Testimony: Attainable Housing Strategies Initiative
Montgomery County Planning Board
2425 Reedie Drive, 14th Floor
Wheaton, MD 20902
March 21, 2024
Re: 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 affiliate 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