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Arts & Humanities, News, News Alert

D.C. Labor Chorus Sing-Along Concert on Oct. 18

D.C. Labor Chorus Sing-Along Concert 

Friday, Oct. 18 at 7:30 pm 

Takoma Park Community Center

7500 Maple Avenue 

Featuring singers from Takoma Park and other communities, the D.C. Labor Chorus will lead an audience sing-along of some favorite civil rights and peace and justice songs.
Led by founding director Elise Bryant, the chorus includes about 25 members of various ages, races, and faith traditions who have performed at concerts, rallies, demonstrations, and picket lines. Some of the singers are current or former union members, and they all actively support the principles of liberty and justice for all. And singing about it!
The concert is free and no tickets or reservations are required. Some limited parking is available at the Takoma Park Community Center, Piney Branch Elementary School, or on neighboring streets.
The D.C. Labor Chorus is one of the programs of the Labor Heritage Foundation, which also organizes the D.C. Labor Filmfest and Great Labor Arts Exchange. For more info, go to laborheritage.org.
This concert is part of the City of Takoma Park’s Takoma Park Arts series, which includes free concerts, theater, dance performances, art exhibitions, and other events at the Takoma Park Community Center. For more info about all of our upcoming events, sign up for our e-newsletter. Join us and celebrate the arts!

News Alert, Public Notices

TKPK Receives $220,000 Grant from US Department of Transportation to Improve Roadway Safety

The City has been awarded $220,000 from the US Department of Transportation’s Safe Streets and Roads for All Program.

We are one of 354 local, regional, and tribal communities receiving funding to improve roadway safety and prevent deaths and serious injuries on America’s rural and urban roads.

This planning and demonstration grant will result in a comprehensive safety action plan, including two demonstration projects to test methods of protecting pedestrians and reducing vehicular crashes:

  • The first demonstration project will test a mid‐block crosswalk and pedestrian refuge island at one bus stop.
  • The second demonstration project will test the hardening of left turn lanes, temporary curb extensions, and other measures at four intersections.

Stay tuned for more information about the city project here. For further details about the US Department of Transportation’s Safe Streets and Roads for All Program grant program, check out:

News Alert, Public Notices

What Tenant Protections Exist in Takoma Park?

Takoma Park has been at the forefront of renter protections in the State of Maryland, through the implementation of a number of policies. We will briefly go over a few of the policies and programs that exist to help renters in Takoma Park.

  • Rent Stabilization provides limits on the amount rents can be raised annually which allows renters to continue to live in the City.
  • The Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Law (TOPL) which gives tenants the first right to purchase their rental home or assign their rights if it is being sold. We also provide financial assistance for tenants exploring purchasing their building to help them exercise their rights.
  • The Commission on Landlord Tenant Affairs (COLTA) provides a quasi-judicial forum to adjudicate landlord-tenant disputes instead of Court. The Commission is made up of community members who rule on cases.
  •  A Community Engagement Specialist who assists with referrals to legal aid groups and county agencies as well as provides mediation between landlords and tenants. In FY 2024 our office handled roughly 800 cases.
  • The Emergency Assistance Program provides funds up to $3,600 for households who are facing an eviction due to rent owed or facing a foreclosure and $1,400 for renters or homeowners who have received a disconnection notice from a utility provider.
  •  Annual or Biannual inspections of all rental units to proactively find and correct issues as part of the City’s Rental Licensing Program. Most of our rental units are inspected annually while some rental units are allowed to be inspected biannually (if they have five or fewer minor violations).
  • A Tenant Displacement Ordinance to require landlords to house and compensate renters if their unit is severely damaged through no fault of their own.
  • A County law to notice and potentially compensate tenants who may be displaced due to redevelopment or condominium conversion.
  •  In FY 2025, there is additional funding for a Renters Insurance Incentive Program Pilot to encourage renters to sign up for renter’s insurance as well as funding for tenant legal counseling and organizing. HCD Is working on these programs and will be releasing more information soon!

