Category: Transit-Oriented Development

A big step toward ending Montgomery’s housing moratorium!

Posted on by Elena Sorokina

Yesterday, the Planning Board voted to update the county’s draft growth policy (aka the Subdivision Staging Policy), which seeks to time public infrastructure like schools and transportation with population growth. Among other changes, the Planning Board draft would eliminate the counterproductive housing moratorium throughout most of the county, while adjusting fees and taxes to ensure adequate funding to meet increases in school demand.

This decision is thanks, in large part, to you! CSG’s supporters sent over 50 letters to the Planning Board, and our supporters and allies showed up strong at the Planning Board’s public hearing. Check out CSG’s public testimony for more background.

This isn’t the end though — the County Council has the last say. They will review the Planning Board’s recommendations and vote on a new growth policy by November. We’ll keep you updated on actions you can take!

Until then, please consider making a donation to sustain our work advocating for more housing in Montgomery County!

Other changes proposed by the Planning Board:

  • Developers would be required to pay Utilization Premium Payments when a school’s projected utilization three years into the future exceeds 120 percent
  • Impact taxes would be lowered from 120 percent of the cost of a seat to 100 percent, and further lowered to 60 percent in certain areas with high-capacity transit and employment centers
  • Recordation taxes at the time of home sales, would be progressively increased to the to provide additional funding for school construction and affordable housing
  • Any development located in an Opportunity Zone would be exempt from impact taxes
  • Multiple updates to transportation tests would prioritize walking and biking as transportation modes and improve safety
  • And more! If you’re interested, you can find the most up-to-date information here.

Again, thank you to all those who sent in letters or testified! In September, we’ll update you on the Council’s review and hearing schedule so you can join us again in supporting this progressive update to the county’s growth policy.

CSG Testimony Re: Montgomery County Complete Streets Design Guide

Posted on by Elena Sorokina

July 21, 2020 

Montgomery County Planning Board

8787 Georgia Ave

Silver Spring, MD 20910 

Item 12 – Complete Streets Design Guide (Support) 

Testimony for July 23, 2020 

Jane Lyons, Maryland Advocacy Manager 

2020.07.21-CSG-Complete-Streets-Design-Guide-Testimony-FinalDownload

Good evening and thank you to Chair Anderson and Planning Commissioners. My name is Jane Lyons and I’m speaking on behalf of the Coalition for Smarter Growth, the leading organization in the D.C. region advocating for walkable, inclusive, transit-oriented communities. We enthusiastically support the Complete Streets Design Guide. 

Thank you and congratulations to the staff who worked on this project – who has yet again solidified Montgomery Planning as a national leader in creative suburban planning. We are pleased that the Complete Streets Design Guide is clear in prioritizing safety, sustainability, and vitality, and provides a roadmap for how to balance competing needs. When we prioritize street space correctly, streets can become an engine for healthy people, a healthy economy, and a healthy environment. 

The biggest challenge in actualizing safe, green, vibrant streets is reengineering the county’s arterial roads, especially in lower income neighborhoods where traffic fatalities are more common. The vision in Thrive 2050 is for these arterials to become safe, green, multimodal boulevards, and this document will be a critical guide for those changes. 

A few constructive comments: 

• Page 55: We’d like it to be clear that a sidepath is always preferable to bikeable shoulders. 

• Page 57: We recommend that bikeways be listed as a high priority for downtown boulevards, downtown streets, town center boulevards, and town center streets. 

• Page 82: Bus shelters, in addition to BRT stations, should consider opportunities to provide additional passenger amenities such as seating, local area information, wayfinding, and real time traveler information. 

• Page 88: We urge the county to update its policy for snow events. Especially in downtowns and town centers, the county – not the building owners – should be responsible for clearing snow on sidewalks, sidewalk ramps, and sidewalk-level bicycle facilities. 

• Page 232: Public engagement should also include on-the-street direct outreach strategies, as well as strongly encourage paid community focus/advisory groups to ensure diverse input for major decisions. 

• Finally, we ask that the design guide be open to amendment upon the completion of the Pedestrian Master Plan and Vision Zero Action Plan. 

Implementing the Complete Streets Design Guide is key to achieving the county’s Vision Zero goal, as well as improving connectivity and helping shift mode-share away from single occupancy vehicles. We look forward to the comprehensive update of the Master Plan of Highways and Transitways that is necessitated by the guide, along with its implementation throughout new projects, resurfacing, construction, and maintenance. Wherever possible, we encourage the Planning Board, MCDOT, DPS, and the Council to codify the guide into law and regulation. 

Thank you for your consideration.

RELEASE: Housing and transit advocates support legislation to build more homes at Metro sites

Posted on by Elena Sorokina
2020.07.06-Press-Release-WMATA-Tax-Abatement-Bill-29-20Download

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Monday, July 6, 2020 

CONTACT:

Jane Lyons, Coalition for Smarter Growth

jane@smartergrowth.net | (410) 474-0741 

Housing and transit advocates support legislation to build more homes at Metro sites 

Montgomery County, Md – This afternoon, the Coalition for Smarter Growth stood alongside Montgomery County Councilmember Hans Riemer as he publicly introduced legislation to support high-rise construction on Metro stations. 

