If the General Growth Properties plan for developing downtown Columbia is approved, thousands more people will one day call Town Center home.

For supporters of the plan, the population surge is needed to support shops and restaurants, keep cultural institutions alive and make mass transit feasible.

But critics worry about high-rise buildings being too high, housing being built before other amenities are ready and whether lower-income people will be able to afford to live downtown.

The county is reviewing General Growth's 30-year plan to redevelop downtown and is expected to release a technical staff report from the Department of Planning and Zoning soon.

In addition to office, retail and hotel space, General Growth is proposing 5,500 new residential units, spread among five new neighborhoods.

"In terms of housing downtown, I'm all for it," said Emily Lincoln, a founder and spokeswoman of Bring Back the Vision, a community group that supports the urbanized development of downtown. "We do need people down there and we do need people walking around for Columbia to be the kind of city that I think it needs to become."

General Growth wants to have 1,640 of the units completed by the end of the first phase of its three-phase plan, which would be in about 10 years.

Alan Klein, spokesman for the Coalition for Columbia's Downtown, said his group believes 1,500 units would be more in line with what the area can support, especially when it comes to the impact on local traffic.

The coalition opposes granting General Growth the full 5,500 residential units up front and believes instead the number of residential units they receive should be tied to environmental, cultural and transportation improvements they make. Klein also said they think the 30-year project should be broken up into five-year phases, with the county r-eevaluating the project every five years.

General Growth currently has its project broken up into three 10-year phases.

While the group likes the idea of mixed-use development, Klein said members have a problem with buildings as high as 20 stories being too near Lake Kittamaqundi because it threatens the view and character of the area.

Gregory Hamm, regional vice president and general manager of Columbia for General Growth, said density is needed downtown in order to support the retail shops, arts attractions and public transportation options proposed for the area.

"It's a very modest number of homes for an area of about 350 acres," he said. "Anything below 5,500 and I don't think you begin to get the benefits of the live-work environment and smart growth."

While the plan proposes buildings up to 20 stories in parts of downtown, Hamm said the focus would be more on buildings in the four- to six-story range. The Merriweather neighborhood would have nothing higher than four stories and the Warfield neighborhood would not go above nine stories, the plan states.

Affordable housing

General Growth also wants to attract people with a "full spectrum" of incomes. To do so, the company plans to set aside 20 percent of new housing for people making less than 120 percent of the county's median annual income. The median annual income is about $101,000.

Under the current proposal, half of the housing would be made affordable to people making roughly $80,000 to $120,000 a year and the other half would be set aside for those making $80,000 a year or less.

A nonprofit Community Housing Foundation would be created to distribute money from a housing fund to help those on the lower end of the spectrum. General Growth would contribute $5 million to the fund, spread out over several years. A surcharge of $4,000 per new unit would also be collected for the fund, and other developers would be required to pay 5 cents per square foot of leasable commercial space into the fund.

The foundation would likely use a shared equity program similar to that used by other affordable housing organizations to help those making less than $80,000.

The foundation would assist people who could not afford a down payment in exchange for a shared interest in the home; rentals would also be available for those on the lower end of the income spectrum.

Klein said that his group does not believe the plan does enough to help people on the lower-end of the income scale.

"I'm not sure those who earn $120,000 need a lot of help to get housing," Klein said.

Sherman Howell, a member of the advisory group appointed by General Growth to make recommendations on affordable housing, said the group has recommended lowering the income guidelines. Howell, vice president of the African American Coalition of Howard County and a former member of a county government task force on affordable housing, said it should be aimed at people making $100,000 or less.

Howell said he also thinks money that would be paid by developers into transportation and cultural funds should be shifted to affordable housing.

Hamm said the task force would continue to give input to General Growth and they are continuing to refine their plan.

Although he favors revisions, Howell is optimistic about what the plan will do for affordable housing in Columbia.

"We're going to be ahead of everybody else," said Howell, who plans to move downtown once the new units are built. "I think not only would it be remarkable for Howard County, but it would be remarkable for the country."

Part of General Growth's plan to attract a mix of incomes downtown is to offer different sized units within the same buildings, Hamm said. That, he said, would get rid of any stigma that might be attached to living in a single building designated as the "affordable" one.

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