Yesterday, the Montgomery County Council voted 8-3 to pass Zoning Text Amendment (ZTA) 25-02. The legislation will allow more housing types, like townhouses or small apartment buildings, along major corridors, creating more homes near jobs and amenities.
Category: Affordable Housing
CSG in the News: In raucous session, County Council votes 8-3 to approve controversial housing zoning change
July 23, 2025 | Ginny Bixby | Bethesda Today
The Coalition for Smarter Growth released a statement prior to Tuesday’s vote voicing support for the zoning change. The nonprofit advocates for “walkable, bikeable, inclusive, and transit-oriented communities” in the Washington, D.C. area, according to its website.
“By making it easier to build more duplexes, triplexes, and small apartments near transit and jobs, [the] ZTA is an important step toward more sustainable housing options in Montgomery County,” the statement said. “Measures like this that take on the structural problems feeding our housing shortage are a necessary step to achieve our shared vision of a sustainable, inclusive county for all.”
Read the full story here.
CSG in the News: Montgomery County Faces Pushback On ‘Landmark’ Housing Package
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.”
CSG in the News: Controversial workforce housing bill up for council vote Tuesday
July 21, 2025 | Ginny Bixby | Bethesda Magazine
“It’s a plain and simple fact that our county needs more housing,” said Carrie Kisicki, Montgomery advocacy manager for the Coalition for Smarter Growth, a Washington, D.C. metro region nonprofit focused on housing affordability and transit access, at a public hearing on the legislation in March. “People want housing that they can afford, and they do not want to have to spend their lives sitting in traffic just to get to work.”
RELEASE: CSG strongly supports ZTA 25-02 and urges the Montgomery County Council to move forward with the amendment
As the Montgomery County Council prepares to hold a work session and probable vote on Tuesday, The Coalition for Smarter Growth is proud to voice our support for Zoning Text Amendment 25-02. By making it easier to build more duplexes, triplexes, and small apartments near transit and jobs, ZTA 25-02 is an important step toward more sustainable housing options in Montgomery County.
Letter to Montgomery County Council regarding ZTA 25-02
This ZTA is a straightforward application of the principles identified in the county’s Thrive 2050 general plan. Our county needs more homes that are affordable to more people and located near transit, jobs, and amenities.
CSG in the News: ‘Missing middle’ housing plan in Montgomery County faces backlash
July 21, 2025 | Dana Munro | Washington Post
But that trend of people being priced out of Montgomery County is already happening, said Carrie Kisicki, a 26-year-old Silver Spring resident and Montgomery advocacy manager with the Coalition for Smarter Growth, who is in favor of the change.
More units, and especially units in larger complexes that will have the price restrictions under the zoning change, will help increase inventory and the variety of homes affordable to younger and middle-income residents, she said.
“The zoning status quo isn’t working, either for affordability or for the environment,” Kisicki said. “We need to be looking at both the subsidized affordable housing investments but also thinking more expansively about what affordability means when so many people in our communities are experiencing struggles with housing affordability that don’t always fall into the traditional categories we think about.”
Testimony: Support for Z.C. Case No. 13-14E, modification to Parcels 2 and 4 (Reservoir District formerly known as McMillan) (DC)
We wish to express our support for the proposed modifications to this PUD (13-14E) for the Reservoir District to allow for greater flexibility given changing conditions over the decade that this proposal has been waiting to move forward.
Event Materials: More Housing NOW Presentation to MoCo Young Democrats
View slides from CSG’s presentation to the Montgomery County Young Democrats on May 20, 2025.