HCD also has put together a housing resources guide which has contacts at community agencies, and providers who can meet the housing, legal services, utilities assistance, and social service needs. The guide is in English, Amharic, and Spanish.

What more could be done?

The two most impactful policies that could be implemented require state level changes. The first is a ‘good cause’ eviction. Current state law allows landlords to provide a two-month, no cause notice to evict a tenant. A good cause eviction would require the landlord to provide a reason before issuing an eviction notice. The second policy would be a right to counsel law. Currently, there is no right for tenants to have representation at eviction hearings. This puts tenants often at a disadvantage to landlords who are usually represented.

You can explore other policies to assist tenants from The National Housing Law Project’s National Tenant Bill of Rights.

Helpful Links
News Alert, Public Notices, Takoma Park Newsletter

City Council Considering New Tax Credits for Housing Development

To help spur investment and reinvestment in housing in Takoma Park, the city council is considering a proposal to offer tax credits for construction, preservation , and reinvestment in housing.

The program involves four separate tax credits—which still must be passed by the city council—that implement the city’s Housing and Economic Development Strategic Plan. The plan was passed in 2019 and aims to preserve the city’s existing affordable housing, produce new housing as well as provide new homeownership opportunities, and protect current residents from displacement.

The Housing and Economic Development Plan was adopted after more than three years of in-depth research, staff facilitation, community engagement, and council deliberation. The resolution is a comprehensive plan that outlines the Council’s strategic vision for guiding the city’s growth and development over the next decade.

“We did this work to get a housing and economic plan that sets the strategies from 2019 to 2030,” said Housing Manager Devin McNally . “Part of that was recognizing we need more housing of all kinds. This is aimed at implementing that high-level strategy by investing in our existing housing and preserving the housing for our most vulnerable residents. It’s trying to move the needle in three different directions, choice, stability , and quality.”

Rental Housing Tax Credit

The first of the four proposed tax credits is to encourage the creation of new rental housing. It will be a by-right 15-year tax credit for any property constructing 10 or more net new residential units. After a property is developed, it will have an increased tax assessment, and the credit would be for the additional value created by the project. For the first 10 years, the property would only pay the property tax they had been paying before they built the new housing. The property tax would then increase over fi ve years until the credit expires. There are currently 390 parcels in the city zoned for multi-family development.

In cases of redevelopment—in which the property owner adds additional units to a building—the tax credit would be scaled to only provide incentives for new units created. So if a 90-unit building is redeveloped into a 100-unit building, the adjustment would be the net number of new units (10) divided by the project size (100) for a credit that would be 10% of what it could be.

“Our multi-family buildings are all aging, and most are 50 years old,” said McNally. “We’re hoping for 200 additional rental homes in the city over the next 10 years. It takes time for these projects to get going, so we’re hoping people start looking at the city for new, high quality development.”

Missing Middle Housing Construction Credit

The second tax credit is a Missing Middle Housing Construction Credit, meant to incentivize smaller scale, multi-unit ownership opportunities.

These credits are for smaller units, like townhomes, duplexes , and cottage courts—typically five to 20 units around a common area.

“The idea is that we want to encourage things like duplexes, triplexes, townhomes,” McNally said. “Instead of building a McMansion, we’re encouraging smaller scale homeownership opportunities.”

Affordable Housing Preservation Credit

The third tax credit is an Affordable Housing Preservation Credit meant to safeguard the current provision of difficult-to-provide housing types, like those for extremely low-income, seniors, individuals with disability, and people who need transitional housing.

“This is for deed-restricted housing. These are houses that have a contract with the government for affordable housing,” said McNally. “These are mostly operated by nonprofits offering affordable housing. ”

Housing Reinvestment Credit

The final credit is a Housing Reinvestment Credit meant to encourage proactive investment and upgrades in multifamily buildings.

This will be a competitive credit for multifamily properties that invest at least $6,500 per unit in substantial upgrades and do not displace any residents. Allocations would be based on affordability level, proposed scope, and history of citations/ violations.

