As the 2022 primary election heats up, the issue of affordable housing has riled Montgomery County, Md., a liberal, affluent suburb of D.C. that prides itself on its progressivism and vowed in 2019 to comprehensively address yawning racial and social disparities.
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Experts say the county must add more affordable units than any other D.C.-area locality to avoid a California-grade crisis. But as median housing prices hit a record high of $558,750 last year, Montgomery fell further behind on its goal of landing 23,100 new affordable housing units by 2030.
Now, four Democrats vying for Montgomery’s top job — including incumbent Marc Elrich — are each trying to make the case that their policies will best address the housing crunch and protect the county’s 140,000 renter households worried about rising rents and eviction.
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In a two-hour forum Wednesday where the candidates faced off publicly for the first time, Elrich emphasized his efforts to preserve Montgomery’s existing supply of affordable housing and disburse millions of dollars in rent relief while batting away snipes from his opponents, who sought to paint him as anti-development and out-of-step with other elected officials in the region.
Council members Hans Riemer (D-At Large) and Tom Hucker (D-District 5) brandished their records as lawmakers, citing bills they spearheaded to improve living conditions for renters, incentivize development and rezone parts of the county for more housing.
“Our county executive has made new development a dirty word,” Riemer said, citing Elrich’s history of opposing bills that add more market rate housing. “But real change means saying yes to bold decisions.”
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Potomac businessman David Blair, who lost the Democratic nomination to Elrich by 77 votes in 2018, tied the county’s housing shortage to its slowing economy. Developers are choosing to build in Northern Virginia over Montgomery because that region has attracted more jobs — as many as 14,000 over the last 12 years, according to some analysts —, and people like living close to where they work, Blair said.
Single-family zoning preserves century-old segregation, planners say. A proposal to add density is dividing neighborhoods.
In liberal enclaves nationwide, greater awareness of race and income disparities has reshaped debates over housing shortages, lending new charge to tensions that have for years split communities into “NIMBY” (Not In My Backyard) and “YIMBY” (Yes In My Backyard). In Charlottesville, activists who have sought to highlight the housing needs of its poorest residents have suddenly found a wash of new support. In the District, a volunteer task force is pushing city officials to revisit policies that helped to force Black residents out of Northwest Washington a century ago
Once a majority-White bedroom community, Montgomery has seen its population nearly double over 40 years with the arrival of new immigrants, Black and Latino residents from surrounding jurisdictions, and transplants from across the nation drawn to the county’s renowned school system. The population growth has strained the county’s limited housing stock, spurring debate over zoning changes that has appeared, at times, like a referendum on traditional notions of suburbia. In a county where the household income of White residents is nearly double that of Black and Latino residents, the debate has also increasingly turned into one about racial justice.
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“There’s a growing awareness that zoning and land use are two of the best tools we have at the local level to tackle issues of inequity," said Dan Reed, an urban planner and civic activist in Silver Spring who has tracked Montgomery’s housing woes since the mid 2000s.
Elrich, who got his start in local politics at the Takoma Park City Council, won a grueling six-way primary in 2018 with the support of residents who identified with his wariness toward widespread development.
He doubled down on this stance during his term, dismissing housing targets that were set by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, vetoing tax incentives for high-rise apartments above Metro stations and frequently disagreeing with both the county council and the county’s planning board on adding density in certain neighborhoods.
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In an interview before the forum, Elrich said he recognizes the county’s housing shortage, but does not think that more market-price housing is the answer. His administration has been focused on preserving and creating 1,000 low-cost housing units annually, such as those within the county’s Moderately Priced Dwelling Unit (MPDU) program, which sell for an approximate average of $165,000.
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A 2020 bill spearheaded by Riemer to provide tax incentives for apartment complexes above Metro stations was likely to create predominantly expensive housing, Elrich added, calling it “a total joke.” The county council overrode Elrich’s veto of the bill with a 7-2 majority.
“To say that we need to build more housing without considering who needs the housing or who can afford it … It’s good for developers but for real people, it’s make-believe," Elrich said.
Some advocates like Matthew Losak, executive director of the Renters Alliance, which hosted the housing forum, share Elrich’s skepticism toward policies that claim to target the housing crisis by providing tax breaks for developers. But others think Elrich’s view is outdated.
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“We have to build more market-rate housing as well as affordable housing. It’s not really one or the other," said Jane Lyons, an advocate at the Coalition for Smarter Growth, a regional nonprofit that supports development near transit. “Part of why we’re in this situation is that we haven’t built enough — across the board — in past decades.”
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Losak said, however, that in the face of the pandemic, many tenants are less concerned about long-term land-use decisions than they are about getting evicted when government relief dries up in the coming months. Montgomery’s emergency rent stabilization program, which caps rent increases at a certain percentage, is set to expire in May 2022.
Elrich said at the forum that he supports a more permanent rent stabilization law with certain caveats, citing similar regulations in D.C. and Takoma Park. Blair, Hucker and Riemer said they would keep rent stabilization for as long as the county is fighting the pandemic, but don’t believe that it’s necessary beyond that. Both Riemer and Hucker said they would work with nonprofits to maintain affordable housing along the incoming light-rail Purple Line project.
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Patricia Beckham, 72, moved into a two-bedroom rental apartment in Silver Spring in 2017 with the intention of living out the rest of her days in retirement there. She’s increasingly concerned, however, that once the county’s rent stabilization program ends and as inflation continues to surge, she won’t be able to afford her current home on her fixed income.
“The rent keeps going up and the paycheck doesn’t,” Beckham said. “I’m really worried about whether I can still have a decent place to live and be able to function.”
Beckham intends to vote in the primary election, she said, and she’s on the lookout for a candidate who “shows understanding — real understanding” of her concerns.