Is Howard Hughes Corporation running Howard County Government?

It maybe recalled that approximately two years ago, a presentation prepared by Howard Hughes Corporation (HHC) to its investors was made public that shocked Howard County. This presentation detailed the various anticompetitive practices HHC engages in to create “value” for its investors.

Here is one of the slides in the presentation where HHC purports to create demand and control supply thru “ownership and monopoly-like control of small cities.”

Controlling Cities With the Help of a Former County Executive

How does HHC control cities? Here is HHC Regional President of Columbia (his official role), Greg Fitchitt, describing in detail, in a response to Councilmember Liz Walsh’s questions, how HHC retains various lobbyists to advance its corporate agenda. One such lobbyist is called Margraves Strategies, an entity owned by former Howard County Executive Ken Ulman, who played a major role in the development of the Downtown Columbia Plan.

Developers Organizing and Advocating for Profit Subsidies using Taxpayer Dollars

According to Mr. Fitchitt, the promotion of the entire Lakefront Library project is being handled by an entity called Downtown Columbia Partnership (DTC) - a quasi-governmental entity whose Executive Director, Mr. Philip Dodge also sits on the Howard County Library System (HCLS). One of the major sources of funding of DTC is development fees. More specifically, DTC gets 0.25 cents (adjusted with inflation) per square foot of commercial space that comes online. The following table breaks down the commercial space that has come online since 2014. At an average rate of 0.30 cents to account for inflation, DTC appears to have earned approximately $1.3 million since the first commercial space came online.

It is worth keeping in mind that this development fee is a fee established in agreement between the County and HHC. In other words, instead of charging HHC 0.25 cents in commercial tax, the County is diverting it as a subsidy to DTC.

Howard Hughes Corporations Value-Creation Scheme

Check out the funding sources as disclosed by the library. Of the $144 million budgeted for this project, HHC is contributing a whopping $950,000 or 0.66%. Besides the $16 million in grants and philanthropy campaigns, the rest are ALL taxpayer dollars - $126 million that can be used for other worthy causes such as improving our schools.

While the price tag and share of taxpayer dollars are staggering, the business model HHC plans to employ to execute this project is even more so. Check out the following clip, where Mr. Fitchitt explains how HHC will enter into contracts on behalf of the county, perhaps serving as the middleman. The major fear and concern is that this arrangement would allow HHC to pocket a big chunk of the budgets dollars after paying for the project costs.

Howard County and Columbia are in trouble. How does an unelected official and a corporate entity wield so much power in determining the direction of the county over the preferences of over 300,000 people?

We could solve homelessness with just a fraction of the $144 million. We could hire more teachers and counselors and perhaps get rid of the classroom trailers, which are a health hazard. The top five underperforming elementary schools in Howard County are all located in Columbia, were a majority of the students are people of color and there is currently no plan to address the deep inequity. We need our elected officials to stop this madness.