‘Missing middle' housing plan in Montgomery County faces backlash

Washington Post

5 days ago

The Montgomery County Council is preparing to vote Tuesday on a proposal to allow more multiunit housing along certain corridors, part of a years-long effort in the pricey Maryland community to create more affordable homes for a broader spectrum of its residents.
In a county of 1 million residents that features sprawling McMansions in some of its tree-lined neighborhoods, the plan to create more 'missing middle' homes is facing mounting criticism from residents who are concerned it will taint their communities and damage their quality of life.
The proposed change, part of a larger package of bills titled More Housing Now (New Options for Workers), will enable duplexes, triplexes, townhouses and apartments to be built on lots previously zoned for single-family homes. The intention is to create more housing that middle-income residents can afford and to diversify the kinds of housing available in the county, according to the bill's sponsors, Andrew Friedson (D-District 1) and Natali Fani-González (D-District 6).
For years, county leadership and planning experts have wrestled with ways to create more units for those in the center of the income scale. Following recommendations from the county's planning board and discussions with the public, the two council members developed this solution.
'We are not creating enough housing for enough people to make it affordable and accessible to middle-class families, to middle-income workers, to ordinary people,' Friedson said. 'Firefighters and police officers, and teachers and nurses — the people that we need in our community who can't live here who we want to live here.'
To ensure the units are financially attainable for those targeted groups, a minimum of one unit for every three units built must meet workforce housing requirements under the proposal. That means prices must be within reach for people earning up to 120 percent of the area's median income, which is $157,500 for a family of two and $196,500 for a family of four as of April, according to a county report. For larger properties, at least 15 percent of units must meet that benchmark. Duplexes are exempt from the requirement, according to the proposal's sponsors.
Finding ways to address the missing middle housing gap has gained traction in cities and suburbs across the country over the past several years, meeting with significant backlash in some of those communities. In Northern Virginia, an effort to build missing middle homes in Arlington County has been tied up in a years-long legal dispute, with a state appeals court recently ruling that the plan to eliminate single-family zoning in some areas can move forward.
While a number of housing advocacy groups and local nonprofits support the change in Montgomery County, some residents living around the affected corridors have launched an aggressive opposition campaign. They argue that duplexes, triplexes and apartments in their exclusively single-family-home neighborhoods will strain resources such as parking, stormwater management, schools and roads. Many also say the process to develop this zoning change feels fast-tracked and lacking in public feedback, contending that the change won't actually lead to more housing that's affordable for working-class people.
The concerns all boil down to uncertainty, said Howard Schoenholtz, who has lived in Bethesda for more than 30 years and is the spokesperson for the Montgomery County Communities Coalition, a consortium of local groups. Residents, particularly those living around the affected areas, fear that more housing density could transform the quaint nature of their communities and stress resources and the environment, Schoenholtz said.
'What people care about is 'What's going to happen to my neighborhood,'' he said. And, with this proposal, 'there's a whole lineup of 'ifs.' If one of these owners decides to sell, and if they sell to a developer, and if the developer wants to spend the money.'
Those worries spiral into images of quiet suburban, tree-lined streets suddenly stacked with small apartments and a few lone single-family homes — its occupants fighting with their new neighbors for parking spots and school resources.
Fani-González said she knew the plan would be controversial and acknowledged that there is a level of uncertainty a proposal like this one will create for residents. About 2,500 lots are eligible for a zoning change under the plan, she said. But it's impossible to know how many duplexes, triplexes or apartments could result over time, she said.
The plan was born out of discussions with planning experts and a lot of community feedback, the proposal's sponsors said in interviews. The corridors were chosen deliberately because of their proximity to jobs and public transit, Friedson said.
Creating more missing middle housing is critical to chipping away at the county's affordable housing shortage, Fani-González and Friedson said.
'We must, as government, use every single tool out there to increase the amount of housing that we have,' Fani-González said. 'It's time for us to open up single-family neighborhoods and give people choices.'
To ensure the added density doesn't strain resources, Fani-González said, the zoning change requires the property owner to submit an application to the county planning board, which would review how roads, stormwater management and other infrastructure in those areas would be affected before the change is approved.
Kimblyn Persaud, who lives in Wheaton, said she doesn't just worry about the added density. She's also concerned about who will be adding to that density. Persaud, who is the founder and executive director of EPIC of MoCo, an organization that encourages residents to get involved in government, predicts that developers will jump at the chance to create more units on small lots if there's a significant profit margin.
In her eyes, that would lay the groundwork for gentrification.
'Anything new is going to cost more than it costs now,' Persaud said.
She and her neighbors are already feeling the sting of rising taxes and cost of living expenses in the county, she said. Some of them purchased their homes several years or decades ago when property was cheaper. A developer calling and offering a high price for their properties to make multiunit homes may be the thing that pushes them to leave the county, take the earnings and find somewhere more affordable to live, she said.
But that trend of people being priced out of Montgomery County is already happening, said Carrie Kisicki, a 26-year-old Silver Spring resident and Montgomery advocacy manager with the Coalition for Smarter Growth, who is in favor of the change.
More units, and especially units in larger complexes that will have the price restrictions under the zoning change, will help increase inventory and the variety of homes affordable to younger and middle-income residents, she said.
'The zoning status quo isn't working, either for affordability or for the environment,' Kisicki said. 'We need to be looking at both the subsidized affordable housing investments but also thinking more expansively about what affordability means when so many people in our communities are experiencing struggles with housing affordability that don't always fall into the traditional categories we think about.'
One of the proposal's most outspoken critics is County Executive Marc Elrich (D), whose office has no authority over zoning change proposals such as this one. He echoed the community concerns and said he wished the county would stick to the current master planning process for residential zoning so residents can have some predictability.
'People put a lot of effort into deciding where they're going to live,' Elrich said.
This proposal erodes any faith residents had in their government to protect those decisions and guarantee certainty, he said.
'It's not what people want,' Elrich said.
The council vote is scheduled for 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday.