The Montgomery County Council has introduced the More Housing N.O.W. bill, including Zoning Text Amendment (or "ZTA") 25-02, which eliminates single-family zoning for targeted homes, including around 100 homes on Massachusetts Avenue between Westmoreland Circle and Sangamore Road. Here is a map of the targeted properties. These lots can be "chained" together by developers to create larger lots for larger buildings.

This means that developers can build duplexes, triplexes, quadplexes and apartment buildings in our Massachusetts Avenue neighborhoods. The goal is to provide lower-cost housing for County workers and others, but the bill doesn't impose affordability requirements on duplexes. In addition, triplexes can be used for home businesses and day care centers, which doesn't serve affordability goals either. 

Eliminating single-family zoning will destroy the character of neighborhoods abutting Massachusetts Avenue, without any meaningful impact on lower-cost housing, or no impact at all if only duplexes are built and sold at market rates. Only developers will win under this proposal, and they don't live here.

Over 400 housing units are currently being built on Westbard Avenue alone, which will significantly increase traffic. There is no room for even more cars as a result of this bill. Our Councilman for District 1, and a lead sponsor of this bill, Andrew Friedson, admitted at a Rockville High School town hall in March that no traffic studies have been done with respect to this rezoning proposal, which we consider irresponsible.

Rampant development on Massachusetts Avenue will cause spill-over parking on our side streets, which were not designed for additional density. If a triplex runs a day care, that will further increase traffic and parking congestion. 

More density will perpetuate crowding at Westbrook Elementary and Westland Middle School, especially after Westbard is fully occupied, but this wasn't taken into account by the Council either.

These are just a few of our concerns. The Council has not analyzed the negative impacts to storm water drainage, sewers, hospital capacity, police and fire protection, and other public services, all of which were scaled for the current number of residents when our neighborhoods were originally planned. But the bill does not address the cost of expanding these facilities.

We believe that Montgomery County should offer homes that County workers and others can afford, but this approach is not the way. We therefore ask the Council to pause deliberations on this bill and:

(i) explore more effective approaches to affordable and workforce housing;
(ii) include data-driven analyses of actual demand to predict appropriate new supply;
(iii) take into account approved new homes that have received permits and are in the build pipeline; 
(iv) consider greenfield sites like White Flint and the Geico campus before carving up established neighborhoods; and 
(iv) provide solutions that do not degrade our existing infrastucture.