Time to Build: Transit-Oriented Development in Maryland: Secretary Jake Day on Radio Abundance

Transcript

0:00 Welcome to Radio Abundance, a podcast by YIMBY Democrats for America. It's time to build again, folks. Fascism never made America great. But when progressives build, that's where you'll find American greatness. Tonight's guest is Maryland Secretary of Housing and Community Development, Jake Day. A former mayor and a veteran, Jake joins us tonight to answer questions about Governor Wes Moore's new executive order on transit-oriented development. That's coming up right now on Radio Abundance. Please welcome your host for the evening, YIMBY Democrats for America Executive Director, Steve Boyle. Hello and welcome to Radio Abundance. My name is Steve Boyle. I am the Executive Director of YIMBY Democrats for America and the host of Radio Abundance. And I am here today with Maryland's Secretary of Housing and Community Development, Jake Day. Jake, welcome back to Radio Abundance.

0:51 Steve, it's so good to be back with you. Thank you so much for having me. This is, like, so exciting to me because you were on our very first episode. That's right. And slightly hilariously, so our first episode was a double feature, and the first section was you and your boss and friend, Maryland Governor Wes Moore. That's right. And the second half of our double feature was Congressman Jake Auchincloss. And funnily enough, today is a doubleheader for me, and only me. We're doing single episodes now. But I was a couple hours ago in this very same seat talking to my tied-for-first favorite Jake, Jake Auchincloss. And so there's a little bit of an accidental reunion today, and we might even hear from the governor later. Well, I love that. I love that. But you and the Gov had some pretty exciting news last week, and we're, like, very excited to break it down and see what you got planned and ask for all the nitty-gritty details because you're in the right place to get into the weeds.

1:49 But let's start high level. Secretary Day, what did you come out with last week? Well, Steve, let me start off by saying, first, happy five-month anniversary. We had a great conversation that first time, and a lot has transpired since, in Maryland and, of course, across the country.

2:07 Last week, Governor Moore signed the Housing Starts Here executive order. This is a follow-up to some of the achievements that we've made as a state under his leadership around housing production and trying to reduce barriers to housing production, something I know we all believe in. But the Housing Starts Here executive order tackles a couple of things. One, the use of state land as a part of the solution to producing more housing, maybe some low-hanging fruit. It also tackles the red tape that exists within state government and trying to cut some of that red tape. We can get into the weeds once again on what exactly that does. It also takes a very deliberate look at the internal process of state government and things that we can do to be kind of better partners to our development community.

2:58 And then lastly, it focuses on local government and says, we're going to help you identify where the shortfalls are and help set the stage for production across the geography of Maryland, all 24 jurisdictions, and does that in a couple of different ways. I would be happy to talk about it. Yeah, I think good thing you're here because let's talk about it, right? So some of this, okay, and not that we shouldn't talk about this, but like reforming regulatory barriers, like we're with you, right? Accelerate. You kind of want to see, like you want to touch on each one. Let's do that so then we can get to the weeds on the thornier ones later. We'll go in order. Okay. Removing regulatory barriers. Yeah, okay. So there are three or four key pieces of that part of the executive order, but the first of which looks internally at the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development.

3:46 We're the state's lending institution. We are the state's housing finance agency, and so we are a bank for development and largely for development of income-restricted or affordable housing development. We employ the low-income housing tax credit, and it's a very cumbersome process. It's slow. It's detailed. It requires significant underwriting, lots of partnerships, lots of sources of capital to produce income-restricted rental apartment units. And so it's very easy to succumb to all of that and say, well, this has to be slow. But we're at a moment where we cannot allow government process to be any longer than it must be. And so one of the things the executive order does is it mandates my department to move faster, to cut timelines, to cut our processes for how we deploy capital, how we award capital, how we approve projects, and really to just speed and accelerate.

4:44 And so we're starting to think about how we get there, but the governor has ordered that by March 1, 2026, we have deployed our plan and we have significantly reduced our timeline. So that's piece one. Piece number two looks externally to Maryland DHCD, and it says to other state agencies, how can we expedite permitting processes? Now, one of the conversations that we're in with our legislators in the state of Maryland is what role does state government play versus local government? And rather than there being finger-pointing, what we want to say is everybody owns a piece of the burden here on the pipeline to get housing built. So you can't get a key and a door without ultimately going through some state and some local regulatory process.

5:33 And so for the state ones, we're saying two key things. Number one, you must digitize all of your processes. And look, while that might be pretty obvious, it's not something that's fully adopted into state government, whether that be state highway access or forest conservation or stormwater management or critical area commission approval. None of those things are universally easy to access with an online application. That ought to be possible today, and so that's what the governor mandates by March 1, 2026. The second is third-party permitting. To simply acknowledge that, the answer is not more state government process, more state government hiring, more state employees. That's not the answer. The answer is to say let's rather reduce and streamline.

6:20 How can we make it easier? And if we can't meet timelines that are reasonable, then let's accept that a licensed professional engineer or a registered architect may be able to do the same job whether or not they receive a state paycheck. And so we have said that by March 1, 2026, all state agencies must accept third-party permitting. So that puts us in a position where we are better at our process. The last piece of that regulatory framework that we're trying to improve is establishing a housing ombudsman. So this is a person that will work at DHCD as a very senior-level official whose job it is going to be is to work through market rate and affordable projects as they navigate state and local government process. This is going to be the person who picks up the phone on behalf of the governor and says, hey, I'm going to pick a county, Cecil County.