The city chose to propose tax credits for a number of reasons, including that they provide predictable financial support; the credit value is proportional with private investment; tax credits allow for higher subsidies than the city could provide with a grant or loan; and that Housing Reserve Fund and General Fund Dollars are limited and are required up front.

Helpful Links

This article appeared in the September Edition of the Takoma Park Newsletter. Check out this article and more on the City webpage.

Arts & Humanities, News, News Alert

Takoma ARTery Exhibition Opening Reception on Sept. 20

 

TAKOMA ARTERY EXHIBITION OPENING RECEPTION

Friday, Sept. 20 at 7:30 pm 

Takoma Park Community Center 

7500 Maple Avenue 

Twenty talented artists from the Takoma ARTery group will display their work in a group exhibition highlighting the diverse range and vibrant creativity of the local artist community.

Their artwork spans many mediums, including painting, drawing, photography, encaustic, etchings, hand-cut paper, and mixed media. The artists explore a variety of themes from the deeply personal to global perspectives. The power, beauty and increasing fragility of nature provides inspiration for some artists. Others revel in the fleeting messages of street art, heartfelt portraits, or the minute details of everyday life.

The featured artists include Marilyn Banner, Paige Billin-Frye, Kate Childs Graham, Magalee Cirpili, Sara Daines, Tuula Ehn Smith, Dinesh Godavarty, Susanna Goldman, Li Howard, Julius Kassovic, Renee Lachman, Eleanor Landstreet, Janice Levitt, Ellen Maidman-Tanner, Jake Muirhead, Norah Neale, Becky Snider, Jeff Weiss, Randall Williams, and John Yao.

Due to ongoing library construction, parking is limited at the Community Center. Some parking is available behind the Community Center, in the police station parking lot, next door at Piney Branch Elementary, or on neighboring streets. On the Maple Avenue side of the building, you can enter through the police station parking lot or from the stairs near Piney Branch Elementary.

The City of Takoma Park’s Arts and Humanities Coordinator Brendan Smith curated the exhibition. “Takoma Park is home for many innovative artists, and it’s a privilege to showcase their work,” he said.

The Takoma ARTery was founded by local artists Eleanor Landstreet and Tuula Ehn Smith during the COVID-19 pandemic to provide an outlet for artists’ work through storefront window displays. The group has expanded to include an online artist directory, local artist meet-ups, and other events. For more info, go to takomaartery.org.

This exhibition is part of the Takoma Park Arts series organized by the City’s Arts and Humanities Division, which includes free concerts, theater, dance performances, film screenings, and other events at the Takoma Park Community Center. No tickets or reservations are required. To receive more info about all of our upcoming events, you can sign up for our weekly e-newsletter here.

Artwork image credits clockwise from top left: Norah Neale, Dinesh Godavarty, Sara Daines, and Kate Childs Graham   

News Alert, Public Notices

What are Tax Credits?

 

Like most local governments, Takoma Park is funded through taxes on the value of private property in the City. The value of a property is assessed by the State of Maryland every 3 years. When a property is reassessed, any new construction would be included in the increased assessment of a property.

  • For example, if a property owner built a new apartment building that cost $1,000,000 to build, the new assessed value would increase by close to that amount (with some adjustments based on the price similar buildings in the area have sold for recently).
  • The incremental assessment would be the difference between the previous assessment and the new assessment.

A tax credit is a reduction in the tax bill. Other names include a tax abatement, PILOT, or tax rebate. The credit is added to the annual property tax bill and reduces the amount the property owner owes the City. The City is proposing 2 tax credits which would forgo the increased tax revenue (the incremental assessment discussed above) created by a property owner’s investment in their property as part of the City’s Proposed Housing Tax Credits.

The City has focused on tax credits for several reasons:
  1. Tax Credits are specifically mentioned in the Housing & Economic Development Strategic Plan as a policy recommendation.
    • Housing and Community Development agrees with this recommendation because, with limited annual revenues but high per property assessments, tax credits represent the best avenue for the City to realize more immediate gains in housing priorities with lower up-front cost.
  2. Furthermore, the proposed credits provide predictable financial support that can be used in obtaining financing from lenders.
  3. Additionally, the value of the credit is based on the value of the investment in the City, which means that higher quality housing will be rewarded with a higher credit.

