2026 Candidate Questionnaire
County Executive
Andrew Friedson (D)
Website: andrewfriedson.com
Find all candidate questionnaires here.
Housing Leadership
In your view, why are many Montgomery County residents struggling to afford housing?
Housing supply has not kept pace with population and job growth since the Great Recession of 2008-11. Restrictive zoning and related regulatory barriers have created a long-term drag on residential development in Montgomery County. The combination of Trump and Musk’s DOGE cuts, higher interest rates, an immigration crackdown, and higher costs of labor and building materials has made the challenge more acute by weakening the local economy even as the price of housing continues to rise. In combination with restrictive land use regulation, the result is a tightening market that squeezes young adults, low and moderate income families, and retirees alike. Montgomery County is also badly in need of stronger leadership on economic development to attract and retain more high paying jobs and reinvigorate wage growth. Housing and business attraction are intrinsically linked
I'm proud of the work Montgomery for All and I have done together during my two terms on the County Council: legalizing more types of housing in more places, incentivizing transit-oriented development and office conversions, protecting naturally-occurring affordable housing, requiring colocation of housing with county facilities, eliminating parking requirements, reducing regulatory burdens, and creating social housing models through innovative financing tools for mixed-income communities. But the severity of our housing challenges are significant and we’re going to have to do more.
What is one housing initiative you would plan to spearhead, if elected?
I will scale up the Housing Production Fund, a national model I spearheaded with Councilmember Hans Riemer in partnership with HOC and many of CSG’s supporters. The Fund closes the financing gap that prevents both affordable and private-sector housing providers from building. It has already delivered hundreds of quality units that would not otherwise exist, and has the potential to jumpstart thousands more units of attainable, mixed-income housing in transit-oriented communities — through public-private partnerships and low-cost financing for projects that pencil out no other way.
As County Executive, I will expand the Fund and pair it with a genuine sense of urgency. That means overhauling outdated permitting processes, establishing pre-approved building design templates for “missing middle” housing, and making deeper investments in vacant and underutilized land at Metro and Purple Line stations. The goal is simple: make it faster, cheaper, and easier to build the housing Montgomery County desperately needs.
Zoning, Supply, and Housing Prices
In your view, how does current zoning policy in Montgomery County affect the supply and price of housing?
Restrictive zoning is one of the primary drivers of our housing shortage and therefore one of the primary drivers of unaffordability. When we limit entire neighborhoods to a single housing type, we artificially constrain supply, inflate land costs, and make it nearly impossible for the market to respond to the diverse needs of a growing population. Young families, essential workers, and middle-income residents get priced out of high-opportunity areas not because of bad luck, but because policy has made it illegal to build the homes they want and need.
That's why I've spent two terms on the Council fighting for thoughtful zoning reforms. I co-authored More Housing N.O.W., including the Workforce Housing ZTA and incentivization of office to residential conversions, eliminated costly parking requirements, supported ADU legalization, enabled faith & educational institutions to build multifamily housing, required co-location of housing with county facilities, and led the effort to abolish school moratoria that were being used as pretexts to block housing, starving us of both housing and school funding. Each of these initiatives required building coalitions and taking on entrenched opposition. As County Executive, I will bring that same resolve to overhauling the permitting culture and ensuring our agencies treat housing production as a priority, not an obstacle course.
What changes would you support to Montgomery County’s zoning policies to support greater housing affordability?
There has been no stronger and more consistent leader for zoning reform on the Montgomery County Council. My record in helping to pass Thrive Montgomery 2050, approve missing middle housing, support transit-oriented development, and establish new funding sources and mechanisms for affordable housing are all well-known so I will not recite the long list of housing-related legislation that I have successfully championed.
As County Executive I will build on this work. The County Executive plans a particularly important role in master plan implementation through capital investments and departmental leadership. Rather than being a County Executive who opines in opposition to master plans, I intend to be a County Executive who actually delivers on their vision and public benefits. Areas where I expect to focus include encouraging higher density development near Metrorail and Purple Line stations, actually building out a BRT network that delivers a modern, multi-modal transportation network, and an emphasis on transit-oriented development that matches the scale of our infrastructure investment. We've built - or are building - high-quality transit, and we should build the housing to go with it.
I also want to continue building on the successful work I’ve led on with colleagues to streamline office-to-residential conversions and by-right approvals for affordable housing projects, and to reform zoning to make it easier to build affordable housing on land owned by houses of worship. I think we should explore the use of pre-approved building design templates for missing middle housing and ADUs to cut design costs and reduce approval timelines, and consider options successfully implemented in other jurisdictions to provide public financing support for ADUs.
Affordable & Market-Rate Housing
Please explain what you see as the role that each of these types of housing play in the housing landscape in Montgomery County, and the needs they fill for Montgomery County residents:
a. Affordable (subsidized) housing
Income-restricted affordable housing is essential for households who cannot be served by the market alone. It serves as a critical social safety net, ensuring that seniors on fixed incomes, low-income families, and our most vulnerable neighbors have a stable place to live and, ideally, a foundation for self-sufficiency.
Subsidized housing also does something the market cannot: it stays affordable through deed restrictions that survive market cycles. That long-term stability is irreplaceable, which is why I've consistently fought to fund it, site it, and defend it against veiled and outright opposition.
b. Market-rate (unsubsidized) housing
Market-rate housing is how the vast majority of Montgomery County residents are housed, and increasing its supply (especially smaller, lower-cost housing types) is one of the most powerful tools we have to address broad-scale affordability countywide. The evidence is consistent across jurisdictions: adding market-rate supply relieves cost pressure on existing housing stock, slows rent growth, and expands the supply of naturally-occurring affordable housing, the units that serve households who earn too much to qualify for income-restricted housing but too little to afford today's market prices. Without robust market-rate production, we squeeze both ends: subsidized housing can't absorb everyone who needs it, and middle-income families have nowhere to go. That's the crisis we're in, and it's why supply has to be central to any serious affordability strategy.