7:12 We are seeing that this site plan approval is still sitting in limbo, is not going through planning commission. What can we do to help it get there? What do you need from us? How can we be of support? This is also the person who's going to look internally to our own organization and say, hey, you know, assistant secretary of this or director of that, we need you to expedite. We need you to speed up your process. You know, I was joking to you before we started, right? I was joking about Joe Rogan's show. Like, whenever I get imposter syndrome, I have to remind myself that his show is all about asking stupid questions and being like, how did these aliens build the pyramids? Then people are like, slow down and I'll explain it. And that's kind of entertaining. If we're trying to do the Joe Rogan on the left, we've got to ask some stupid questions. So here is my stupid question. Secretary Day, what the hell is an ombudsman? Okay. Let me start off by saying this.

7:58 The aliens did not need an ombudsman to build the pyramids. No, but it helps. So we can start off there. Process was probably a lot easier. Fewer steps and fewer regulatory barriers. But an ombudsman, the intent here is that this is the person who shepherds a project through all of the processes. So they are representing state government, but they're an advocate for the development, the future occupants of the development, the economy of that particular county, and the economy of Maryland. Ultimately, we've got to build stuff, and the advocate can exist within state government, I believe. And that's the purpose of the ombudsman position, is that this can be an internal advocate who understands the cogs and wants to grease them to move a little faster.

8:52 Just to impose a little structure on you, me, and the folks at home. At the very top of the executive order, it's like seven pages. Read it. But there's like six kind of bullets. And I sort of think the first four are like, yeah, sweet, do that. And the last two are like, okay, but how? So we'll just sort of go in order-ish while hopping around. But my goal is to hit the first four, and then we'll get to the thorny stuff. So if you're like, I knew all this, stay tuned. Now, you have just told me about removing regulatory barriers. The next one is accelerating building supply lines. Do you feel like we've covered that, or do you have something you want to add some meat on the bones to that one?

9:28 This is a topic that we want to invest more time in, even beyond this housing executive order. And it's a constant conversation of how can we be a better partner to the building trades? How can we be a better partner to building material supply chain? And so this is really a, this is just an entry into that conversation. We, in 2024, we took a step as well by requiring that every jurisdiction allow, by right, manufactured and modular housing across the state. We are now assigning this ombudsman responsibility, not just for housing projects, but for also helping to shepherd housing production projects.

10:14 So whether that be building material projects or modular or manufactured housing construction company projects through the regulatory process as well. So, in other words, we're trying to make it easier from cradle to grave, right, from beginning to end of the process. So, this is, again, just a baby step in that direction, but you'll hear more from us on this in the future. All right. First moment of throwing out the script. So, busy ombudsman, right? So, you talked about, like, the actual materials of construction and prefab and, you know, new potential innovations and how do you do, like, the actual cost besides the bullshit. Once we get rid of the bullshit, there's still stuff that costs money. There's real cost. This is hard. And I had this conversation with Congressman Alcalus earlier today, right, and about sort of what demand signals companies need to actually, like, invest in this technology.

11:04 Like, what's the plan, man? Great question. So, you know, we've been working with some of our local officials, including a friend of mine, county executive of Montgomery County, in attempting to recruit modular manufacturers to the state. One of their first questions is, how many units are you going to help us build? And we have really good answers right now that we probably wouldn't have had two or three years ago prior to the start of the Moore-Miller administration. And that's because this governor has been willing to identify catalytic programs, resources that can shift the market. And I'll give you an example. In Baltimore City, we have something called the Baltimore Vacancy Reinvestment Initiative. This is, among other tools, this is $50 million a year.

11:49 So not an amount to sneeze at. $50 million a year of capital going directly into neighborhoods to do ground-up creation of housing on vacant urban land and to help rehab existing but vacant housing in Baltimore City. And, by the way, we've got 12,500, it's like 12,470-some vacant homes in Baltimore City and tens of thousands of vacant lots. So there's a lot of work to do. And we have a resource in the Baltimore Vacancy Reinvestment Initiative to help pay for the subsidy needed to initiate action on each of those lots. And so we have a way, an answer, to say to company X, I won't give their names, but, you know, company X, company Y, yes, there's a demand signal.

12:37 We can help generate it. We can generate it in partnership with developers, with community development organizations. We're very much interested in that community ground-up identification of what a community wants to see. But ultimately, speed and scale are the values that we are elevating above all else, and we're trying to get to speed and scale. That $50 million a year, that Baltimore Vacant Reinvestment Initiative, is a key piece of that. We also have some really great homegrown companies that we're partnering with, like Blueprint in Baltimore City, a modular manufacturer that is focused on robotics. So we've got some really great things growing out of the Maryland economy as it stands today. And one imagines if y'all are successful, that's going to pay a lot of dividends for other states, too, right?