In other municipalities, incentives such as increasing the speed of review, reducing parking or other requirements, and allowing more units have been implemented as incentives to encourage housing production. The City is in a unique position because we do not have the ability to change these policies since they are controlled by the County. Furthermore, the City has a significant amount of affordable housing (roughly 40% of the City’s rental homes are deed-restricted Affordable Housing). This necessitates different tools than other jurisdictions.

Helpful links:
News Alert, Public Notices

Multifamily Development Basics

 

Multifamily development is a costly and complex endeavor. Developers must demonstrate that their project can be financially self-sustaining while offering a return on investment to both equity investors (individuals or entities providing upfront capital for ownership stakes) and lenders (banks or financial institutions providing loans with a set annual return). These projects often compete for funding against other housing developments and various investment opportunities.

The Terner Center of UC Berkeley provides a helpful policy memo and interactive guide on how developers look at potential projects. As the report notes:

  • “Return requirements have increased and financial underwriting has tightened.”  Since all developers must get loans and investments, rising interest rates and demands for higher returns from potential lenders make it more difficult to get a project built.
  • A typical development project can cost anywhere between $450,000 – $600,000 per unit for an apartment. This would mean a new 100-home housing project could cost between $45 million and $65 million if there were no complications.
Redevelopment of Existing Housing

In addition to these challenges, demolishing a building to build new housing would face several hurdles.

  1. Lenders would look at the potential return against the cost of simply keeping the building in operation and implementing repairs.
    • The cost of demolition will add to the cost of development as the builder will have to safely take down the older building, remove the materials, and prepare the site for the new building.
    • Some nationwide estimates have the cost of a 100-unit building being torn down at roughly $2.25 million.
    • This cost can be significantly higher if the building has toxic materials (such as asbestos) or the site is close to environmental resources like waterways.

  2. There are local barriers to tearing down a building:
    •  Several renter protection policies provide renters with rights and the ability to get payouts if they are displaced by construction, raising the cost of any redevelopment.
    • Many multifamily properties in the City also have deed restrictions which limit their use to affordable housing and are owned by non-profit housing providers .
      • These policies and costs do not preclude a building from being torn down, but create strong incentives to instead choose to rehabilitate a building rather than tear it down.
The Development Process

Any housing project would have to get permitted and approved through the appropriate County permitting process. A helpful guide on the process can be found on the City of Takoma Park Website.

New construction and substantial renovation typically require the development to provide:

  • a payment of impact fees for roads and schools and
  •  the provision of public benefits

Large housing projects (Typically 10,000 square feet of building or more) would have to go through a public benefits process known as option method development.

  • You can read more about this from the Montgomery County Planning Board.
  • Public benefits vary based on the project but include the requirement to build/upgrade sidewalks, provide open space, public art, or other benefits based on the area plan.
  • New development also must be built to the current building code standards, which include more stringent requirements for stormwater management and energy efficiency.
Helpful Links
News Alert, Takoma Park Newsletter

Register for Takoma Park’s Upcoming Elections

Election season is just around the corner, and that means there’s just a few short months left to register to vote. In Takoma Park, every resident above the age of 16 on Election Day—and regardless of citizenship—may vote in local elections for mayor and city council.

This year, elections for mayor and city council are being held by mail. Every registered voter will receive a ballot in the mail. For those that don’t receive a ballot, need assistance, or still need to register, the Community Center will be open for voting on Tuesday, November 5, from 7 am to 8 pm The election is held separately from the presidential general election, which happens on the same day.

The nomination caucus for city elections will be held at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, September 10, at the Takoma Park Community Center Auditorium.

To register to vote in Takoma Park local elections, visit the voter registration webpage.

Those looking to register need to provide a photo i.d. issued by a federal, state, or local government entity of the United States or any foreign country or school, provided that the identification document contains a photograph and/or identifying information such as name, date of birth, gender, height, and eye color. Examples of acceptable documentation include a U.S. or foreign passport, visa, alien registration card, driver’s license, MVA identification card, military identification, or school i.d. with photo.