What is one policy change in each area that you would pursue, if elected?
a. Affordable (subsidized) housing
I will pursue significant increases to Montgomery County’s main sources of local funding for affordable housing, the Housing Production Fund (HPF) and the Housing Initiative Fund (HIF). The HPF is a revolving loan fund that I co-created with Hans Riemer, administered through the Housing Opportunities Commission, that provides low-cost gap financing for mixed-income housing projects that wouldn't otherwise pencil out. The Laureate at Shady Grove Metro, which was featured in the New York Times, is the flagship example.
The HIF is the county's long-standing dedicated fund for affordable housing, used to support a range of programs including acquisition, preservation, and construction of income-restricted units. It predates the HPF and operates somewhat differently, focusing more on deeply affordable and subsidized projects rather than the mixed-income gap-financing model of the HPF.
Both of these fund sources are important supplements to - and in some cases, substitutes for - the limited funding available through the federal Low Income Housing Tax Credit. The HPF has become a national model for state and local governments looking for ways to stretch public funds by providing low-interest mezzanine financing that can shave tens of millions of dollars in interest costs from affordable housing development and help build equity in publicly-financed projects that can be used to multiply the effectiveness of subsidies.
b. Market-rate (unsubsidized) housing
As County Executive, I will build on Accelerate MoCo - legislation I championed that expedites approval timelines for development applications - to cover all housing types. Slow, unpredictable permitting is a tax on housing production. Every month of unnecessary delay adds carrying costs that get passed directly to renters and buyers. Accelerate MoCo was based on the zoning text amendments I championed over the past four years that require the Planning Board to process applications on tight timelines for biohealth and affordable mixed-use projects. We should extend that mindset and some of the same process improvements to all residential development, because it is one of the fastest, most direct ways to make it cheaper and faster to build the housing we urgently need.
I will pair that with pre-approved building design templates for missing middle housing and ADUs, a reformed permitting culture at DPS that treats applicants as partners rather than adversaries, and a clear mandate that approval timelines are enforced, not aspirational.
Transportation & Smart Growth
What would you do to prioritize transit frequency and access if elected?
Reliability and frequency are the cornerstones of a high-quality transit system. If we want people to take transit instead of driving, they need to know that the bus and train lines they use are efficient and dependable ways to get around.
I will prioritize high-frequency bus service by implementing dedicated lanes on our busiest corridors. Veirs Mill Road is the clearest near-term opportunity, with strong existing ridership that would deliver immediate results. I will expand the Great Seneca Transit Network and work with state partners to push for all-day, bi-directional MARC service to open up regional job access for residents who currently can't rely on transit to get to work.
Transit investment has to be paired with the pedestrian and bike infrastructure that makes stations actually usable, which is why I treat bike, pedestrian, and transit infrastructure as one integrated priority, not separate subjects.
The current County Executive often claims credit for introducing the idea of Bus Rapid Transit to Montgomery County, but he has not started a single BRT line during the eight years he has held the office. I will move from planning to implementation, and I will hold MCDOT accountable for results, not just more study.
What would you do to ensure safe walking and biking access to transit, stores, schools and services for residents of existing and new housing?
I will aggressively implement Vision Zero by redesigning roads to prioritize the safety of people walking and biking over vehicle speed - not as an aspiration but as an operational mandate with real accountability.
That means building out the Purple Line BiPPA area sidewalks and expanding the cycletrack network in our urban centers. It means proactively designing connected bike networks rather than responding only after tragedies force our hand. And it means empowering MCDOT staff to make data-driven safety improvements (sidewalks, speed bumps, crossing treatments, etc.). I've already fought these fights on the Council, including pushing for critical safety improvements on state highways where the SHA has been an obstacle. As County Executive I will bring that same persistence along with the authority to back it up.
Community Input & Stakeholder Engagement
What organizations, stakeholders, datasets, or other sources of information would you turn to to understand the nuts and bolts of housing policy implementation, and how to craft effective policies that meet Montgomery County’s housing needs?
I've spent two terms building the relationships and knowledge base that effective housing policy requires and I'll bring all of it to the County Executive's office.
On the practitioner side, I work closely with our nonprofit housing partners through the Montgomery Housing Alliance, the Housing Opportunities Commission, and private-sector builders and lenders who know exactly where financing gaps and regulatory friction are killing projects. The Urban Land Institute has been a valuable resource for best practices and peer jurisdiction comparisons. For regional data and production benchmarks, I rely heavily on MWCOG and the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments housing targets framework, as well as our own Montgomery County Planning Department.
For advocacy and accountability, organizations like the Coalition for Smarter Growth and Montgomery 4 All play an essential role by pushing us to align the County’s land use decisions with our climate, equity, and affordability commitments. They represent the residents who are often shut out of traditional community input processes. I consider CSG and its staff trusted partners, and together we have had tremendous success in passing legislation and delivering tangible results on housing and transportation.
I also follow national housing research closely, including work from the Furman Center, the Terner Center, and Up for Growth, to make sure Montgomery County is learning from what's working in peer jurisdictions rather than continuously reinventing the wheel.
The point isn't just who I know, it's that I've been doing this work for years. I have the relationships and the track record, and I know where to turn when implementation gets complicated.