13:22 You'll have launched those companies, and they will be usable to markets in other states? Without a doubt. I mean, there's no doubt. In fact, you know, some of the conversations that we have have been with companies that have been growing in neighboring states and other states. And that's a natural part of the process. Obviously, we want to recruit them to Maryland, but we also are happy to see those that are located in Maryland grow an exportable product and help solve the housing shortage that exists in Delaware or Pennsylvania or Virginia or elsewhere. All right. Here's number three of our list of six, and we're still in the easy mode, I think. Shortening permit wait times. You talked about that a little. Anything you want to add there that you feel like you haven't covered yet? No, I think we really covered what we're trying to achieve within state government there. I do think it's worth talking about, and we might want to spend a little time later getting into it, that a key part of that effort is to say that everybody's got to shorten their processes.

14:17 If state government and county government and municipal government each has a role to play in the approval process, then let's each work to cut our timelines. And, you know what? I say, let's be first. Let's show the way. The governor believes in that. Let's lead the way. Let's prove that it can be done. And then let's ask for our partners to meet us there. So that's a big part of that. So last of the quasi-easy ones, reforming financing for affordable housing. Yeah. So our process... I don't want to pretend that's actually easy, but we're going to get to two harder ones. Well, our processes within state government, again, as the primary vehicle for financing affordable housing, using and leveraging the federal low-income housing tax credit, and our really significant subordinate debt programs, they are, again, cumbersome.

15:07 They are long. They are... It takes a lot of work and effort to underwrite those deals. I think we can make less work for ourselves and be faster. Not every government solution to speed requires increasing government staff. So I want us to be leaner and quicker, and the governor wants us to be leaner and quicker. So you'll see more about that over the next few months. Our implementation plan is going to be released soon. About this entire executive order. So one of the things we want to do is share with the public what we're going to do with each step. This is one where we're working with industry really closely to make sure that we can all navigate this without a lot of disruption. Now, when I reached out to folks in our community and folks who are very close watchers of this and practitioners of this kind of stuff, and most of the questions I got for you revolved around the final two points.

16:02 Okay. One of which is that you're going to leverage state-owned property, and the question there is like, yeah, how? Tell us. And then the second one, which I think we'll begin with because it's a little more explosive, is that you're going to encourage local jurisdictions to adopt better land use regulations, to which everybody who does this will say, yeah, okay, man, sure, they're going to love that. You know, and it was raised a lot, you know, and I want to shout out a Californian who will never get enough of his due for how important he has been, who is California's attorney general, Rob Bonta, because you, I mean, people don't want to cooperate. It doesn't matter what the law is. The municipalities don't want to do it. And you have to sometimes like, like sue them and hold their feet to the fire.

16:50 So let's start broadly first. All right. When they say no thank you, like what are the carrots and the sticks here? I want to acknowledge that that's what's going to happen. There is going to be a landscape of no thank yous and a landscape of yes pleases. And we're going to start there.

17:10 I don't think that's likely to turn the tide on the housing shortage in Maryland. We're going to need the no thank yous to take up their share of the effort. Maryland is short 96,000 housing units right now. That's for the current population of Maryland. Now, if we want to see our economy grow at a scale that the nation's economy grew in the last decade, if we want to see our economy grow competitive with our neighbors in Pennsylvania and Virginia and Delaware and D.C., well, then we're going to have to do even more than that. You know, I think we'll have to grow more than 200,000 housing units in just the next few years. And so that's a tall order. It's going to be really difficult. I think the way we start is by saying in your planning documents, by state law, in your comprehensive plans, you have a housing element. In your housing element, you articulate a vision of how many housing units you want to build.

17:59 In most cases, those are pretty significant figures. Those are aspirational, maybe, but they're plans, right? And so I'm a big believer in implementing your plans. I should share with your listeners that I was a planning commissioner. I was an architect and planner by background, urban designer by background. I was a city council president and a mayor. And as a local government official, we adopted a lot of plans. And the whole ballgame, as a chief executive of a city, for me, was implementing the plans. Because what communities love to do is adopt a plan and put it on a shelf. We want to take those plans and say, let's operationalize them. Our economy is screaming for it. Maryland families are screaming for it.

18:46 And so we want to get to the point where we can implement. Now, what are our tools to leverage action? One, I think we do have an ability to say there is a good body of work that has been done by other communities around the country, and in some cases in Maryland, to incentivize growth, to incentivize housing development. Housing development in the right places. Housing development that is of quality. Housing development that is affordable and at multiple income levels. We've got good examples of that. Let's elevate that and let's replicate that. We can all copy from each other and learn from each other. So that's number one. I think we can help to promulgate some pro-housing legislation across local jurisdictions.

19:31 How we get there, I think, is by working in concert with them, a lot of engagement, to identify what the five-year goals should be on housing and the individual years within, and try to develop some shared understanding of what that goal should be, and then incentivize it by giving them bonus points on our capital grant funding. Because here's the bottom line.

19:57 The tool that we have, I mentioned that $50 million fund, the tool that we have that is most influential is state capital grants. We're responsible for a very significant amount of those grants, and they are all to build housing, community facilities, small businesses, revitalize main streets, things like that. All things that are usually pretty important to local officials, at least, you know, even if you remove housing from that equation. All the other things are really important. They have their own aspirations. They have their own desires. And what we should be doing is saying, if the rest of the state is going to award you funds to incentivize you to build the things or to subsidize your efforts to build the things that you want to build, that will achieve your political objectives, your vision for your community, well, shouldn't you be doing your part?

