Planning Board Plan recommends changes to single-family zoning - MoCo360

Montgomery County is one step closer to allowing duplexes, triplexes, and smaller apartment buildings to be built in single-family home neighborhoods across the county now that the Planning Board has approved a new housing initiative.

The initiative approved Thursday by the board, dubbed the Attainable Housing Strategies project, makes recommendations to the County Council for zoning changes in single-family home zones. The changes, which the council would have to approve, aim to provide more housing options and opportunities, especially for middle-income residents, Planning Director Jason Sartori told MoCo360 Thursday before the board’s vote.

“We have a really diverse county with diverse housing needs, but we don’t really offer a diverse supply of housing options to meet those needs,” Sartori said. “So, with that market mismatch, along with just a general housing shortage, housing prices in the county have grown astronomically.”

Planning Board Chair Artie Harris praised the housing initiative as a “valuable tool” to address the county’s housing shortage by allowing property owners the flexibility to build different housing types.

“I want to be clear on something. This proposed zoning change is not a mandate for people to turn their properties into duplexes or townhomes or small apartment buildings,” Harris said after the board’s unanimous vote. “This simply allows for property owners to have the option to build something else and give more people the chance to call Montgomery County home.”

According to Sartori, the average sales price of a single-family detached home in the county in 2023 was $970,000 and, in the first four months of 2024, that figure had increased to more than $1 million.

The county has also seen a decline in its population of middle-income earners and increases in its low- and high-income populations, indicating a lack of suitable housing options that are affordable or attainable, Sartori said.

According to Montgomery Planning data, the county lost more than 26,000 middle-income residents from 2005 to 2022, while gaining nearly 88,000 low-income residents and 67,000 high-income residents in the same timeframe.

In the county, middle-income is defined as a family of four earning an income three to five times the poverty level, according to Montgomery Planning. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the 2024 poverty level is $31,200 for a family of four. Low-income families in the county earn under three times the poverty level and high-income families earn five or more times the poverty level, according to Montgomery Planning.

The board’s approval of the housing initiative marks the next step in the county’s embrace of “missing middle” housing.

The term refers to “a range of building types that are compatible in scale, form and construction with single-family homes, but include multiple housing units,” according to Montgomery Planning. These housing options were common during the pre-World War II era but faded from popularity with new construction of single-family homes and tall multi-family apartment buildings, according to the planning department.

This home in Washington, D.C., is an example of a duplex, which would be allowed in single-family zones under proposed changes. Credit: Montgomery Planning (M-NCPPC)

Due to their smaller size, such “missing middle” housing types can be more financially attainable for downsizing seniors, professionals without children, middle-income and millennial families, and newcomers to the region who can’t afford or may not need a large single-family home, the planning department says.

Harris, the board’s chair, noted the zoning changes, if approved by the council, will impact residents such as public school teachers, some of whom have left the county because “they can’t find or afford a place to raise their families,” as well as residents’ children and grandchildren looking to build careers and start families who can’t find housing that “suits their needs.”

Board commissioner Shawn Bartley said he looked forward to implementing the initiative, which he says aligns with “the American dream of homeownership opportunities for every one of our citizens in [the] county.”

Now that the housing initiative has been approved, the county planning department will send the final Attainable Housing Strategies report to the council. The department then will have three briefings with the council’s Planning, Housing and Parks Committee on June 24 and on July 8 and 22, according to council President Andrew Friedson (D-Dist. 1)

Friedson told MoCo360 Thursday that he was grateful for Montgomery Planning’s work on the initiative and progress toward addressing the county’s housing crisis.

“More housing options and more housing for more people is something that we have been working on through a variety of efforts and initiatives,” Friedson said, noting he has championed the issue while in office.

“It’s one of the reasons why I ran for office in 2018, to make sure that we have a community in Montgomery County that is accessible and affordable for all of our residents and to build on the strengths of [the] county’s historic leadership in creative approaches to housing,” he said.

Councilmember Natali Fani-González (D-Dist.), who sits on the Planning, Housing and Parks Committee, said in a statement emailed to MoCo360 Thursday that she looked forward to reviewing the board’s recommendations in the upcoming weeks.

“I strongly believe that we need to create more housing for families at all income levels, and missing middle housing is a key strategy to do just that,” Fani-González said.

After the briefings, council staff and county planners will prepare a draft zoning text amendment for the council to take up in the fall, followed by public forums and public hearings to allow community members to share input and feedback on the proposed changes, according to Sartori.

As the planning department worked on the Attainable Housing Strategies initiative, Sartori said he has seen a shift in more people expressing “strong support” for relaxed zoning changes in single-family zoned areas.

“Part of that is that we’ve seen over the last three years a lot of other jurisdictions in our area but also across the country, states to small municipalities, making similar types of changes,” he said.

Such a shift would be in stark contrast to the county’s recent history of homeowner opposition to zoning changes. When the county proposed its now-approved Thrive Montgomery 2050 plan to guide growth, many residents opposed and protested the plan. Zoning changes that would increase density and growth in transit corridors, redevelopment of existing properties and the creation of more walkable communities are among the changes included in the county master plan.

In addition, multi-family zoning measures and such plans as the Westbard Sector Plan have been criticized by residents concerned the changes would affect the character of their neighborhoods, increase traffic congestion and impact already overcrowded schools.

To quell some of residents’ concerns about the impact of zoning changes on the character of their neighborhoods, Sartori said proposed developments would have to comply with a “pattern book” created by the planning department.

“The form-based standards within the pattern book will ensure that duplexes, triplexes, and quadplexes contribute positively to the public realm and create safe and attractive streetscapes that are not overwhelmed by parking or that unintentionally look like small apartment buildings,” Montgomery Planning’s website says.

Following the public comment period, county planners said they hope the council will adopt an update to the county code to allow “missing middle” housing by the end of 2024. According to Sartori, if all goes to plan, residents may start seeing triplexes, duplexes, townhouses and small apartments being built in formerly single-family zones in 2025.