By Liz Holland

New housing is about to boom in Salisbury with 8,094 units of single-family houses, townhouses, duplexes, apartments and assisted living on the drawing board, with some already under construction.

It can’t arrive soon enough for Mayor Jake Day who announced the results of the Here Is Home incentive -- which waives city fees normally charged to developers -- during a Monday news conference at The Reserve at Parsons Lake, where 416 apartments are under construction.

Day told the story of a new doctor of internal medicine at TidalHealth who is about to buy a house in Milton, “because after four months of searching, they couldn’t find a house in Salisbury.”

And the need for affordable housing is felt among working class families in the city. A couple with three children is paying $1,850 per month for a rental house on Decatur Avenue and they are working two jobs each, Day said.

“They’re struggling to keep rent paid and creditors at bay,” he said.

To address housing issues in the city, in October, Day announced the new Here is Home initiative aimed at increasing the city’s housing stock, as well as affordability, as the city faced a housing deficit.

To incentivize the construction of new housing stock, the Here Is Home incentive makes use of fee waivers. Property owners and real estate developers must sign an agreement with the city waiving any and all fees associated with development – including annexation fees. Projects that stay on a defined timeline will pay nothing in city fees.

To meet the requirements, a project must receive permits by Feb. 28, 2023, and break ground by Oct. 31, 2023.

If they meet all the requirements, developers will be reimbursed for a range of fees including building plan review, building permits and water and sewer connections.

The program also offers a minimum payment in lieu of taxes for Habitat for Humanity and Salisbury Neighborhood Housing Services. One Habitat house is currently under construction on Barclay Street.

The city also plans to build tiny homes to offer safe, clean spaces for the chronically homeless population. Work has already begun on one of the sites on Anne Street, Day said.

Following the Feb. 28 application deadline, 67 projects were approved, totaling 5,188 apartments, 1,368 single-family homes, 591 townhouses, 376 duplexes and 161 assisted living units in both new and existing developments.

The proposed construction represents a $1.4 billion dollar expansion of the city’s existing $800 million residential base – a 175 percent increase.

“It exceeded the bounds of my imagination,” Day said of the numbers.

The new proposed units have the potential to house 20,000 people over the next five years, which would be a 20 percent increase in Wicomico County’s population and a 62 percent increase in Salisbury’s, he said.

It would also be a 53 percent increase in new housing – more than the city has seen in the past two decades, Day said.

Here is Home is the latest incentive offered to developers as a way to boost housing. A few years ago, the city placed a moratorium on development impact fees resulting in new single-family homes at Hunters Crest – the first built in the city in a decade.

Last year, the city also approved the HORIZON program, which provides tax credits to eligible hotel or multifamily residential developments in the Central Business Zoning District and Riverfront Redevelopment Zoning District. Wicomico County followed with its own program.

Within days of approval, construction began on The Ross, a multi-story apartment building in Downtown Salisbury.

“It was a clear indicator that the right incentives cause the market to act,” Day said. “The right incentives deliver.”