Oct. 17, 2001
 
 Not that we want to spend more time talking about Kevin Bell, the developer and lobbyist from Annapolis that Cas Taylor dragged up here to build low income housing, but we must.
 
 There seems to be no end to the misinformation Mr. Bell has put forth on his 4th Street low income housing project. We got our hands on both Mr. Bell’s “market study,” which he used to justify the need for the project, and on an independent analysis of that study performed by Dr. Peggy Dalton, an economist and professor at Frostburg State University. Dr. Dalton performed the analysis at the request of the Cumberland Mayor and City Council, who then completely ignored her findings and voted to approve Mr. Bell’s project anyway.
 
 That 4-1 vote (Dr. Rephann voted against it) is truly amazing when you look at the information given the Mayor and Council about this project. Many problems exist with Mr. Bell’s study. For instance, Mr. Bell’s team made some pretty wild assertions about our local economy, such as the fact that our unemployment rate will continue to decline, as it did in the 1990s. (Was our unemployment rate really declining, or was that just more of our workforce permanently leaving the area? Hmmm.)
 
 As Dr. Dalton pointed out, unemployment figures reflect the national business cycle. Given our current situation, and the slowdown that had begun well before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, banking on declining unemployment is pretty foolhardy. (Especially in a place like Allegany County. Let’s face it, the boom of the 1990s didn’t really happen here; we were just slightly less depressed than usual.)
 
 Mr. Bell also assumed that interest rates will increase beyond what they were in the 1990s, thus discouraging home ownership, and he assumed that homeownership rates will remain flat, thus increasing the demand for rentals.
 
 Mr. Bell’s crystal ball has a few cracks in it, as both of these assumptions are based on . . . well, not much of anything, other than the fact that Mr. Bell wants to be paid by the federal government to build an apartment project. Interest rates, again, reflect what’s going on with the national economy, and there is no sign at the moment that interest rates are going to skyrocket any time soon.
 
 And the city has programs encouraging home ownership in town, as do several agencies involved in the rehab of our current housing stock. Pretending they don’t exist is not a sound market study practice, if you ask us.
 
 Dr. Dalton also found problems with Mr. Bell’s vision of our housing stock. Dr. Dalton pointed out that Allegany County’s very high vacancy rate, in both homeowner properties and rentals, results in a soft housing market. Throwing more rental units into a soft housing market is not good, as it merely further depresses that market.
 
 Dr. Dalton did a nice little chart that showed that Allegany County has the highest vacancy rate among homeowner properties in the entire state of Maryland (what an honor!), and is third highest in its rental vacancy rates. Of course, the two counties with higher rental vacancies are vacation meccas with a great deal of seasonal rentals (Garrett County and Worcester County). Take away the seasonal stuff and guess what? We’re pretty much number one again! Isn’t that great?
 
 Dr. Dalton also concluded that “there is no excess demand for rental housing,” in spite of Mr. Bell’s claim that “there is evidence of demand for modern, good quality housing units in this housing market.” Mr. Bell never did say what that evidence was, or just who is demanding this “modern, good quality” housing, but it sounded good, didn’t it?
 
 This leads to another problem with the Bell study, that being the assumption made that all prospective tenants for this project will only live in a large apartment building. No single family houses for them, by golly. It’s a warehouse or bust. This allowed Mr. Bell to pretty much ignore all other types of rental housing - such as duplexes, single family homes, etc. - in determining demand for his building.
 
 So exactly who has Mr. Bell been talking to, you have to ask? And where are they living now? Manhattan?
 
 In addition to the flaws noted by Dr. Dalton, Mr. Bell’s study had a few problems that we noticed as well. Such as the description of the site location. In the rather detailed outline of the 4th Street neighborhood, Mr. Bell omitted any mention of the two low income housing projects that currently exist within a block or two of his proposed site. Jane Frazier Village is a low income housing project for families, and Booth Towers is a low income high rise for the elderly.
 
 Federal and state agencies involved in providing housing for low income people frown on lumping large numbers of them in one neighborhood.
 
 Let’s hope those federal and state officials see both the Bell study and the Dalton analysis before rewarding any construction funds.