Discussion of the future of housing in Montgomery County with @montgomeryplans Twitter townhall and virtual Pints with a Planner with Planning Board Chair Casey Anderson and Housing Planner Lisa Govoni
Silver Spring, MD – The Montgomery County Planning Department, part of The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC), is inviting community members to join them on June 24 for a daylong virtual discussion of the future of housing in Montgomery County, as part of the update to the county’s General Plan, Thrive Montgomery 2050. Titled “Thrive Montgomery 2050 Housing Day,” the day will start with a Twitter townhall on @montgomeryplans at 10 a.m. where Housing Planner Lisa Govoni will host a conversation about housing attainability and affordability in the county. The conversation about housing will continue at a virtual happy hour—Pints with a Planner— starting at 5 p.m. with Planning Board Chair Casey Anderson. To participate, community members can call in or login to the virtual event and submit questions through an online chat function.
Here are some statistics at a glance on housing in Montgomery County:
- Between 2020 and 2040, Montgomery County is expected to add over 60,000 households, and more than half of the new housing units needed to accommodate this growth is projected to be multi-family rental (54.8 percent).
- The income needed to afford the median-priced home is rising faster than the median household income. In 2018, the household income required to afford the median home was $125,621, which is above the 2018 median household income of $108,188. Only households earning more than $150,000, and householders over 55+ are adding homeowners on net.
- The number of households considered cost-burdened (spending more than 30 percent of their income on housing) have increased by almost 10,000 households since 2010.
- It is income, not family size, that drives access to housing units. 1 in 7 renter households are overcrowded.
- Over-housing is driven by aging and low density. 1 in 3 homeowners are over-housed, having more than two extra bedrooms than people in the households.
“It’s clear that we don’t have enough housing and that too much of the housing we do have doesn’t meet the needs of the people who live here or the people we are trying to attract, said Planning Board Chair Casey Anderson. “We want to hear your ideas about how to build the housing people want and need at prices they can afford.”
How to Participate in Housing Day
Montgomery Planning will kick off Housing Day on Twitter (@montgomeryplans) with Housing Planner Lisa Govoni on June 24 who will spend the day sharing information from the county’s recent Housing Needs Assessment and sharing the vision for housing in Thrive Montgomery 2050. Community members can join into the conversation by asking questions, responding to polls and trivia, and sharing their own vision for housing in Montgomery County in the next 30 years with the hashtag #ThriveHousingDay.
The day will end with Pints with a Planner, a virtual happy hour from 5 to 6 p.m with Chair Anderson and Lisa Govoni. Montgomery Planning invites community members to bring their housing questions, feedback and favorite mocktail or cocktail to the conversation on Microsoft Teams.
Get ready for Housing Day by reviewing recent studies about housing in Montgomery County and get answers to some of your frequently asked questions.
“Montgomery County expects to add over 60,000 households by 2040,” said Govoni. “However, the county has issued annually, on average, only 2,700 housing building permits. This suggests that the county is likely producing less housing than what we need to meet projected growth.”
As Montgomery Planning updates Montgomery County’s General Plan with Thrive Montgomery 2050, a long-range policy framework for guiding future land use and growth, they are hosting a series of community chats and virtual events such as Housing Day around topics being addressed in the plan. These virtual sessions will discuss the first draft of the policies and actions for each of the General Plan topic areas. Montgomery Planning invites the community to provide feedback to the draft policies and actions in preparation for developing the Working Draft General Plan, which will be released in September 2020 for Planning Board and community review, prior to submission to the County Council in spring 2021.
About Thrive Montgomery 2050
During summer 2019, the Montgomery County Planning Department launched the update of Montgomery County’s General Plan, the county’s long-term framework for land use and development. This effort, called Thrive Montgomery 2050, will result in new countywide policies to help Montgomery County thrive by addressing the challenges and opportunities in the decades to come.
A lot has changed in the county since the General Plan was originally approved in 1964. Thrive Montgomery 2050 will guide future growth in response to the demographic shifts, technological innovations, changing lifestyles and economic disruptions that have taken place in recent decades. The new General Plan will consider many issues framed by three pillars: economic health, environmental resilience and equity. This framework will help guide the recommendations of the plan with input from the community.