20:48 To grow your economy? To grow your community? To build enough housing so that people can afford to live there? So that other things are attracted and other investment comes to your community? I think the answer is yes. So I think this is a very reasonable thing to say. So we're awarding bonus points. We're also going to celebrate new innovations with a series of housing leadership awards. This is an opportunity for the governor to acknowledge and address those new innovations that come out of local government, municipal and county government, and to celebrate them. And we will, again, promulgate those as ideas for other communities to adopt. So all of this is a way to use a carrot, yes, admittedly, to incentivize action in the right direction.

21:37 I think the question then becomes what happens if we don't see enough action? What happens if the no thank yous are too prevalent or in the places where growth should be naturally happening but isn't? And, by the way, that's the status quo. That's the current condition in Maryland. And we are going to get to those sticks in a second. But first, hey, we have to take a little bit of a step back, right? Because the word understood, like I'm grilling you. I'm just going to ask you what a housing element is. And the reason is like a housing – okay. So that word, right, you know, as a California, at least that word is both comfortingly familiar and also some chills of trauma down my spine. But it is not – if you are – to the uninitiated, that is not an intuitive phrase. Why the heck – I don't know why it's called that. Like, can you just explain to anyone who – and maybe every listener of the podcast knows what a housing element is, but also maybe not.

22:26 I like to think we're bringing people into this movement. What is – like, it is just not an intuitive phrase to me. What is a housing element? Okay. So the comprehensive plan – comprehensive planning law in Maryland requires a 10-year annual update to a plan that addresses all kinds of things for a community. Community facilities, transportation needs, water resources, et cetera. One of the required elements is something called the municipal growth element. This is really about population forecasting and build-out capacity. So current zoning, what can we – what could we build? The next piece that was added shortly after that was a housing element. So this gets into the specific, how are you going to solve the problem? What – not only population growth – what population growth do you anticipate, but what types of housing do you anticipate integrating into your community?

23:19 How are you going to sequence this stuff over a 10-year time horizon? So that's the required element that must be adopted by the local jurisdiction. So approved by a planning commission, then adopted by a city council, town commission, or county council. And how do you – how do you figure out – and this is one of the questions that came in, right? Like, okay, so you've figured out Maryland. Maryland, even just conservatively, is 96,000 units short. But how the heck do you go, okay, but Annapolis is X many units short? Like, how do you figure that out for each little town, municipality, whatever? So this is really where the relationship building is going to come in, because I think what we can naturally fairly easily do is open up – crack open those documents and say, this is your plan, and let's divide that up into five-year increments and then into one-year increments and think about what you should be producing each year.

24:06 We can start there. And we can start by essentially apportioning based on that growth pattern that each of them have already anticipated, apportioning 96,000 conservatively – it'll be more than that, but conservatively – across the state.

24:23 What's going to happen, I am confident, is that we're going to end up in some conversations where a county, for example – Annapolis, the city of Annapolis, it's in Anne Arundel County. Anne Arundel County may say to us, okay, you're telling us we have to build 22,000 housing units over the next five years. God, it's the state of Maryland. If we were to simply apportion that across all of our residentially zoned areas, we'd end up with sprawl we're uncomfortable with. We'd end up with low-density development. We want to concentrate that into certain areas where we have the water and sewer capacity, where we have the road capacity, where we have other aspirations. We might even just have certain visions for the physical development of a place in terms of its density.

25:11 And so can we modify? Can we say the city of Annapolis should do 10%, 15% more than you might otherwise have guessed? And the answer to that is, yeah, that's a very reasonable argument. So let's sit down and have those conversations. So we're going to build a relationship here. Now, it's going to work the opposite direction, too. We're going to sit down with certain jurisdictions, municipalities, counties, and they're going to say, we don't need more housing. And I could draw a map for you right now, and I could shade in the areas where we're going to hear that. And our response is going to have to be, well, that's not going to be acceptable. And the governor has the power in this system to say, that's not going to be acceptable, and we're going to disagree, and my decision will prevail. So that's where we're at.

25:58 It's going to be, there are going to be tough conversations like that. And then it will be our responsibility to, again, hold these jurisdictions to account on producing whatever number we settle on based on these conversations, some of which will be mutually agreeable and some of which will be fraught with some disagreement, but to hold them responsible for adapting policies to produce favorable outcomes on housing production. Good. Good segue, and you've had enough time to think, let's talk about sticks, right? Okay. So when words fail, right, when the gov says build, and they say no, and the gov says build, and then they say no, and the gov says, but you will build, then what? How does that happen? Yeah, so since I arrived in this job, since the governor appointed me to this job, and since I was confirmed, one of the things that we have argued is that our effort to make Maryland a place where regulatory obstacles are reducing, production is increasing, has assumed that there is no silver bullet, and that we must take an iterative approach to this process.

27:04 And so what you'll see is that we're not done with this executive order. We don't think we've solved the problem with this executive order. We don't think we solved it with our housing package in 2024 or the housing legislation we proposed in 2025, but there will be a next step. And so in 2026, we have, the governor has already announced a sort of pre-decisional draft legislative package, which includes a couple of pieces of legislation that already get down to asking local government to do more. For our counties and municipalities, what that means is asking them to implement third-party permitting, just as state government will have by the time that legislation is considered.

