bond (RZFB) program on Monday, March 1, 2010 at 10:00 AM and Friday, March 5, 2010 at 10:00 AM at the Higher Education Conference Center, Room 130, 1201 Technology Drive, Aberdeen, Maryland. Each session will include a brief presentation about the proposed Recovery Zone and the guidelines, benefits and requirements to apply for RZFBs, followed by a question and answer session for prospective applicants. To make reservations, contact the Harford County Office of Economic Development by phone at 410-638-3059 or email to kmwajer@harfordcountymd.gov.
Harford County received a $15.1 million allocation on June 12, 2009 for Recovery Zone Facility Bonds (RZFBs) to assist commercial development projects. The allocation was part ...Continue Reading
(Bel Air, MD) – - Representatives of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region of China were briefed recently by Director James Richardson of the Office of Economic Development and Karen Holt, from the regional BRAC office, regarding economic development in Harford County. Members of the Chinese delegation included officials from the Guangxi Zhuang region who are responsible for future economic growth in China.
“It was a pleasure hosting the delegation from China and sharing information and ideas regarding economic development and business here in Harford County,” stated Director Richardson. “We hope the information we shared with the officials from Guangxi Zhuang will be of help to them when they return home,” Richardson stated.
Richardson and the Office of Economic Development presented information on planning functions and industry development. The office also discussed how the State, Baltimore Metropolitan Council and Chesapeake Science and Security Corridor operate, as well as how working ...Continue Reading
Ready to see your taxes raised or your county services slashed again? What’s fair about that?
Background: In October, there was a great deal of controversy about canceling the school impact fee. This is the fee paid by people who purchase new homes, and it pays for a portion (roughly one-fifth) of the cost of building new schools to serve the new students arriving from the newly-built homes. That bill failed. Now Bill 09-37 proposes to cut the fee rather than eliminate it, which still hurts current Harford residents by raising our taxes and/or cutting existing services.
Here’s my view:
Bill 09-37 will slash the school impact fee by 27%. I oppose this unfair bill. It subsidizes new-home buyers by unfairly increasing taxes on current residents or by cutting services (such as recreational facilities, libraries, etc.)
A bill to repeal Harford County’s development impact fee lost a co-sponsor and was defeated in a 6 to 1 vote of the Harford County Council on November 3 (Tuesday). Councilman Chad Shrodes was a co-sponsor of the repeal effort, but asked for his name to be removed from the bill just prior to the council vote, leaving fellow sponsor Dion Guthrie as the sole supporter of the failed bill.
In a related move, a bill to reduce the amount of the impact fee was introduced by every member of the Harford County Council, except Guthrie. Guthrie told The Dagger he didn’t plan to support the bill, which he said would cut the impact fee on a single family home from just over $8,200 to $6,000, lower the fee on a townhouse to $4,200 and on all other structures to $1,200. Guthrie called the bill a “waste of paperwork”. Guthrie ...Continue Reading
A bill to repeal Harford County’s impact fee created some strange bedfellows when it was first introduced by Dion Guthrie, a Democrat representing Edgewood and Joppatowne and Chad Shrodes, a Republican representing the rural north.
Now, the repeal effort has sparked a rift among the leaders of the anti-tax Tea Party movement and drawn a number of local organizations into the fray. The bill is scheduled for what may become a lively hearing October 20th (today) at 7 p.m. in the County Council Chambers at 212 S. Bond Street in Bel Air.
The impact fee offsets the impact of new household creation on the cost of public schools by dedicating revenue specifically to public school construction needs.
Bel Air Tea Party organizer Tony Passaro would be expected to join other anti-tax advocates and support the repeal, but he sent a recent email to the members of the Harford County ...Continue Reading
Do you support a tax increase to pay for recently-built schools? Should Red Pump Elementary School or other school construction projects be stopped?
If your answer is NO to either of these, then oppose Bill 09-29, School Development Impact Fee, because this Bill stops the school impact fees charged on new homes.
New homes bring more kids into the school system. History reveals how many additional kids, on average, will come to school from those houses. Without new homes, we wouldn’t need to build new school capacity. (Renovate, yes, but not increase the total space for more students.)
Now consider BRAC. We’re told that the next few years will bring tens of thousands of new, high-income workers to Harford. For every 1,000 new houses they buy, their impact fees provide over $8,000,000. ...Continue Reading
The following letter was received from Tea Party organizer and House of Delegates candidate Patrick McGrady:
Editor,
Since July 2005, the Harford County government has levied an Impact Tax on every new home construction permit. The idea of the Impact Tax seems noble enough- the money raised from the tax goes into the Harford County Public Schools Capital Budget account so that it must be used only for new school development, property acquisition, or school renovation. These homebuyers are being unfairly double-taxed, this tax is keeping productive construction projects on hold, and this is keeping hard-working Harford County workers out of work on and State Unemployment rolls.
Here in Harford County, we pay property taxes at the County and municipal level. On a home that is assessed at $250,000, the annual County portion of taxes amount to $2,705. This tax amount is the property owner’s share of the County Government, including school construction. ...Continue Reading
Is Harford County’s impact fee a vital source of revenue for public school construction, or an unfair tax that has stymied new home sales?
Harford County Councilman Dion Guthrie (Dist. A) says it’s the latter. Along with co-sponsor Chad Shrodes (Dist. D), Guthrie introduced legislation on September 15th to repeal the county’s impact fee.
Guthrie, who voted against imposing the fee in 2005, said in a phone interview that the impact fee was not generating the revenue that was originally anticipated and it was not stimulating the economy. Guthrie said “It’s time to get rid of it.” He said the revenue lost by repealing the impact fee could be “easily overcome” by the revenues generated from increased economic activity resulting from more homes being built.
The impact fee is a set amount charged to developers to help offset the impact of new homes on the cost of public schools. ...Continue Reading
After years of planning, months of deliberation, weeks of public hearings, and untold hours of discussion, it took only a few minutes for the Harford County Council to unanimously approve and enroll the new Comprehensive Rezoning bill Tuesday night.
In fact, the vote was so swift that County Executive David Craig – who made a special appearance in the council chambers Tuesday night – nearly missed it.
Last week, council members introduced and approved nearly 70 amendments to the Comprehensive Rezoning bill, but Tuesday night there were no amendments, no additions, and no discussion – simply a roll-call vote which resulted in a 7-0 approval of the bill.
The night got off to an inauspicious start – with a rousing intro from council president Billy Boniface (“Let’s rock!”) and a moving prayer from councilman Dion Guthrie (“God bless our pets”) – but it didn’t take long for the county to get down to, ...Continue Reading
During an oddly serene session Tuesday night, during which neither NIMBY nor developer stormed out of the chambers, the Harford County Council unanimously approved 67 Comprehensive Rezoning amendments – setting up what is expected to be a smooth approval next week of the new official Harford County Zoning Map.
Compared to the confrontational rezoning process of two years ago, which culminated with a veto by then-newly appointed County Executive David Craig and mandated restart of the process, Tuesday’s meeting was subdued and only attended by a few dozen people – mostly developers, activists, and members of the county Planning and Zoning Department.
Here is a summary of amendments and comments by district:
District A – Joppatowne/Edgewood:
“You can’t make everybody happy. You try to do the best you can and what’s best for the county,” – Councilman Dion Guthrie
Guthrie’s 14 amendments consist mainly of upzoning residential land to commercial and business property, which would ...Continue Reading
