Frederick City Housing, Health and Education Committee Meeting - October 2, 2025
Frederick City Housing, Health and Education Committee Meeting
Date: October 2, 2025
The Housing, Health, and Education Committee convened to discuss four main agenda items: the Climate Emergency Action Plan (CEAP) update, a developer comment on affordable housing incentives and the MPDU/ADU programs, a review of the Moderately Priced Dwelling Units (MPDU) Housing Fund, and proposed changes to Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) regulations. The meeting included staff presentations, a developer guest, several public comments, and robust council discussion, particularly around the use of MPDU funds and ADU parking and size requirements. The committee did not take formal votes but provided direction for further staff work.
Public Comments & Testimony
- Kevin Sellner (East Fifth Street; writer/editor of 2021 climate report): Urged that every policy considered by council or planning commission include a "climate implications" statement in the executive summary, so climate is not invisible. Recommended the new council and mayor make climate a priority, and that the Capital Improvement Program (CIP) embed climate as a priority area.
- Kevin Sellner (East Fifth Street) on ADUs: Suggested the city consider incentives for ADUs specifically designated for low-income families, such as fee waivers, to increase affordable ADU housing.
- Jim Smursall (public comment on MPDU fund): Noted three lines of attack for affordable housing: improving the stock of decent/safe/sanitary homes, getting people into housing (counseling, down payment assistance, vouchers), and building more units. He observed that MPDUs were originally intended to be integrated into market-rate developments and that providing gap financing for LIHTC projects is a key tool.
- Developer Speaker (Danny, representing the Builders Association): Presented three topics: development incentives (zoning, permitting, codes), MPDUs, and ADUs. Key recommendations included: conducting a continuum of housing needs assessment; creating a dedicated housing staff; using Developer Rights and Responsibility Agreements (DRRAs) for predictability; revisiting zoning rules (minimum lot size, parking, missing middle housing); alleviating permitting roadblocks ("green tape"); adopting reasonable, cost-effective building codes; and for ADUs, considering parking reductions near transit, removing the owner-occupancy requirement, and increasing the 800 sq. ft. size cap via planning commission review.
Discussion Items
- Climate Emergency Action Plan Update (CEAP): Staff presented the joint city-county CEAP, emphasizing goals of 50% GHG reduction by 2030 and 100% by 2050. Public engagement included 18 in-person sessions, 6 technical working group sessions, over 650 survey responses, and 40 comments on the draft report. Top public priorities were improving efficiency in homes/businesses/public buildings, transitioning to clean energy, improving infrastructure for climate resilience, improving air/water quality, and reducing urban heat. Council members asked about solar panel cost comparisons (20-year life vs. environmental benefits); grid capacity conversations with the electric utility; green roofs/walls; integration with wastewater treatment upgrades; and specific timelines for creating cooling centers. Staff noted the plan aims to be finalized by end of October 2025.
- Developer Comment: Affordable Housing Overlay, MPDU Program, ADU Review: The Builders Association representative (Danny) shared a broad set of recommendations, emphasizing that no single policy will solve the housing crisis. She detailed MPDU program administration challenges (e.g., qualifying buyers, 90-day resale windows, recapture of equity), and stressed that the goal should be volume of units. She also outlined ADU benefits (aging in place, caregiver proximity, entry-level housing) and challenges (NIMBYism, regulatory hurdles, cost ~$180,000 average). She noted the 800 sq. ft. size cap and impact fees for detached ADUs over that threshold, and suggested allowing planning commission review for larger units.
- MPDU Housing Fund: Review and Prioritization of Uses: Director Stuart Campbell reviewed the 10 eligible activities of the City Housing Fund, funded by developer fees-in-lieu. He flagged several activities as potentially redundant with existing federal/state/city programs (e.g., homebuyer education, weatherization, accessibility modification). He recommended considering a catch-all phrase allowing other activities promoting affordable housing at the discretion of the director (council members preferred council approval). Councilmember Shackelford expressed concern that MPDU funds, collected for new for-sale housing, should be primarily used for new construction (both rental and homeownership) rather than spread across many categories. She cited the need to restore the "missing middle" and build generational wealth. Councilmember Kazimchuk initially expressed concern about concentrating poverty in LIHTC projects but later indicated openness to using funds for unit production.
- ADU Review: Proposed Changes: Planning staff presented a rough draft of changes, including: 1) Relaxing parking requirements (smaller dimensions, counting tandem parking as two spaces, and eliminating the additional parking space if the unit is within a quarter-mile of a transit stop with pedestrian connectivity); 2) Eliminating the owner-occupancy requirement (with ADU becoming subject to rental licensing); and 3) Creating a pathway for ADUs over 800 sq. ft. via planning commission modification review. Councilmember Shackelford opposed eliminating the owner-occupancy requirement and the parking reduction near transit, while Councilmember Kazimchuk supported all changes. Councilmember Shackelford stated she would not vote for any ADU over 800 sq. ft. but offered a compromise: she could support the changes if the ADU were required to be for low-income housing.
