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The Wes Moore-Aruna Miller Administration has made “work, wages, and wealth” our North Star. We must ensure that every Marylander can get a good job, earn good pay and pass something on to their children — besides debt.

Over the last 12 months, we’ve looked under the hood of our state’s economy to learn about the barriers standing between Marylanders and opportunity. Our economic engine is getting stronger thanks to programs we championed in our first year. But we’re still leaving too much potential on the table — resulting in fewer pathways to work, wages and wealth.

After examining our state’s fiscal health, one thing has become abundantly clear: To build a stronger economy and give more Maryland families a fair shot at success, we must address the housing crisis head-on and build a stable housing market that drives long-term economic growth.

Our constituents know that the cost of living is expensive, rents are too high and home prices are up. Most Marylanders in rental properties put a third of their monthly paycheck toward rent. Mortgage interest rates more than doubled in the last two years, placing homeownership increasingly out of reach for the average Maryland family.

Many Marylanders can’t buy a house in the same neighborhood they grew up in. Working families are burning through cash to make rent, leaving them with less to spend on groceries, medicine and the occasional hard-earned night out. What’s even harder to measure is the opportunity cost of spending so much on housing instead of saving for a down payment, paying for a child’s tutoring or writing a family’s next chapter by starting a small business.

We must address the housing crisis at its source: Withering supply. Since the 2008 Great Recession, our state has not built new homes at an adequate pace to keep up with demand. The result is a staggering housing shortage of approximately 96,000 housing units — and counting.

When demand outpaces supply, prices soar. For renters and homeowners, that means insufferable costs just to keep a roof over your head — and a strain on your bank account that can last a lifetime. Marylanders are cramming into small spaces and paying too much for it. Young adults are moving home after college instead of setting out on their own.

The people of Maryland elected this administration to take bold action. We’ve spent the last year showing Marylanders what action looks like — but we aren’t slowing down. During the 2024 legislative session, our administration will introduce a historic housing package consisting of three main elements.

First, we need to cut through government red tape. Right now, any public or private entity hoping to build new housing must adhere to a patchwork of complex regulations. We must streamline the building process by eliminating local and state barriers that stand in the way of commonsense housing development.

In Maryland, we have a strong track record of protecting areas where we shouldn’t build housing, such as precious farmland and fragile wild habitats. Our administration will honor that tradition. But we need to make progress on incentivizing housing in places where we should be building it. This coming year, we will introduce legislation to do exactly that.

Second, we need to strengthen the power of state government to drive development. We plan to introduce legislation that will empower Maryland to compete for millions of dollars in federal support and strengthen existing government programs centered on turning vacant and unsafe structures into community assets.

Our team has refined these provisions in collaboration with advocates and elected officials, including Comptroller Brooke Lierman, and we look forward to partnering with the General Assembly to get it passed and signed into law.

Third, we need to stand with renters. It will take time for housing supply to meet demand, but we know Marylanders need help immediately. Together, we’ve crafted legislation to address high eviction filing rates, establish a new Office of Tenant Rights, design and disseminate a Maryland Tenants Bill of Rights, reduce barriers to becoming a renter and create new pathways to home ownership.

This is one of the most robust and dynamic housing packages that any Maryland administration has introduced in generations. Taken together, our bills will spur new housing construction, ease regulations, enhance long-term financial investment in low-income areas, centralize resources for Maryland renters and get our economy moving again.

Marylanders are counting on us to get this right. More than three-quarters of Maryland voters support the construction of more affordable housing in our state. Now, we must answer their calls. Working in partnership, we will take bold action to ensure greater access to affordable housing —  and in doing so, make work, wages and wealth more attainable to all Marylanders.

Wes Moore is the 63rd governor of Maryland. Jake Day is the state’s secretary of housing and community development.

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Maryland’s housing crisis is getting worse. Freddie Mac and the National Association of Realtors have reported there is a housing shortage of around 120,000 units in Maryland. This number isn’t projecting future growth or new people moving to Maryland, but rather the under supply of housing for those who already call Maryland home. This deficit causes more people to live in smaller spaces and to pay more than they can afford for a place to lay their head. It heightens the risk of eviction and homelessness. Low housing supply results in rents that far outpace regional income growth. And it ultimately makes Maryland a less desirable place to move or build a business as workers require higher compensation to pay for high housing costs.

Maryland’s affordable housing crisis is even worse. The National Low Income Housing Coalition issues an annual report on “The Gap” between demand and supply for affordable units. Maryland has 30 affordable and available rental units for every 100 extremely low income rental households. This ranks Maryland as having the 10th worst affordable housing gap in the country.

While many state lawmakers have acknowledged the high cost of housing as a crisis, few are willing to identify local government as the primary suspect. A century ago, the Standard State Zoning Enabling Act was issued by the U.S. Department of Commerce to provide model legislation for states to grant municipalities the power to dictate local land use. Since that time, housing has been presumed to be a “local matter” not subject to state control.

This made sense as counties facilitated, and even welcomed, growth. But over time, these same counties have become less interested in growth and more focused on resource hoarding. Counties not only want to create well-funded school systems with a high quality of life, but also want to ensure as few people as possible have access to these public goods.

In Baltimore County, a new affordable housing proposal in Towson was finally cleared for construction after being held up, and denied administrative approval, because of a resolution adopted by the County Council with the express intent of killing the project. The 56 new affordable units are desperately needed to satisfy the county’s obligation to create 1,200 new units over the next 11 years — an obligation it is not likely to meet.

In Howard County, a member of the Zoning Board, who also serves as a member of the County Council, presided over and voted against a zoning petition for new apartments in the Columbia village of Hickory Ridge after testifying against the petition when it was before the Howard County Planning Board. This kind of explicit bias would be decried in any courtroom, but is status quo for local land use decisions.

Adequate Public Facilities Ordinances, which are intended to signal the need for additional infrastructure to accompany housing growth, have been utilized by counties to create housing moratoriums, stalling the construction of housing in areas with already inflated housing prices. Earlier this year, a circuit court judge ruled that a police shortage in Annapolis would require a hold on all new housing in the city.

Jurisdictions like Montgomery County are projected to need over 60,000 new housing units over the next 20 years. Despite relatively liberal land use and zoning policies compared to its neighbors, Montgomery County is producing less than 2,600 new housing units per year, leaving a projected gap of 8,000 units. When large jurisdictions like Montgomery County don’t build enough housing, the consequences cascade across surrounding counties that need to make up the gap.

The necessities of the housing crisis have caused states like California and Massachusetts to revisit the sanctity of local control for the purposes of shaping statewide housing policy. Maryland may be ready to do the same. House Bill 852/Senate Bill 903 would require counties to provide expedited permit review for religious institutions building affordable housing. Lawmakers also are considering creating a task force to study a law that would require counties to allow the construction of accessory dwelling units. The Montgomery County Delegation sponsored legislation that would prohibit the Montgomery County district council from adopting or enforcing a local law that would require off-street parking for a residential development that is located within a quarter mile of a present or planned Metro or Purple Line station.

The failure to build new housing is a generational wealth transfer by inertia. As housing supply becomes more constrained, Baby Boomers, Gen X members, and older millennials become more wealthy on paper, while later generations find homeownership further out of reach. Every day of inaction makes the problem more intractable. The politics of local government make movement on the housing crisis impossible. It’s time for state lawmakers to step in.