“Exclusive: Hogan Approved Millions for Stepmother’s Property Development as Governor” [TIME]

“Multiple officials who worked in his Administration described Hogan’s involvement”

Republican Larry Hogan’s business dealings are once again under scrutiny following a new report that as governor, Hogan personally approved spending more than $16 million in competitive state funds to develop his own family’s property. 

Today’s report comes roughly one week after TIME reported that Hogan voted five times as a member of the Board of Public Works to award taxpayer dollars to his real estate firm’s listed clients. The developer working on Hogan’s family property was among those clients.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT.

TIME: Exclusive: Hogan Approved Millions for Stepmother’s Property Development as Governor

By Eric Cortellessa

October 18, 2024

• On January 27, 2021, then Gov. Larry Hogan announced some good news for affordable housing in Maryland: nearly $40 million in competitive awards to spur construction of 18 low-income housing projects… But there was one detail Hogan didn’t mention: one of the projects was being developed on his own family’s property.
• Osprey Development, a listed client of Hogan’s real estate brokerage firm, HOGAN, had been engaged to helm the project. The $15 million in low-income housing tax credits over ten years and $1,035,000… paved the way for the ultimate sale of the property. In November 2022, Ilona Hogan sold it to Osprey for $3.75 million.
• The Crestwood Manor project is the latest example of a potential conflict of interest between Hogan’s authority over Maryland housing dollars as governor and his family’s real estate businesses. Maryland law says that officials cannot knowingly participate in decisions in which they or a close relative have an interest. 
• “Approving transactions which benefit you personally or your family or your affiliated interests is, I would say, at a minimum, unethical,” says Warren Deschenaux, former director of Maryland’s nonpartisan Department of Legislative Services. “The governor is responsible for what happens under him.”
• Three Hogan Administration officials tell TIME that Hogan and his deputies reviewed and approved all awards. One attended the late 2020 meeting with the governor and his staff regarding the slate of awards that included Crestwood Manor, weeks before the official announcement in January 2021.
• As one of three members of the Board of Public Works, an administrative body that determines how Maryland taxpayer money gets spent, Hogan voted on five occasions to issue additional loans or grants to four of those same developers, according to public records. Osprey was among them. On February 22, 2017, he voted in favor of a grant easement for improvements to a site it owned and operated, according to public documents reviewed by TIME.
• “This is a shocking ethical lapse on the part of an individual who was in the most powerful position in a state,” says Walter Shaub, former director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics.
• In November 2017, then Gov. Hogan announced the beginning of construction on a $65.5 million project to rebuild a highway interchange where Route 85 crosses I-270, within earshot of his father’s house. Hogan had earmarked that money his first year in office, after canceling a $2.9 billion light rail in Baltimore and diverting those funds to highway, road, and bridge projects.
• Osprey, which had been a listed client of HOGAN since 2011, applied for competitive affordable housing awards for the project through DHCD’s fall 2020 application round.. The Housing Secretary then takes the recommendations to the governor.
• Multiple officials who worked in his Administration described Hogan’s involvement in the process… Two of the officials confirmed that Hogan oversaw the fall 2020 award round that included Crestwood Manor. One says they attended a meeting with the governor and his staff in late 2020 regarding the final decisions and planned announcement.
• Hogan announced those awards to great fanfare in January 2021, saying the slate broke the record for most rental units financed in a funding round in Maryland history. Seven of the 18 developers whose projects he greenlit, including Osprey, were HOGAN’s listed clients.
• The details of the award that preceded the $3.75 million sale of his stepmother’s property are raising new concerns about conflicts of interest during his time in office. 
• Says Shaub, the former director of the U.S. Government Ethics office: “Anyone serving in a position as powerful as governor and running for the position of Senate owes the public a very specific explanation as to why the facts are different than they appear to be.”

See more: TIME: Exclusive: Larry Hogan Approved Millions for His Firm’s Listed Clients as Governor & 10 Questions Larry Hogan Must Answer Following Breaking News that He Directed Millions of Taxpayer Dollars to His Own Clients

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