Applicants also must provide documentation verifying residency in Takoma Park. Examples include a copy of a deed, house or apartment lease, utility bill, paycheck, bank statement, school record, or other official or government document that shows your name and current address in Takoma Park.

Those who are already registered to vote in the state of Maryland and live in Takoma Park are eligible to vote in city elections.

The landmark initiative to allow noncitizens to vote was passed by the Takoma Park City Council in 1992. Takoma Park was also the first jurisdiction to allow those 16 and older to vote in local elections, which the city passed in May of 2013. According to recent data, registered 16- and 17-year-old voters have outperformed all registered voters in each municipal election from November 2013 onward, with 63% of them voting in 2022, compared to 49% of all registered voters.

The City of Takoma Park uses ranked-choice voting. When there are multiple candidates, voters may rank candidates in order of preference (1, 2, 3, etc.). Follow the instructions on your ballot. A candidate must receive a majority of first choice votes
to win. If no candidate receives enough votes, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and those ballots are redistributed to their second choice. This continues until one candidate receives a majority.

State elections

To register to vote in Maryland statewide elections, you must be a citizen of the United States, do not claim the right to vote as a resident elsewhere, are not incarcerated due to a felony conviction, and have not been convicted of buying or selling votes. The state allows 16-year-olds to register but they must wait until they are 18 years old to cast a vote.

For registered voters in the state of Maryland, you can check your registration status here.

For additional information on registering to vote, contact the City Clerk’s Office at 301-891-7267 or visit the Cit Clerk Webpage.

This article appeared in the August Edition of the Takoma Park Newsletter. Check out this article and more on the City webpage.

News Alert, Public Notices

Crossroads Farmers Market Celebrates One Millionth Fresh Check Milestone on September 25, 2024

From Crossroads Community Food Network 

Crossroads Farmers Market is thrilled to announce a monumental milestone: $1 MILLION in SNAP-matching Fresh Checks incentives distributed to over 26,000 families in the Takoma/Langley Crossroads since 2007! That’s $2 MILLION invested in our community and local farmers.

State and county elected officials, USDA representatives, and community members will help mark this extraordinary accomplishment on Wednesday, September 25, at 12:00 pm. The market is located at Anne St. and University Blvd. in Takoma Park, and the event will feature live music, children’s activities, and a raffle. Attendees will also have the opportunity to learn more
about Crossroads’ commitment to making fresh, healthy food accessible to everyone in the community.

Crossroads’ innovative Fresh Checks program is rooted in a simple truth: affordable fresh food makes a difference. Crossroads was the first Maryland market to accept SNAP, WIC and other federal nutrition benefits, and the first nationwide to launch a “double dollar” program that matches the value of those benefits spent at the market.

“This isn’t just about numbers; it’s about advancing food equity,” said Lauren Goldberg, Executive Director of Crossroads Community Food Network. “One million dollars in Fresh Checks matching dollars means countless stories of families accessing fresh, nutritious food.”

Learn more about the Crossroads’ Fresh Checks program on the Crossroads Community Food Network webpage.

News Alert, Public Notices

TKPK Partners with WABA for Three Youth Learn-to-Ride Bicycle Classes in September: Ages 6-13

Washington Area Bicyclist Association (WABA)  and the City of Takoma Park will host three Learn to Ride: Bicycle Classes for children aged 6-11 who have never ridden a bike before or have tried to learn and have not been successful at the Takoma Park Recreation Center, 7315 New Hampshire Avenue:

About the Class

The League Cycling Instructors (LCIs) take students through a progressive curriculum, with the goal of riding with two pedals by the end of the session. WABA’s Youth Learn to Ride class breaks learning how to ride a bike down into 3 steps:

    1. Gliding
    2. Pedaling
    3. Riding

This class is right for your child if your child has never tried to learn how to ride a bike or if they have tried to learn and have not been successful.

Please bring water, closed-toed shoes, athletic clothing, appropriate outerwear, snacks, and sunscreen!