Key Outcomes
- CEAP: Staff will incorporate remaining public comments and aim to finalize the plan by end of October 2025. Immediate action items (e.g., cooling center expansion) may be brought forward for the next budget cycle.
- Developer Comment on ADU/MPDU: No formal decision was made. The Builders Association may present a housing symposium in 2026. Staff will follow up on whether an attached ADU is treated differently from a home addition.
- MPDU Fund: Council did not vote on changes. Staff will continue to refine the list of eligible activities. Councilmember Shackelford and Councilmember Kazimchuk expressed that the primary use of MPDU funds should be for constructing new units (both rental and for-sale), with possibly a small discretionary portion. Staff will bring forward a revised prioritization for further discussion.
- ADU Regulations: Staff will incorporate the feedback from the two present councilmembers (disagreement on parking, owner-occupancy, and size) into a formal text amendment for later committee and full council consideration. Councilmember Shackelford floated a potential compromise linking ADU incentives to low-income affordability.
Meeting Transcript
Okay, we're gonna get started. I call to order the October second housing, health and education committee meeting. We'll start with the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands. One nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Let's go forward. So first of all, just a reminder of what the CEAP is. It is a joint city county plan for the Frederick community. This includes everyone in the community. So it's not just government operations, which we've already we've already done, both the city and the county have each done their own government operations plans. This builds on the efforts of the climate emergency mobilization work group, the hazard mitigation and climate adaptation plan, the city climate action plan for government operations, Livable Frederick, and lots of other other plans. Now one thing I will note is that throughout the plan, you'll see some things that are, you know, specific to the city, and um then they'll see some things that are specific to the county. So um just pointing that particular part out. The this is to meet our standards within the region. So the local plan needs to meet the standards to be included in those regional plans. The greenhouse gas emissions are must be calculated by sector, and there needs to be a climate risk and vulnerability assessment, which is included, and there must be a resilience component. I'm gonna ask you. I I never do this, but if you could move back from the microphone just a tiny bit. I know exactly. Yeah, you're it's just all that better. Okay, thank you. So it also has to include a resilience component, and then the uh Metropolitan Washington Council of Government's uh climate action plan was the first regional plan to meet the Paris Agreement, and even though the federal government is not a part of that any longer, the state and region are still part of the Paris Agreement, so we are still complying with that. Uh so continued the city and county goals our city and county goals are to meet 50% greenhouse gas emissions reductions by 2030 and 100% by 2050. And this was a resolution that was passed by both city and county separately. Um you can see that to the right there. Our CEAP aligns with the goals of Maryland's climate pathway, and it builds on community wide and jurisdictional efforts uh to align with our state, regional, and international standards. And you might recall the climate report that the um work group released several years ago. So this definitely builds on those actions, and we're just putting data to that and um moving forward with providing those, we're continuing to provide those actions in here, but we're putting some data behind it. So uh to give you a little bit of background about how we got the community involved. We had 18 in-person public engagement sessions all throughout the city and county. There was a real quick what was what was that over the course of time frame? Time frame. What was that over the course of? Uh, I think we had three months. Okay. Yeah. Uh, and then we had six technical working group sessions made up of citizens, industry experts, and staff. We, if folks couldn't attend any of our um sessions, they could do a survey, and we had over 650 responses for that. And we also had 40 responses during our public input once the um draft report was released. So we're that's what we're still we're incorporating all those public responses right now. So here are the CEAP goals. Um so beyond greenhouse gas emissions, that's you know, kind of what we're looking at. The climate action, of course, means creating healthier communities, and we want to create those communities for everybody for people who are walking, biking, even if you're driving a car, um, you know, taking bus and train riders. We want to make a healthy community for everybody. We want to cultivate new and existing green spaces, so taking those parks that we have and sort of making them even better, and then as new parks come into the system, um, looking at those spaces to continue to provide those benefits. And of course, tackling cost and other barriers. That's the one of the major things we see is that cost is is one of the biggest barriers to you know adopting some of these practices. So trying to figure out ways that that folks can do it, uh finding them grant funds, the little few grant funds that are available right now, trying to to sort of work on those, as well as being good community partners, expanding our technical uh resources of technical advice. Um, that's why we're partnering with the county as we pull together all of our partners, um, we can we have a bigger group of people to pull from to help other folks out, and also it's things like planning to protect against the impacts of heat and flood flood risks. I'll get into that in a little bit, and of course, preparing for population increases.
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