2026 Candidate Questionnaire
County Council At-Large
Scott Evan Goldberg (D)
Website: VoteScott.org
Find all candidate questionnaires here.
Housing Leadership
In your view, why are many Montgomery County residents struggling to afford housing?
We make housing expensive to construct and operate, coupled with a shortage of jobs with higher wages, strain people's ability to comfortably live in our great county. Through inefficiencies at the Department of Permitting Services, increasing burden of taxes and fees imposed on housing, long development timelines, rationing the quantity and quality of housing through zoning, and dissuading new investment in multi-family construction from certain parts of the 2023 rent control law, we have self-imposed cost increasing policies that add unnecessary costs to housing. By not prioritizing economic growth, more people aren't making as much income as they could be. It's a matter of an imbalance between income and expenses that make Montgomery County unaffordable to too many.
What is one housing initiative you would plan to spearhead, if elected?
The housing crisis needs to be confronted with a corrrespondingly strong response. On the Council, I would prepare legislation that tackles every single aspect of housing to make it more efficient and less costly. That includes but is not limited to zoning, reforming departments, like Planning, Permitting Servies, Code Enforcement, Housing and Community Affairds, etc., removing pain points from operating rental housing, and everything else to ensure high quality, affordable housing is plentifully available to everyone.
Zoning, Supply, and Housing Prices
In your view, how does current zoning policy in Montgomery County affect the supply and price of housing?
The county's current zoning regimen establishes a finite amount of housing, which causes a lower amount of supply than we could have, resulting in higher sale and rental prices.
What changes would you support to Montgomery County’s zoning policies to support greater housing affordability?
Allowing for Missing Middle housing, which expands the types and variety that we would permit to be built.
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
Big A Affordable housing in the most effective housing we can build today to make living in Montgomery County possible for people most sensitive to housing prices.
b. Market-rate (unsubsidized) housing
Market-rate housing is very necessary in the short and medium terms to increase housing supply and absolutely vital in the long term housing health of the county because the market-rate housing of today is going to be the Naturally Occuring Affordable Housing 50 years from now. So, the housing we aren't building now will negatively affect people long after we're gone.
What is one policy change in each area that you would pursue, if elected?
a. Affordable (subsidized) housing
Increasing the Housing Production Fund to construct more multi-family social housing on county-owned land.
b. Market-rate (unsubsidized) housing
Reforming the regulatory ecosystem (DPS, Planning, inspections, veto-power of incumbent neighborhoods, etc) so that it's quicker and cheaper to construct new housing.
Transportation & Smart Growth
What would you do to prioritize transit frequency and access if elected?
In my humble opinion, with a finite amount of resources, we should prioritize frequency and reliabilty over expansion of our current transportation network, which would increase ridership and reduce dependency on cars.
What would you do to ensure safe walking and biking access to transit, stores, schools and services for residents of existing and new housing?
+ Expand programs like Bicycle & Pedestrian Priority Areas (BiPPA) around transit nodes
+ Prioritize continuous sidewalk and bike networks, not “gaps”
+ Add buffered sidewalks or shared-use paths on busy roads
+ Improve visibility and lighting
+ Require direct pedestrian/bike connections to nearby destinations
+ Continued focus and prioritization of Safe Routes to Schools
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?
Here is where I get housing information: major publications like the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post. Writers such as Richard Kahlenberg, Jersualem Demsas and Jay Parsons. Organizations like The Urban Land Institute, Housing Association of Nonprofit Developers and Brookings Institution.