2026 Candidate Questionnaire
County Council At-Large
Steve Solomon (D)
Website: VoteSteveSolomon.com
Find all candidate questionnaires here.
Housing Leadership
In your view, why are many Montgomery County residents struggling to afford housing?
There are several factors that are causing residents to struggle to afford housing. Supply doesn’t meet demand, causing prices to go up. Even though we are a wealthy county, income cannot keep pace with the rising prices of housing. We are also not building enough housing – either due to zoning constraints or due to home builders not building due either to labor shortages, permitting issues, or due to policies that might have them believe it’s more fiscally wise to build somewhere else other than Montgomery County.
What is one housing initiative you would plan to spearhead, if elected?
One of my main priorities is to improve our permitting and inspection process. It takes too long and is too complicated across many sectors, including housing. Large developers often know how to navigate the system, but small builders or individuals adding an ADU suffer from this process. I would work to cut red tape and create a fast track approval process for small builders or individual homeowners.
Zoning, Supply, and Housing Prices
In your view, how does current zoning policy in Montgomery County affect the supply and price of housing?
New areas to build are limited, and combined with zoning policy leads to not enough supply. Not enough supply leads to higher demand, and the price of housing rising.
What changes would you support to Montgomery County’s zoning policies to support greater housing affordability?
Housing will only become more affordable if we build more of it, and in the right places. This is done with several changes – zoning changes, easing permitting for ADUs, building more at transit and job centers, strengthening the MPDU system, and adapting parking rules
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
Just having more housing won’t solve our problem. We need more of it to be affordable. When the average price of a home is over $600k, that is too much of a burden for many families. We are pricing people out of living in Montgomery County. Low income and young residents face a challenge to buy a home here.
b. Market-rate (unsubsidized) housing
To be successful as a county, we need people to live and work here. That combines with many other factors like creating a job pipeline from MCPS to a career, and ensuring to businesses that operate here that they can find workers with the skills they need right here in Montgomery County. There is too little housing overall, and of that too little is affordable.
What is one policy change in each area that you would pursue, if elected?
a. Affordable (subsidized) housing
The Housing Production Fund has been great for this county. In the face of many economic challenges across numerous sectors, we have to find a way to keep funding and growing the HPF.
b. Market-rate (unsubsidized) housing
Zoning reforms to build more housing especially near transit and job centers.
Transportation & Smart Growth
What would you do to prioritize transit frequency and access if elected?
One of the main complaints of why people don’t use transit is that it takes too long. Either waiting for the bus, or the first mile/last mile problem are the biggest barriers to entry for people. If we can improve those things for people they would be more likely to use transit.
What would you do to ensure safe walking and biking access to transit, stores, schools and services for residents of existing and new housing?
We need more connected pathways to transit. For too long we’ve built bike lanes that are fragments and don’t connect you to specific areas. What’s the point of a bike lane if it ends miles from a metro station. We also need to ensure safety by building only protected lanes, not just painted lines.
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 kept up with news and meetings for many years on Montgomery County policy and legislation. I’d rely on the HOC, DHCA, Council staff, and public advocacy groups like ACT, WABA, and GGW.