Omar Lazo - Question 2
Question 2: If elected, what strategies would you pursue to ensure housing is affordable for people of all incomes?
Transcript: I think it's important, one of the main things as well for me is making sure that we work on economic development in the county, that we have a trained workforce so that we can raise everybody up with their salaries. And that's just one part of the puzzle. But I think we definitely need to focus on, first of all, preserving the affordable housing that we have. We don't have nearly enough affordable housing, but every piece of affordable housing that we lose just puts us deeper into the hole. So one of the first things that I want to do is make sure that we're preserving those, you know, those units at affordable housing units, the Moderately Priced Dwelling Units, also making sure that future construction has affordable housing in those projects. There's a large project in my district in Wheaton, the Gateway Project, on Veirs Mill and University Boulevard, and we have to stay vigilant and make sure that, you know, we're going to have enough affordable housing. We have to make sure that also people have access to these transit centers, you know, housing around transit centers. Looking at, you know, duplexes and triplexes and looking at zoning policy so that we can, you know, create these houses that are more affordable and also creating a pathway to homeownership and building generational wealth. We haven't had that for a while. And I think we really need to put an effort into making sure that people can afford their own homes. So that's something that I definitely, you know, want to concentrate…