July 21, 2025 | Jon Banister| Bisnow

Carrie Kisicki, the Montgomery County advocacy manager for pro-housing group Coalition for Smarter Growth, said requiring property owners to go through an approval process would make these multifamily projects take more time and money to pursue. But she supports the overall proposal because it creates a pathway to building more housing on lots that have long been restricted to detached single-family homes. 

“We’re still living in that world where people who 10 or 20 years ago would’ve been able to buy a starter home, or young professionals who would’ve been able to buy an apartment in the county, started to not be able to do that because of how little we’ve been building the types of housing that people needed,” Kisicki said.

“So this is to me a landmark package because it shows we’re willing to go back and look at some of those things we’ve taken for granted about where we build homes or don’t build homes.”