To create more affordable housing, the bill allows for high density developments near transit hubs, including rail stations, which Lutherville Station is near.
October 17, 2024
At a Baltimore County Chamber of Commerce event Thursday morning, Mark Renbaum, the developer behind the Lutherville Station project, addressed lawmakers about the proposal's status.
"Ultimately, progress wins and we want to continue on progress," Renbaum said.
Instead of the building that has been sitting on the property, the proposed development for Lutherville Station includes 560 apartments, office and retail space, restaurants, and green space. Renbaum said they recently updated their application with Baltimore County. However, Lutherville Station has yet to receive the proper zoning approvals from county officials.
"I appreciate Wade Kach for opening the door for some housing that is needed at a site like this, but the door hasn't opened full enough," Renbaum said. "So I say to Councilman Kach, good job, but we have more work to do, and we need to do that with the county and the state."
Despite the county zoning, the project could still move forward due to the Housing Expansion and Affordability Act, which will go into effect on early in 2025. To create more affordable housing, the bill allows for high density developments near transit hubs, including rail stations, which Lutherville Station is near.
"I think we need all parties to work together, a project this large, it needs both the county and state working together," Renbaum said.
Some of the pushback from community members has been related to infrastructure concerns.
"That just doesn't make sense on this site given the constrained road access and possible school overcrowding," said Eric Rockel with the Greater Timonium Community Council.
When it comes to the number of apartments, Rockel said, "I have always said I would like a number in the 250 to 300 range."
The 560 apartments proposed as part of the project, is 110 more than what was initially proposed. In response, Renbaum said the original plans for the project included 560 apartments.
"When we initially approached the community in April of 2018, which was two and a half years before we even acquired the property, we initially had 560 apartment units," Renbaum said. "We spent countless hours and years working alongside the community and over a two and a half-three year process, we gradually scaled down the number of units from 560 ultimately to about 450 units."
"There has been no progress made unfortunately. As construction costs continue to go up, as interest rates have gone up considerably, and we looked at the businesses plan, we said we needed to go back to the initial number of units we had which was 560," he added.
In response to infrastructure concerns and how he would address them, Renbaum said the project would create more economic growth and investment in the area.
"Currently, Lutherville Station pays $91,000 a year combined in state and local taxes. As redeveloped, our project would be over $3,000,000 a year," Renbaum said. "Our project alone could solve a lot those problems and probably more infrastructure problems. This is all about fear and trust and people have to come together."
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