27:51 Asking them to become an early vesting jurisdiction versus a late vesting jurisdiction as we are today. And I see the look on your face. Tell me what that means. So as it stands today, Maryland jurisdictions can accept an application from you. Let's say you have a piece of property, you want to develop housing on it. We can accept an application. You've reviewed the code. You've reviewed applicable state law and regulations. You've submitted a set of drawings and a plan that complies with that. We can change the law and change the rules all the way up until the time that we issue you a permit. I think there's a question of fairness there, but I also think it creates an unpredictable environment and an environment that will likely cost you money in unpredictability and creates a window for opponents of housing development, people that fear change, human beings, in other words, an opportunity to flummox or disrupt an otherwise, what should be an otherwise predictable process, after the point of following all the rules as they stand on the books on the day you apply.

29:07 Becoming an early vesting state would mean the rules can't change after that, after the point at which you submit a complete application, which I think, again, is just a fair way to have government process.

29:20 I like it. Thank you. Now, you know, the word vesting, I told you I'm a Californian, right? You start to go, all right, well, if Baltimore is a founding engineer, then they'll get this much equity. But that's not what you mean. But, yeah, like you want to – it's a little – it's a little Roman when they had their civil wars. It was sort of like if you join my side before this state, you have amnesty, and if you wait too long, you're going to deal with the fact that you missed the boat a little bit. Yeah, that's right. It's not quite that severe, but, you know. Almost. Almost. Almost. Almost. Yeah. All right, let's get to the other thing, which is, you know, leveraging state-owned land, right, which is like – there's a little bit of, like, screw it, we'll do it ourselves.

29:58 What are you going to do? Yeah, so what we have begun to do is – I'm going to start with the Maryland Department of Transportation because I think there's so much ground to be gained here. Maryland is crisscrossed by a number of transit systems. WMATA, so the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, which is the D.C. metro. We also have the Mark Suburban Commuter Light Rail Line – or, excuse me, Heavy Rail Lines. We also have the Baltimore Light Rail System. We also have a Baltimore Subway System. I don't know if people even realize that, but there is a relatively small Heavy Rail Subway System in Baltimore City. And so you've got these systems, most of the stops around which you have state-owned surface parking lots.

30:46 And so the Washington – excuse me, the Maryland Department of Transportation has this critical role to play as a landowner in the very areas where it should be easiest to build. And we have a history of not utilizing that land to maximum economic performance. And what is it – again, today, it's mostly surface parking. And so the intent here is to say, what have we done as a system – state of Maryland government, broader system – what have we done to make it possible to develop in those areas? And the answer is, not enough. We've talked aspirationally about transit-oriented development for a long time. What we're doing now is, we have committed, through this executive order, the governor has committed us to ensuring that the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development is prioritizing proposed use of those lands for housing development in all of our capital grant scoring, prioritize them in our housing finance scoring, so for LIHTC deals, as well as for anything else we invest in with our capital grants.

31:56 So it could be market rate, you know, market rate over retail, mixed use, you know, five-over-one type development. We can support that with our capital grants. And we'll prioritize those investments. In addition to that, it's a reciprocal dynamic where, when we have developers that are interested in putting a project that is financed by the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development into those areas, Maryland Department of Transportation will prioritize execution on those projects, rather than, say, reservation of that land for some future aspiration. So the intent is to really get all of that land activated, particularly in sites that are what we think of as low-hanging fruit. MDOT has already started working on a project at Bowie State University in Prince George's County, and at Odenton Station in Arundel County, and also in Reisterstown in Baltimore County.

32:51 So there's a series of projects throughout the state that are already starting to bubble up, thanks to this initiative.

32:59 The second category is non-transit-oriented. So the Maryland Department of General Services has committed, through this executive order, to do a couple of things. One, to create a detailed inventory of land that they own that could be used for housing. It requires a change in lens, so not thinking about these assets as something that a local government might want, but rather they're thinking about it as, which is, by the way, the current lens, but rather than thinking about it as something that a housing developer might want. The second is to dramatically compress their timeline for disposition of these properties to a 30-day RFP and a 90-day disposition period to ultimately lead to a land disposition agreement to help a developer proceed.

33:46 So we're talking about 120 days, a pretty short window for state government that is used to much longer processes. I did like the map of Maryland you drew on the table here. I am also a visual and spatial person. You could see it. I could see it. You could see it. Let's go through this slowly. Pretend I'm stupid. It won't be hard. First, so this is publicly owned land. Yes.

34:10 Are you building on it? Is this a public-private partnership? Are you selling it? Who has the shovel? The answer right now is all of the above. Correct. And I want to add one small line in the executive order that I think is really critical, is that the governor is asking state agencies to optimize the use of the state power to be exempt from local government rules and regulations with respect to zoning. That isn't to contradict the intent of comprehensive plans and zones in local government, but rather to remove an obstacle where the letter of the law is used to deny what otherwise should be possible and is logical.

