Editor’s note: This story was published at 4 p.m. on Oct. 21, 2024. It was updated at 9:32 a.m. on Oct. 22, 2024 to include a statement from County Executive Marc Elrich.
More than 73% of Montgomery County’s registered Democrats support proposed attainable housing strategies that would add more options to some single-family home neighborhoods, according to poll results released Monday by advocacy group Greater Greater Washington.
The survey was based on a proposed zoning initiative under consideration by the County Council that would allow duplexes, triplexes and smaller apartment buildings – identified as attainable housing by the county Planning Board – to be built in single-family home neighborhoods.
The poll, conducted by Data for Progress and commissioned by Greater Greater Washington, surveyed more than 505 likely Democratic primary voters between Sept. 26 and Oct. 2 online and through text messaging. The poll has a +/- 4 percentage point margin of error.
At least 60% of registered voters in Montgomery County are Democrats, according to state elections board data. Registered Republican and independent voters were not included in the poll.
Greater Greater Washington, an organization that advocates for housing, transportation and land use policy in the Washington, D.C. region, supports the attainable housing proposal. Data for Progress is a national progressive polling firm and think tank.
According to the poll results, the proposal was most popular with people who identify as liberal, with 78% supporting, as well as 78% of renters and 72% of people age 45 and younger who were surveyed.
Drafted by county planners, the Attainable Housing Strategies initiative outlines recommendations to the County Council for zoning changes in some single-family home zones in targeted areas of the county. The changes, which the council would have to approve, aim to provide more housing options and opportunities, especially for middle-income residents, according to county Planning Director Jason Sartori.
According to Sartori, the average sales price of a single-family detached home in the county in 2023 was $970,000 and, in the first four months of 2024, that figure had increased to more than $1 million.
The Planning Board approved the initiative in June, sending it to the council. However, the council has not developed proposed legislation regarding the initiative nor set a timeline for a vote.
“We’ve polled Montgomery County and Maryland voters throughout the years,” Dan Reed, Greater Greater Washington’s regional policy director, told MoCo360 on Monday. “Their message is clear – they want their local officials to do something about housing costs and they are supportive of the solutions placed before them to make that happen.”
When asked about specific aspects of the planning board’s proposal, 62% of the poll’s respondents supported changing zoning laws to allow townhomes and apartments near major roads. Sixty-one percent supported allowing fourplexes on properties within 1 mile of rail transit stations and 55% supported allowing duplexes and triplexes in single-family zoned areas.
The poll also found voters were more likely to support the proposal after learning that Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, is calling for the construction of 3 million new homes to ease a national housing shortage.
More than 60% of those polled said they’d never contacted a member of the County Council about any issue, but 56% said they would not re-elect a councilmember who did not take action when it came to housing policy.
The attainable housing proposal has proved controversial, drawing criticism and support in public forums. Hundreds attended the series of listening sessions on the proposed changes sponsored by the council in September while more than 950 people signed up to attend the final session held virtually over Zoom on Oct. 2. According to county officials, sign-ups for that event were cut off due to the high interest.
County Executive Marc Elrich (D) criticized the poll in a statement sent via text message to MoCo360 on Monday evening.
“This was clearly a push poll by Greater Greater Washington. No one should look at these results and think they are objective. This is a developer-funded PR campaign,” he wrote. “No matter how Greater Greater Washington wants to spin this, it’s clear from [the Planning Board’s] own listening sessions that these ‘New Urbanist’ ideas are not resonating nor being accepted by our residents.”
Elrich has been vocal in his criticism of the proposal. His main complaint is that the zoning change would focus on “missing middle” housing as opposed to affordable housing.
The term refers to “a range of building types that are compatible in scale, form and construction with single-family homes, but include multiple housing units,” according to Montgomery Planning. These housing options were common during the pre-World War II era but faded from popularity with new construction of single-family homes and tall multi-family apartment buildings, according to the planning department.
The county lost more than 26,000 middle-income residents from 2005 to 2022, while gaining nearly 88,000 low-income residents and 67,000 high-income residents in the same timeframe, according to Montgomery Planning data.
“They’re not trying to build affordable housing. They started talking about affordable housing in the very beginning, but when people realized that’s not what they were doing, they just dropped the word affordable, and they called it attainable. But it’s not attainable to everybody, and it’s not going to be attainable to everybody,” Elrich said at a Oct. 10 media briefing.
But planning officials have argued the proposal is not supposed to be about affordable housing.
“The Planning Board’s recommendations are not focused on affordable housing,” Planning Board Chair Artie Harris said in an Oct. 11 email to MoCo360. “They have always been about providing more options for our middle-income residents to be able to comfortably live in the county. The county is currently doing a lot of great things to build affordable units.”
