AFFORDABLE & MARKET-RATE
HOUSING
What We’re Working On:
Underway: (in partnership with the Maryland Department of Housing & Community Development (DHCD), and City DHCD) purchasing and renovating a project for 2026 of five single-family, currently-vacant houses - the ECO’s first major housing project, and a key proof-of-concept undertaking for the organization.
Finished a comprehensive Housing Plan as part of the Master Plan work. A central tenant of that plan is height and development goals (guided by existing zoning) for different parts of the community. In a very general way, Edmondson Avenue acts as a key demarcation line in height levels. On The Avenue itself, zoning currently encourages multifamily housing units of 5 stories or less, with ground-floor commercial - a very typical configuration for neighborhood commercial corridors like this one. Then, to the north of The Avenue, single-family two and three story rowhouses predominate, while to the south, particularly on the MARC Station parking lots, density-accruing major multistory transit-oriented development is encouraged, again with ground floor commercial.
As part of the housing plan, a major study was conducted surveying existing social science literature on optimal levels of low-income (and affordable) housing in a neighborhood, with best outcomes for low-income families. As a practical matter, all housing, even newly-renovated homes, would be considered affordable housing by regional standards. But we worked to come up with concrete goals for low-income housing to guide us moving forward, and to the end. The Master Plan dives much deeper into this topic, but as a general notion, the community’s goals have coalesced around the following:
We’ve successfully gathered a number of subsidies for developers in the area, and worked to be an information clearinghouse of all subsidies.
In 2025, we gathered National Register-listed Historic District designation for the community, not only an important recognition of its role in the growth of Baltimore, but also an important tool for preservation. But perhaps most important, homeowners and some developers are now eligible for historic tax credits, again another important way to lower the costs of renovating vacant structures.