34:58 And I'll give you not an example, but the reason why that reference is in there. The state is exempt from local zoning. And so if the state is the applicant, if the state is the developer, then we can simply bypass a lot of the obstacles that might otherwise exist. So the governor's direction gives us a path possibly to bypass all of the obstacles that a developer might otherwise encounter if they were subject to those rules and subject to local zoning. So, again, the intent is not to ignore it. The intent is to say it can't be used as an obstacle to deny it. Let's be logical about this.

35:45 Let's be objective and logical and say that if it makes sense for, you know, 100 housing units to be here and your zoning code restricts us to 80, you know, let's build the 100 because we need those 20 extra units. And we can because the state of Maryland is the developer. And so it may mean that we end up in an ownership position or in a partnership position versus being simply a lease, the owner of the land leasing to a developer or the owner of the land selling to a developer. I mean, look, I'm trying not to rub my hands together like Mr. Burns, but now I get to ask you to me personal, what do you call it? Not pet peeve. What's the opposite of that? Thing I like.

36:31 The first is when you think about the possibility of the state building, and you mentioned many possibilities, do you consider building, in addition to, like, affordable subsidized housing, building state-owned and sold market rate housing to subsidize more affordable housing?

36:50 I want to make sure I got your question. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the question here is should the state be in the business of building more market rate housing or building market rate housing at all that we own in order to enable the, to free up resources or to fund? Yeah. I am an interviewer. Don't just do what I say. But, like, I think two things, right? One is we know that stuff anyways, more supply helps. Yeah. But I also think if the state has a goal to build affordable housing, the question is always, where's the money coming from? And if all these developers are making so much money, shouldn't the state, you know what I mean, and then check it in? So that's the question. You don't have to do it, but I am curious. Yeah, I mean, look, inherent in your question is, I think, you know, the acknowledgement that many people argue that the private sector is making money hand over fist.

37:42 If that were true, development would be happening everywhere, right? We're at a point in time where market rate housing development, multifamily market rate housing development in the state of Maryland has really, really slowed, particularly in suburban Washington. That is, by the way, not the result of just changes in politics in Washington, nor is it just a loss of federal jobs. We're seeing that slowdown reflect a reticence for people to invest in that area, and that's concerning. That's deeply troubling, and I think the regulatory environment has a lot to do with that. That is not one policy. It's not one jurisdiction. It's a regional problem that we need to address, particularly when we want to be competitive with Virginia and Pennsylvania and others.

38:36 I often think about ways to invest in projects, types of projects, that will result in sustainable revenue for the state for us to do other things that need to be subsidized, whether that's income-restricted housing creation or the many other activities that we engage in that are inherently a government-subsidized activity or a government-funded activity. That being said, I don't view us as a long-term developer or long-term holder of housing, of market rate housing, or even workforce housing. I look at us as a catalyst. I think state government and the Maryland Department, particularly the lending arm of Maryland DHCD, I look at us as a catalyst for activity who wants the private sector to profit.

39:26 We want the private sectors to succeed. We want them to be building more things and to be reaping the benefits so that they can build the next thing. You know, I want to create an environment where that investment naturally finds its way and profitability can occur such that we can get all the wonderful things that we want. A growing, look, we talk about redistribution of wealth as the American problem. I think, really, it's a shortage of wealth that has to be resolved first. We need more in order for the pie to be more evenly distributed. We need bigger pie. And so I look at our job as being the catalyst to grow the pie, not necessarily an owner of a significant portion of the pie. Does that make sense? Does that answer your question? It completely answers my question.

40:12 It's just, yeah, I mean, it's good to know about it. And I think this next one, I already know the answer, but I had Congressman Akenklaas in here earlier, so I have to ask it, right? He recently had an op-ed that was like, we should build more cities. Now, in a sense, that is the opposite of transit-oriented development. I love both. You're mostly want to sort of augment where the action is. You're not going to build any new action, right, even in micro ways. Do you think at all about, does that question make sense? I'm not saying you're going to build a new Baltimore, but, like, the things that people want to live, like, new, is there any sense of the place-making, new place? Like, is there, you know what I mean? Of course. So I think the answer is actually yes. Yeah, nice. Now, we need, we have 24 jurisdictions in Maryland, 24 counties and county equivalents.

40:58 Baltimore City is an independent city county. So we've got 24 jurisdictions. We need 24 solutions. We really do. We are not in the business of saying there will be one way to build Maryland. We're really in the business of looking at each sure section. But when you start to have a conversation about Maryland having a housing shortage, and the shortage being the underlying problem to the housing affordability crisis, inevitably, in our state, this might not be the California experience or the Massachusetts experience, in Maryland, inevitably, people will say, well, what about all those vacant houses in Baltimore? Shouldn't that solve the problem? The answer is no. We live in a marketplace in this country where people get to choose where they want to live.

41:46 Not everybody is looking to live in a renovated row home in Baltimore City. Many people are. There's actually pretty significant demand. But that won't solve the entire problem. So we do have to look at other ways of solving the problem. I want to tell you one other really critical thing to know about Maryland. Maryland is a historical leader in smart growth. And under Governor Paris Glenn Denning in the 1990s, a former municipal and county leader, Maryland led in smart growth and neighborhood revitalization. That was, by the way, that was the whole phrase, smart growth. Can you define that? Can you define smart growth? Smart growth was really – it's a term that gets used today to describe a protection of rural and agricultural environment. But it was more than that back then.

