CSG & Montgomery for All Testimony: March AHS Listening Session
Read CSG and Montgomery for All’s comments to the Planning Board at the March 21, 2024 listening session on the Attainable Housing Strategies Initiative.
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March 21, 2024
Montgomery County Planning Board2425 Reedie Dr, 14th Floor
Wheaton, MD 20902
Testimony: Attainable Housing Strategies InitiativeGood afternoon. My name is Carrie Kisicki and I am the Montgomery Advocacy Manager for the Coalition for Smarter Growth, the leading organization advocating for walkable, inclusive, transit-oriented communities as the most sustainable and equitable way for the D.C. region to grow and provide opportunities for all.
I am 24 years old. I was born in 1999. Since that time, home prices have outpaced the rate of inflation and income growth in every ZIP code in Montgomery County.
In Silver Spring, where I am a renter, if home prices had kept pace with inflation from the time I was born to 2019, the typical home would have been affordable to households earning just 61% of the county median income. In fact, in 2019, the typical home in my ZIP code was affordable only to households earning 107% or more of the county median income.
Our laws and regulations reflect our values. The choices that our county made in the past about where to allow and not allow housing types like duplexes, triplexes, and small apartment buildings have shaped the amount of housing we have been able to build—and ultimately, who can afford the price of entry to live in certain neighborhoods where these housing types are not allowed.
We can make different choices that better reflect our values: racial and economic equity, sustainability and environmental stewardship, and a commitment to care for the needs of our present and future even when this may look different than what we have done in the past.
Legalizing attainable housing types adds another tool to our housing toolbox—helping to relieve pressure on our existing lower-cost housing options, alleviate our housing shortage, and give more people access to the opportunities that our county has to offer.
By focusing attainable housing types near transit, we can maximize household cost savings, provide better housing options for people of diverse ages and abilities, and support our county’s climate goals. When people have great transit access, they can choose to rely on their cars less—reducing their carbon emissions, and saving money on gas and other expenses. These savings on transportation can make a transit-accessible home even more affordable than a similarly-priced home in an area where transit, walking, and bikingare not feasible options.
Focusing attainable housing near transit also makes our communities more inclusive to people of diverse ages, incomes, and abilities by offering more, and more affordable, housing options for those who cannot drive or do not own a car.
Two items for your consideration
As the Planning Board begins its worksessions, we ask you to pay particular attention to the following two plan recommendations.
First, we ask the Planning Board to align recommendations for the proposed Pattern Book with the dual goals of ensuring that attainable housing types both contribute positively to neighborhood fabric, and are more affordable than existing housing types. The primary objectives of the Attainable Housing Initiative are to challenge past patterns of racial and economic exclusion and produce housing options that are welcoming and affordable to more people. A Pattern Book will provide helpful and appropriate guidance, but if required design elements add significant cost to housing, it will counteract the initiative's affordability and equity goals.
We ask the Planning Board to make assessing the cost and feasibility impacts of any Pattern Book requirements a central part of creating the Pattern Book. We ask that you identify a more specific timeline for Pattern Book development—taking into consideration how the timeline of creating a Pattern Book will impact the overall timeline for implementing and building attainable housing. We also ask that the Planning Board revisit the scope of the Pattern Book, and whether it should be regulatory or advisory.
Second, we ask the Planning Board to revisit recommendations for the R-200 zone. While the majority of R-200 zoned sites are located near MARC stations or Ride On local routes, there are a small number that do not have transit access and are located in the Agricultural Reserve. We ask the Planning Board to consider including a transit proximity measure as a condition of duplex construction in the R-200 zone.
We are grateful for the time and effort of the Planning Board and Planning staff on this important initiative. Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
Carrie Kisicki
Montgomery County Advocacy Manager
Coalition for Smarter Growth -
Montgomery County Planning Board
2425 Reedie Drive, 14th Floor
Wheaton, MD 20902
March 21, 2024Re: Attainable Housing Listening Session
Dear Commissioners of the Montgomery County Planning Board:
My name is Michael Larkin, and I am writing on behalf of Montgomery for All, the Montgomery County grassroots arm of the Coalition for Smarter Growth, with over 200 members throughout the county who want to see more sustainable, welcoming neighborhoods. Montgomery for All strongly recommends the Planning Board adopt attainable housing strategies that remove barriers to building more diverse housing types and allow attainable housing by-right in corridor-focused growth areas as defined by Thrive 2050. If we do not allow more housing types, the cost of our already expensive housing will only continue to increase. We risk condemning the next generation of teachers, nurses, firefighters, police officers, and business owners to unaffordable housing costs.
Housing is comparatively more affordable when the cost of land is divided between multiple households by building more duplexes, triplexes, quadplexes, and small apartment buildings—creating housing options that are within reach for a wider range of incomes and households than single-family homes alone. The building of more housing helps everyone, even when someone is not moving into new housing. Research published just this month (March 2024) from the Minneapolis Federal Reserve shows that an increase in the supply of new market-rate homes reduced competition for lower-priced housing. A robust attainable housing initiative is choosing a future of housing abundance over contrived scarcity.
Building more attainable housing is also an opportunity to build a more environmentally sustainable county. Housing that is built near transit stops and corridors allows more people to choose mass transit and active transportation options like walking and biking. With fewer people driving to access what they need to conduct their daily lives, our county can emit less carbon emissions and give people the choice to spend time with family and friends instead of being stuck in traffic.
Attainable housing embraces what makes Montgomery County an attractive place to live. We have high-quality schools, parks, libraries, public transit, and job opportunities. However, equitable access to these opportunities is limited because of zoning that gives preference to prohibitively expensive detached single-family homes. Let us be blunt about the consequence of this policy choice: under our current zoning rules, if you cannot afford a single-family detached home, you are prevented from accessing many of our county’s high opportunity neighborhoods. Attainable housing challenges patterns of racial and economic exclusion by offering access to transit-connected, high-opportunity neighborhoods for more people at more attainable prices. Supporting racial and economic diversity and challenging the exclusionary effects of single-family zoning is an explicit goal of attainable housing.
Montgomery County is a large and diverse place, and public policy must embrace this as an opportunity. Building more attainable housing is an opportunity to offer the housing options needed to thrive as an inclusive, sustainable, and economically successful county. Building more attainable housing near transit embraces the opportunity of sustainably welcoming more people at various stages of life. People bring their talents and energy to our community. They are the coffee shop owner or the volunteer helping voters on election day. They are the single person starting a new job, a couple starting a family, or the retiree that wants to downsize. Attainable housing helps each of these people and more be a part of our communities. That is a more humane Montgomery County. Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
Michael Larkin
Montgomery for All Steering Committee