Transit-oriented development is necessary to build sustainable communities. The legislation would offer a 15- year property tax abatement for high-rise construction located on land leased from the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA). 

“This is a promising approach. Housing on top of Metro stations is key to meeting housing demand without putting new cars on the road,” said Jane Lyons, CSG’s Maryland Advocacy Manager. “This strategy will help the county meet its climate, economic development, and housing goals.” 

Multiple housing construction projects on Montgomery County’s Metro stations have either been delayed or cancelled due to the financial difficulty. Rents are not often enough to cover high construction costs, especially outside of downtown Bethesda. Development on WMATA property can face additional costs due to parking replacement practices and engineering challenges. 

“High-rise construction on Metro stations gives us the most bang for the buck,” Lyons said. “More homes means more Metro riders, more transit revenue, and more permanently affordable housing.” 

The tax abatement is estimated to incentivize up to 8,600 units, including 1,300 affordable units. The affordable units will be created through the county’s affordable set-aside of 12.5 to 15 percent of units for households at 70 percent of the area median income. Montgomery County has resolved to meet its regional housing target of 41,000 new housing units by 2030. This proposal is part of a comprehensive housing package from Councilmember Hans Riemer, which is complemented by legislation from other councilmembers. 

“We look forward to supporting the legislative process to ensure the tax abatement approach is a cost- effective way to catalyze far more housing opportunities at Metro stations, including more permanently affordable homes,” said Lyons. 

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The Coalition for Smarter Growth is the leading organization in the Washington, DC region dedicated to making the case for smart growth. Our mission is to promote walkable, inclusive, transit-oriented communities, and the land use and transportation policies needed to make those communities flourish.

CSG Testimony Re: Subdivision Staging Policy

Posted on by Elena Sorokina

June 5, 2020 

Montgomery Planning Board

8787 Georgia Ave

Silver Spring, MD 20910 

2020-2024 Subdivision Staging Policy (Item 7) 

Testimony for June 11, 2020 

Jane Lyons, Maryland Advocacy Manager 

2020.06.01-CSG-Testimony-for-6-11-20-FullDownload

Chair Anderson and Planning Commissioners, thank you for the opportunity to testify. This testimony is on behalf of the Coalition for Smarter Growth, the leading organization in the DC region advocating for more walkable, inclusive, transit-oriented communities. Please see below for our comments on the 2020-2024 Subdivision Staging Policy (SSP) working draft. Generally, we urge you to support policies that encourage sustainable growth patterns and maintaining a high-quality school system. 

Schools & Taxes: 

1. We strongly support the elimination of automatic housing moratoria throughout most of the county. The staff recommendation to create School Impact Areas correctly takes into consideration the distinct development contexts of different areas and how those contexts impact school enrollment growth. 

The current moratorium policy assumes that the majority of new student generation comes from new development. However, we now know from the data that stopping development does not actually solve school overcrowding – less than 30 percent of school enrollment growth can be attributed to new development. Most new students come from young families moving into existing single-family homes – not from new apartment buildings. 

The working draft also correctly identifies the other negative impacts of the current housing moratorium policy, including worsening housing affordability, hindering economic development, and preventing sustainable growth patterns. Rather than locating in a transit-oriented neighborhood, households and businesses alike are pushed into less desirable areas for growth. We should do all we can to encourage new housing in major transit and job hubs, not ban it – especially during a recession. 

2. We support reducing the school impact tax to 100 percent of the cost of a seat, maintaining the current rate at 120 percent in the Agricultural Reserve, and further lowering the rate to 60 percent in Activity Centers. This recommendation correctly recognizes that impact taxes are a tool to either incentivize or disincentivize economic development. In some cases, it may be worth lowering impact taxes in order to expand the overall, long-term tax base and promote growth in the places we want to see it. Although, we’d like to note that some of the identified Activity Centers in outer areas lack transit and are overly large. 

Montgomery County has one of the highest school impact taxes in the region. Even at this comparatively high rate, school impact fees only funded approximately 8 percent of the Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) capital budget in both FY19 and FY20. For FY21, impact taxes are only 6 percent of the MCPS capital budget, while recordation taxes fund nearly 24 percent of the budget. In short, reducing the school impact tax for areas where we desire growth will not make or break the MCPS capital budget, but impact taxes do play a significant role in whether new home projects pencil out. Even if a project can move forward at the existing tax rate, the increased cost is ultimately passed onto buyers through higher housing prices. 

3. We are concerned by the proposed Utilization Premium Payments. 

We should not charge developers for impacts not caused by their project. If a school is already overcrowded, it is because of past student enrollment growth and points to a larger funding failure within the county to raise and allocate enough resources to adequately fund schools’ capital needs. A future project will add to the overutilization, which is why future projects should contribute to the school impact fee pool to fund the seats of any students that project generates. 