42:32 It was smart growth and neighborhood revitalization, that collective phrase, was really about having great places that are robust, that are diverse, that have a density of economic activity, that have transit-oriented development, and that, by the way, are good, positive contributors to a healthy overall landscape and climate. But the way we thought about it back then was we must do more to rein in growth, and we got really good as a state adopting the policies to tell people where not to build. What we never did was finish the conversation. What we never did was adopt the policies that incentivize growth in the right places. That doesn't just have to mean reinvesting in places like Baltimore City. After all, we're a state that built Columbia, a new planned community that is unincorporated, but otherwise would be Maryland's second-largest city, is Maryland's second-largest city.

43:26 It's just an unincorporated place for now. And if you look at other places in the landscape, just looking at comprehensive plans, there are opportunities to build out communities that are relatively new or that reutilize land in a new way. I'll give you a couple of examples. Six Flags in Prince George's County recently announced that they are shutting down. So it's an amusement park. I know it makes me sad, too. I like a roller coaster. I'm more excited by that setup than where you went with that. Maybe you're going to build housing. Tell me. Tell me. Let's do it. Get ready to be excited because we're going to build housing. We're going to build complete communities in places like that. In places like, look, if the Washington commanders decide that they're going to move into Washington, D.C. once again, that creates an opportunity for a really robust community to be created in its absence.

44:19 A year-round, a 365-day community, not just an eight-day community. And so, and look, I'm a football fan, but a 365-day community serves people more fully. It serves their lives more completely. It creates real community. And so what I would say is there are opportunities in the landscape that are not existing cities where we have to do, you know, really difficult, really complex and expensive infill and insert that in surgical ways that are very costly. But there are places where, yes, in the landscape we can create compact communities and reutilize once-developed land in smarter ways. And we are coming to a close here, but I did, I wanted to ask, like, are there cities, municipalities that are doing creative stuff around this that you think we can learn from, augment?

45:13 Like, who's inspiring you? What would you tweak? Like, who's doing interesting stuff right now? I'll give you a couple of examples. You know, my friends in Baltimore City, Mayor Scott, has a pretty great housing package. He and the council president, Zeke Cohen, a couple of the council members have a really great housing package that eliminates parking minimums, does a couple of other great things for Baltimore City. My own city of Salisbury, when I was mayor, we adopted, we eliminated parking minimums. In fact, adopted parking maximums that were lower than the minimums that existed before it, really, you know, squeezing down parking requirements. We created essentially a holiday for permit fees in that city.

46:01 Montgomery County, Maryland, has a really great tool in their Housing Opportunities Commission, their Housing Trust Fund. There are a couple other counties, like Howard County, that has a Housing Trust Fund as well, that they're leveraging local dollars, and in some cases, some federal dollars, and blending those two resources together to create a fund to incentivize social housing or a fund mixed income housing. Anne Arundel County has done a great job with its moderately priced dwelling unit program. So there is innovation that is happening. There are local leaders that are bold, that are willing to say, I will lead, we will do our part. And what we want to do is elevate those voices and elevate those examples so that other communities around the state are doing their part as well.

46:48 Now, before I bring us to our finale, I always find this to be a helpful and revealing question, which is, what didn't I ask you that I should have?

46:58 Yeah, I appreciate that question. I'm really glad we ended on the note of what other communities are doing that we're excited about. Because maybe the question that we need to be asked is, what more, in addition to housing production and reducing regulatory barriers, can the state of Maryland be doing? I think it's a fair question. It's one I get asked by members of the General Assembly, the Maryland General Assembly, our legislature, all the time, and one that we need to be prepared to answer. The question you just asked was, what more? And I don't know if we're, all right, I might all get a kick out of that as much as I did. Of course. Look, we talked, we began at the beginning. It is, it's exciting to, you, that first episode launched us, right?

47:46 And I'll, let's go back in time a little bit. So, the, the, you know, after the 2024 election, in the sort of weeks of depression and not really standing up or changing my clothes, you know what I mean? At a certain point, you're like, all right, I'm going to keep going. I was fairly new to politics, and I was like, well, that dream is over. But I just reached out to, you know, any staffers that I had kind of come across in the campaign. And two people, everyone else was, they were depressed too, we were. But two, two people said, said, yeah, well, I just said, you know, hey, I'm new, will you have a virtual coffee with me? And one person said yes right away, and one person said yes, but in a couple months. The person who said yes right away, a guy named Shane Wade, who works in social media for your boss, Governor Moore.

48:35 And we were talking, and he said, what are you going to do next? And I said, I don't know, maybe a podcast. And he says, if you do a podcast, Governor Moore will be your first guest. And I said, we're going to do a podcast. But then there were the holidays, quite tough to schedule anyways, a busy guy. And, you know, and then it was the holidays. So that died a little bit until I spoke to the second person who is a Lucinda Ware, who you know well. And I took that call from Guatemala, and we hit it off. And I was like, that dream kind of died. And she was like, I'm going to make it happen. And she did. And because of you and because of Governor Moore, and only because of you guys, this launched. And it's been an incredible, five months, that's insane. That's so fiddle.

