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.”
“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.”
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.
July 17, 2025 Montgomery County Council 100 Maryland Ave Rockville, MD 20850
Re: Support for ZTA 25-02, Workforce Housing – Development Standards
Dear Council President Stewart and Councilmembers:
My name is Carrie Kisicki and I am the Montgomery Advocacy Manager for the Coalition for Smarter Growth. CSG advocates for walkable, bikeable, inclusive, and transit-oriented communities as the most sustainable and equitable way for the Washington, DC region to grow and provide opportunities for all.
I write to you to offer our support for ZTA 25-02, and raise a few final points (see next page) as the full Council prepares to hold a worksession on this measure.
In particular, I would like to thank lead sponsors, Councilmembers Fani-González and Friedson, and co-sponsors Councilmembers Stewart, Balcombe, Luedtke, and Sayles for their leadership on new housing solutions for Montgomery County.
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. 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.
I am extremely proud to call this county home at a time when there are many strong housing champions on the County Council—from those sponsoring this ZTA, to those who have supported historic levels of affordable housing funding and stepped up through legislation like Bill 7-24 and dedicated constituent services to ensure all tenants have a safe, healthy place to call home.
I am hopeful that this ZTA will enjoy broad support from the Council and look forward to your continued partnership on realizing housing solutions for all people in our community.
Please see the attached memo for additional recommendations on this ZTA and future efforts to expand access to affordable homes in Montgomery County.
Sincerely,
Carrie Kisicki Montgomery County Advocacy Manager, Coalition for Smarter Growth
Re: ZTA 25-02 — Topics for Consideration
Parking Flexibility
At the PHP committee worksession on June 23, Planning staff shared an analysis showing that current parking requirements will sharply limit the number of homes it is possible to build on R-60 and R-90 lots. We are concerned that this effective cap is contrary to the spirit of providing more flexibility to build smaller, more affordable homes in transit-accessible locations.
As all new developments under this ZTA will necessarily be subject to Planning Board review, we ask that the Council provide greater discretion to the Planning Board to adjust parking requirements on a case-by-case basis for these homes where appropriate. These adjustments can also allow for more thoughtful site-specific stormwater management and tree canopy protection.
Corner Lots
Corner lots are currently excluded from this ZTA. However, these lots share the same benefits of location efficiency with regards to jobs, transit, and amenities as the other lots already included. Per Council staff, this would add 475 eligible lots to the approximately 2,470 currently included in the ZTA. Corner lots can also provide for greater flexibility to allow side or back vehicle access to homes on the corridor.
Service Roads
We ask the Council not to remove lots located on service roads from inclusion in this ZTA. These lots share the same benefits of location and access to transit and amenities as those not located on service roads. All developments proposed under this ZTA will be reviewed by the Planning Board at which time relevant factors specific to a given site, including location on a service road, will be considered and accommodated appropriately. Removing all lots on service roads from the ZTA would disqualify over one quarter of currently eligible lots.
Lot Consolidation
We ask that the Council not further limit lot consolidation. Any proposed lot consolidation would have to be properly assessed and approved through the subdivision process before moving forward, and would still have to meet all other criteria required to qualify for this ZTA. Where it is deemed appropriate through the subdivision process, lot consolidation can offer opportunities to more feasibly meet stormwater, tree coverage (including preservation of established trees), and parking standards. It would also allow for building a greater total number of homes more cost effectively than would be possible on each lot separately.
Expanding Eligibility in the Future and Reducing Barriers to New Homes
We look forward to seeing the results of this ZTA and the much-needed homes they will create in our communities. The housing need in our county is significant, and additional measures will be needed to build the homes we need in the places we need them. We hope the Council will consider further expanding the places in our county where it is possible to build transit-accessible, multifamily homes, and reduce the barriers to building these homes. This is essential to our County remaining an inclusive community with opportunities for all.
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.”
From the beginning the VDOT study has been fatally flawed by a conclusions-first approach – defining their purpose and need as “extending express toll lanes” which forecloses other alternatives. Moreover, they have not provided all the information necessary for an informed decision – particularly the traffic impact on connecting roads. Given the missing information and strong concerns expressed by Fairfax, Prince George’s, Alexandria, Charles, WMATA, and state legislators in Virginia and Maryland, this project is not ready for inclusion in the regional plan.
We urge you to adopt the recommendations of the Planning Board and remove the unbuilt northern portion of M-83 from the Master Plan of Highways and Transitways.
M-83 is not the right path forward to provide better transportation options upcounty. The ways of thinking that informed plans for this road decades ago are fundamentally out of step with what we know today about best practices to address transportation needs, and about the vital connections between environmental health, climate resilience, and human health.
Mid-County Highway Extended (M-83) wouldn’t relieve traffic upcounty long-term—but it would cut a divide through existing communities and destroy farmlands, forests, and sensitive wetlands in its path.
The County Council is finally considering removing M-83 from county plans this month, and we need you to weigh in.
One major concern of the free buses, Larkin said, is that the lack of revenue coming in could justify the county disinvesting in the system, especially as Montgomery County deals with the economic impacts of the Trump administration’s massive federal spending cuts and job cuts.
Carrie Kisicki, Montgomery advocacy manager with the Coalition for Smarter Growth, a group that advocates for more accessible communities around the D.C. region, agreed.
Residents and lawmakers “might see other problems going on in the community that are more visible to them or maybe more part of their everyday experience and wonder ‘should transit be a priority or not’ and it absolutely needs to be,” she said.
“This is a plan that has been on the books a long time, and they’re taking lots of steps to finally build this network out,” said Carrie Kisicki, Montgomery Advocacy Manager at the Coalition for Smarter Growth. […]
Kisicki also emphasized the need for better pedestrian comfort and safety: “It’s already a very wide road, it’s already a harrowing place for pedestrians, it’s very much built as a suburban arterial, not considering the experience of people outside of cars.” Planned expansion of the right of way for a buffer and shared-use path will be welcome, she said, and will work in tandem with improved transit. “This is a huge investment,” she emphasized. “This is our shot to do it right.”
