Last week, Gov. Wes Moore (D) signed a host of bills into law aiming to solve the ongoing affordable housing shortage across the state. Three of the measures were part of his own priority legislation to address the issue.
“This was a year that we made the choice to put housing front and center, because we knew this was an issue that could not wait,” Moore said at an April 25 bill signing event in the State House.
Due to the high-profile nature of the Governor’s housing package, other bills trying to create more housing opportunities often went under the radar.
That might have happened with House Bill 2, a bill that aims to reduce the number of lots and houses that sit vacant for years on end without any plan to develop the property into usable spaces.
Amid the shuffle of housing-related bills from the 2024 session, HB 2 did not get a lot of airtime compared to the governor’s bills.