This recommendation will not build schools, just as the past School Facility Fees provided marginal funding at best – Utilization Premium Payments will only deter economic development. However, we would support increasing the school impact tax from 60 percent to 100 percent for projects located in Activity Centers with overcrowded schools. 

4. We support progressive increases to the recordation tax. 

While we do not think the Utilization Premium Payments have a strong nexus, the recordation tax does. Since over 70 percent of new students come from neighborhood turnover and recordation taxes account for nearly a quarter of the MCPS capital budget, it makes sense to target home purchases to fund school capacity projects. 

We especially support an increase that is progressive, thus raising prices more on homes over $1.5 million, with an expansion of the first-time homebuyer exemption. Staff estimates that these changes would have raised roughly $20 million more for school construction in FY19. Nevertheless, if increasing the recordation tax is not feasible, we recommend instead adjusting the distribution of the revenue to increase the share going to schools and affordable housing. 

5. We oppose ending the impact tax exemption for downtown Silver Spring. 

As previously stated, impact taxes are a tool to either incentivize or disincentivize economic development, and it’s important to consider the short-term tradeoffs for longer term benefits. The Silver Spring impact tax exemption is a perfect example of this: between 2006 and 2016, the exemption only cost the county $5.8 million. Although Silver Spring is the only Enterprise Zone to successfully graduate from the program, its future success is far from guaranteed, especially in the current difficult economic environment. 

A few things that weren’t mentioned: The working draft does not reference the capacity relief that boundary changes would bring system-wide, reducing the need for some expensive capital projects. Utilization is one of the three factors being examined by the current boundary analysis. We also urge the staff to make note of the effect that flexible school siting and creative project financing techniques could bring on the MCPS capital budget. 

We recognize that these recommendations fall under the jurisdiction of MCPS and the Board of Education, not the SSP. Still, we believe those ideas warrant mentioning. Furthermore, it is apparent that there needs to 

be a better dialogue between MCPS, the Board of Education, Planning Board, and the County Council. Schools issues are greatly interconnected with housing, health, transportation, and more, and should be treated as such by the county’s various institutions. 

Transportation: 

We appreciate and strongly support the move to better incorporate Vision Zero into the Subdivision Staging Policy, as well as the recommendation to increase intersection delay standards along Purple Line and BRT corridors. This small adjustment would save lives and support walkability around these future transit nodes. 

We understand the objective to look at policy area transportation impacts for Master Plans, but are unsure why this should require a mandate within the SSP. If this recommendation moves forward, we believe that there should be higher standards than the baseline requirements to help us work towards our mode share, climate, and congestion goals. For example, we should set more equal standards for average time per trip. 19 minutes for auto trips and 52 minutes for transit encapsulates the transit inequities ingrained into our land use and transportation planning. We must do better. 

Thank you for your consideration.

CSG Testimony Regarding the DTSS Master Plan Boundary

Posted on by Elena Sorokina

Chair Anderson and Planning Commissioners, thank you for the opportunity to testify. I am speaking on behalf of the Coalition for Smarter Growth, the leading organization in the DC region advocating for more walkable, inclusive, transit-oriented communities. We support expanding the boundary of the Silver Spring Downtown Plan, in line with option D.

Thoughts about where we live on this Earth Day

Thoughts about where we live on this Earth Day

Posted on by Cheryl Cort

Where we live and how we design our communities matters

Today we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first Earth Day, when millions of people took to the streets to demand better stewardship of the planet that is our home. While we may not be able to gather in the same way on this day, we can reflect on actions we can take.

Just as natural systems on our Earth are interconnected, so too are land use, housing, transportation, and our environment. Reliance on cars is the single largest source of carbon emissions in the U.S. and a major contributor to respiratory illnesses, however, by designing our communities to reduce reliance on vehicles we can create a safer, healthier world.

That’s why CSG has campaigned for walkable, transit-oriented communities. We recently released a presentation and fact sheet summarizing the benefits of transit-oriented communities for fighting climate change.

Amid the COVID-19 crisis, people are rediscovering the value of walking and bicycling, and the need for parks, greenways, and safe streets for our quality of life. Dedicating more space for bicycling and walking on our streets will allow for better physical distancing and reduce air pollution and carbon emissions.

Just as we need to focus on stopping future pandemics with science, preparation, and global cooperation, we will need to do the same if we are going to address the existential threat of climate change. We are social creatures and our walkable cities, towns, and urban neighborhoods offer important social, economic, and environmental benefits that we will continue to depend upon as a society.

So, thank you for supporting CSG and more sustainable communities. We wish you the best on this Earth Day and hope that you and your families are safe and healthy.

All the best,
Stewart, Cheryl, Jane, Sonya, Emily and Alina

Photo credit: Jane Lyons