Janssen Evelyn Testifies on Council Resolution 40-2026
On March 16, 2026, Janssen Evelyn testified in support of Council Resolution (CR-40). Please see his testimony below:
Via Email: councilmail@howardcountymd.gov
March Howard County Council
Attn: Council Chair Dr. Opel Jones
3430 Court House Drive
Ellicot City, Maryland 21043
Re: CR-40 2026 Testimony
Good evening, Council Chair Dr. Jones and Council Members, For the record, my name is Janssen Evelyn, a resident of Columbia.
I am here tonight to strongly support CR40 2026, and I want to be direct about why.
At its core, this resolution aligns our actions with the reality our residents are living every day. The intent of this bill is to give Howard County the ability to respond to a housing crisis that has outpaced our current tools. Families are being priced out, essential workers are commuting longer distances, and young people who grew up here cannot afford to stay. This is not a future problem, it’s a present one. And without intervention at scale, it will continue to get worse. CR40 2026 recognizes that the status quo is not sufficient and that we must act with urgency and intention to expand housing opportunities in a meaningful way.
Right now, our Housing Opportunities Trust Fund is structurally underpowered. We are asking a year-to-year funding mechanism to solve a generational housing crisis. The result is predictable: oversubscribed rounds, delayed projects, and working families who cannot find a place to live in the community they sustain.
And we can quantify that gap. Howard County is producing hundreds of units per year when the need is in the thousands over the next decade. That is the scale of the mismatch we are dealing with.
CR40 is necessary because it gives us a tool we do not currently have. Bonding allows us to front-load investment and operate at the scale this moment demands. It moves us out of the business of waiting for surplus and into the business of building.
But we should not confuse a tool with a system. Bonding is not a structural foundation—it is borrowing.
In Anne Arundel County, where I serve as Deputy Chief Administrative Officer, we did not stop at access to capital. We established a dedicated revenue stream through a tiered transfer tax. Montgomery County has taken a similar approach with a progressive recordation tax. That is what turns investment into a durable commitment. Howard County needs that same permanence. Without it, we are effectively taking on a mortgage without identifying the income to sustain it.
At the same time, financing alone will not solve the problem. Even when we get the financing right, we still have to confront the production side. If our land use policies continue to restrict supply, if approvals remain uncertain, and if developers can continue to opt out through fee-in-lieu, then additional capital will not translate into additional housing. It will simply intensify competition for a limited pipeline.
A deferred fee does not house a family. A built unit does.
We have a real opportunity, particularly in District 4, to create a vibrant, walkable urban core with meaningful cultural infrastructure. But that vision only works if the people who teach in our schools, care for our families, and power our local economy can afford to live here.
I urge you to move CR40 forward and give voters the opportunity to unlock this tool. But we should do so with discipline and clarity. This is a first step. The work of establishing dedicated revenue and reforming land use must follow immediately.
Thank you.
/s/
Janssen E. Evelyn
