On June 24, 2024 the Montgomery County Council’s Planning, Housing, and Parks [PHP] Committee held its first Work Session on the Attainable Housing Strategies [AHS] report submitted to the Council by the Montgomery County Planning Board [PB]. These notes on the meeting were prepared by Clare Murphy, a member of the PRA AHS committee.
The session was directed by Committee Members (CM) Andrew Friedson, Committee Chair and Council President. Other committee members attending included Will Jawando, At Large Council Member (attended session virtually); and Natali Fani-Gonźalez, who represents District 6. The PHP Committee has scheduled two more Work Sessions, one on July 8th and one on July 22nd, and expects to make final recommendations to the full Council in the fall.
The presentation was primarily a review of the Planning Department’s AHS Report to the Council (which was marked as final but referred to as “draft” in the session) but with discussion of a few other topics. The Planning Board and Department had a large contingent of employees and officials participate in the presentation. The Planning Board Chair, Artie Harris, and the Director of the Planning Department, Jason Sartori, made brief introductions of the Report and AHS program. Both emphasized that people who want to live in Montgomery County should be able to afford to do that.
My major takeaways from the Work Session on the problems that need to be addressed are:
- Missing Middle Housing– I was confused about what types of housing would be approved for areas designated for attainable housing development. Several Planning people and Council Members emphasized that AHS is not just focused on middle income housing but now includes housing for all income levels. However, one Planning Department presenter stressed that the to-be-built duplexes and triplexes in areas like Kensington would be “market priced”.
- Storm Water Management (SWM) – As PRA President Kira Lueders has noted, the Planning Dept agreed that there are problems in targeted areas (such as Kensington) with the current SWM, and that those problems need to be resolved with different County agencies before allowing development projects to proceed.
- Effects on infrastructure – CM Fani-Gonźalez said infrastructure is a concern that she gets a lot of questions about. A presenter from Planning said that infrastructure would be addressed as it is with all development projects.
- Role of Municipalities – CMs asked about allowing municipalities with some independent zoning authority to exclude themselves from AHS zoning changes. Planning Department presenters said that they were contacting State officials to try to get changes made to the legal status of municipalities in zoning matters.
Problems with Current Zoning in Growth Areas and Single-Family Communities:
- “Tear downs” don’t require any review or approval by the County.
- Replacements of single-family homes are getting bigger.
- Cash purchases are increasing, and less FHA type of loans are being used, indicating that there are increased house sales to developers who renovate and resell them.
Major Features of AHS:
- The Planning Department emphasized the number of outreach programs that have taken place to inform communities and citizens about AHS, such as social media campaigns, meetings with community groups and work sessions conducted by the Planning Department.
- A “Pattern Book” will be developed by Planning to define the new zoning regulations.
- AHS is more than housing. It’s an important equity issue.
Montgomery County will be “visionary” in fair housing.
Parkwood Residents Association 