What is the top economic development challenge facing St. Mary’s County? Answers will certainly vary but a consensus response would be the availability and affordability of housing. Attracting and retaining skilled workers goes hand-in-hand with providing housing options that are financially within reach. Thus the phrase “Workforce Housing” captures the idea that housing must be accessible to the workforce that our economy depends upon. The school system knows this, as does NAS Patuxent River, the hospital, Sheriff’s Department, the defense contracting community, and several other local employers.
Affordability of housing is not a new challenge, nor is it local. Jurisdictions everywhere are dealing with this. The hot housing market that fueled the overall economy for much of this decade has since cooled off. The impacts on local markets vary but sharp increases in median home prices and even sharper increases in land values have made the challenge even harder, especially here. Presently the housing market is soft with many more choices available. Prices have stabilized and in many cases are falling. It is a buyer’s market. Industry experts expect this trend to continue for perhaps another year but many forecasts show a turnaround in early 2009.
So there is some short-term relief in sight as builders and developers adjust their plans. In fact, we’ve heard from several builders and developers, both large and small, who desire to offer more workforce housing. This is in response to market shifts but also a genuine desire to help address a community need. One targeted example is St. Mary’s Affordable Rent for Teachers (SMART) program, a partnership between a local builder and St. Mary’s County Public Schools for discounts on rentals for first-year teachers. Also, larger projects involving public investment are advancing with The Gateways on Great Mills Road, Hunting Creek on Willows Road, even the new off-base military housing communities Columbia Colony in First Colony and Challenger Estates in Wildewood taking shape. This is all good news.
One area that has gotten much recent attention is Mobile Home Parks and what future role they play in affordability of housing. As the closure of National and White Oak Parks off Rt. 235 is completed in the coming weeks there will be two fewer parks in the County. This continues a downward trend started a few decades ago when growth pressures brought offers for development projects such as Wal-Mart for commercial and other uses for these sites.
Historically, mobile and manufactured homes have offered a unique affordable and workforce housing option to this community. The construction of the base and its early growth were the reasons for the rapid influx of mobile home parks in the 1950s and 1960s. During that time the flexibility and speed of readying mobile homes resulted in a significant percentage of new housing stock coming from this sector. This continued into the 1970s and early 1980s. According to the Census Bureau, in 1990 there were 3,842 mobile homes representing 14% of all the housing stock in St. Mary’s County. At that time St. Mary’s led both the nation at 8.3% and state at 3% in terms of mobile home percentage of total housing stock. But by 2006 these rates had fallen across the board. More importantly, in St. Mary’s the rate had fallen faster than both the state and nation. In 1996 St. Mary’s at 5.2% was actually less than the nation at 6.9%. Maryland had also fallen to 1.7%. Over this 16-yr period the County had lost more than 1,700 mobile homes, almost half its inventory. Meanwhile, the total housing stock grew by some 11,000 units with median prices well over $3