49:22 The country's real different now. But, I mean, it's been incredible. And hopefully there's a lot more to come. But I really do largely credit you and the Gov and Congressman Knockin' Glass. Thank you, too. And it is very funny and totally accidental that those two Jakes are here today. Too funny. And you told me before we began, a little text from the governor? I did. I did. Yeah. Can I share? What more? What more? Can I share? You may. Okay. All right. Can I just preface it by saying this?

49:51 You know, there's a lot more that we need to be doing. Did we mention he launched his re-election bid today? This will go out in timely enough time. I don't know if we did. Can you please pitch your boss for, like, 20 seconds? Well, let me do it. And I'll do it in the context of housing. So the thing to know about Governor Westmore is this.

50:11 Yes, he believes in housing production, but not as an end, right? He believes in opportunity for every family that lives in Maryland and that wants to live in Maryland. And in order to do that, especially in the context of what's going on in our nation's capital, it is really critical that he believes it is really critical that we acknowledge that we have visited significant injustices on certain people and certain places in this country, often based on race, not just based on race, but often based on race. And it's really critical that we take a hard look at how we do better for the next generation of Americans and of Marylanders. And I see in his decisions every single day a person that's committed to that.

50:59 So that lens of justice-focused work is something that he is committed to. And that's the what's more. That's the more that must guide our work and guide our investments in our communities, whether it's housing, whether it's small business, you name it. That will ultimately ensure that the wealth that we build reaches everybody and that everybody's got a fair shot at it. Can I share the text that he sent before? Please do. Okay. All right. Just so people know that I'm not making this up. It's real. Yeah. He said, hey, Jake, please give my best to the Yimby Democrats. He says, it's crazy to think it's been just five months since the first episode we did together. How funny that you're getting the band back together with my man, Jake Day, and Congressman Auchincloss.

51:48 I'd be there with you if I wasn't literally launching my re-election bid today. So, yes, you mentioned it. He's got to plug it. He's got to plug it. And I will just share, you know, 2026, it's going to be a critical year for America, but 2026 is a critical year for Maryland. Governor Wes Moore has done an incredible job, and I know he will continue to do so. That's not in the text. That's me saying that. So he says, you're in great hands, though, and together with Secretary Day, we're making sure that Maryland leads in addressing our housing crisis, building America, and championing Progressive Abundance. We got this. And that's my boss. It's my dream that he would say those words. And I feel like, you know, it's cool. We've got a leader in Maryland, and I know there's a landscape of great leaders across this country, but we've got a leader in Maryland that really believes in these things.

52:41 And, you know, his words say it better than I could. It's very special. You know, when we launched the mission to build America and defeat fascism, about seven weeks later, there was a Build America caucus in Congress. And around then, I was interviewed by the Wall Street Journal, and they asked me, you know, what I wanted to see in the next few years. And I said, you know, I want Democrats to champion Progressive Abundance. I, you know, hoped that he would say that, but he did, because abundance is progressive, and that rocks. Well, and it's become around Annapolis, you know, meaning in, under his leadership, it's become a common war cry, right? It's, you know...

53:27 Just to be very clear, articulate, you said war cry and not war crime. That feels really important. That's right. All right. I like it, though. That is very important. War cry. And we're talking to, by the way, you, the governor, Jake Auchincloss, all three of you have another thing in common. Do you know what that is? Well, I did not... I don't think I knew this about Congressman Auchincloss, but, yes, we're all veterans. Thank you. All three of us served in combat and global war on terror. So, I would say that, look, Governor Westmore believes, again, what I was saying earlier, that the pie's got to grow, that opportunity for all means there's got to be more, and government has stood in the way. We have not delivered on the promise of what government can do to support people.

54:17 We have become the obstacle and, more often, the place that says you go to to hear the word no.

54:24 Pretty cool. That's got to change. Where can people find out more? You can go to dhcd.maryland.gov. At that site, you can learn all about the Housing Starts Here executive order, as well as our previous initiatives under Turning the Key. So, we have a whole banner on Turning the Key. You click there, you'll get all our resources, frequently asked questions about the various things that we have done to ramp up housing production. In the state of Maryland. Very nice. I do not think, what more, should be the campaign slogan. But if it is, remember, it happened here. I don't think it should be either. No, I don't think so. I don't think so. Secretary Day, this has been a blast. Thank you. I mean, thanks so much for launching us, and thanks so much for hanging out with us today. Thank you for hanging out with us today, everybody who is watching Radio Abundance, and thank you for sending in your questions, and I hope we got them answered, and if not, we will.

55:18 But thank you to everybody who sent them in. Thank you to everybody who watched this. Thank you, Secretary Jay. Any quick last words? Look, Steve, my final thoughts. Thank you. Thank you for allowing Maryland to participate in these conversations. There's a lot of great work being done all across America. We're just proud to be a contributor to that great work. We know that there's a lot of lessons to learn from our peers, and we love learning from California and Montana and Massachusetts and whomever, but there's a landscape of great leaders, and I'm just proud to be a part of the conversation and to work for one of those great leaders. Well, I will accept that on behalf of all of Maryland. Thank you. You want to go grab a beer? Let's do it. All right. Bye, everybody.

56:00 Thank you for listening to Radio Abundance. Now it's time for you to join the movement. There's no time to lose. Head to yimbydemocrats.org slash join to sign up, and make sure to follow us at radioabundance.substack.com. And thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.