Do Something: The week of July 1, 2024

Weekly, Regional Policy Director Dan Reed and DC Policy Director Alex Baca will share with you an action you can take in the immediate future that has the potential, sometimes great and sometimes small, to increase the number of homes in our region, decrease the trips people take by car, make all of it safer, and not screw people over in the process. This week: watch our training for ANC candidates; a new state delegate for Bethesda and rent stabilization in Rockville; and thoughts on Arlington’s missing middle lawsuit.

If you have any questions, email dreed@ggwash.org about Maryland and Virginia Do Somethings, and abaca@ggwash.org about Washington, DC, Do Somethings—or, about whatever you want to talk about.

DC

On Monday, we held our first training of 2024 for candidates running for Advisory Neighborhood Commission seats. Watch the recording here, and/or join us for an in-person training on Sunday, July 14, 2024, from 3–5 pm, at Grand Duchess in Adams Morgan (sign up here).

If you’ve declared your candidacy for an ANC seat, you can, and should, fill out our endorsement questionnaire no later than 8 pm on Monday, August 12, 2024. We’ll be regularly contacting candidates on file with the Board of Elections to fill out the questionnaire. Questionnaires will be shared publicly as a resource for voters in an updated tool similar to this one we created in 2022. See this post for more information on our ANC training and endorsements process, and email me at abaca@ggwash.org if you have any questions. —AB

Maryland

First up: Nine people are vying to be the next state delegate for District 16, which includes Bethesda, North Bethesda, and Potomac. Governor Wes Moore will appoint someone to replace delegate Sara Love, who was recently appointed to replace departing senator Ariana Kelly, who herself was appointed just last year. Next Thursday, July 11, the Montgomery County Democratic Central Committee will make their recommendation to the governor.

Of the nine, Maryland Matters describes three as frontrunners, including Diana Conway, head of the county Women’s Democratic Club (and host of the housing panel I moderated a few weeks ago); Melissa Bender, who nearly got appointed to another vacant seat in the district last year; and Teresa Saavedra Woorman, who works for County Executive Marc Elrich. The central committee particularly wants to hear from District 16 residents about their preferred picks. We’re not endorsing, but tell the committee your thoughts here by Monday, July 8 at 5 pm.

Next: Maryland’s Hot Rent Stabilization Summer kicks off in the city of Rockville, where the City Council will have a hearing this Monday, July 8 about the concept of rent stabilization. The previous Rockville City Council was not okay with Montgomery County’s newly passed rent stabilization law–which does not apply to the city–but just two of those councilmembers remain after last year’s election. Now, a majority of the six councilmembers and the mayor have to vote to direct staff to actually write a bill authorizing it, and so far there appear to be two in support, including GGWash endorsee Izola Shaw.

Until then, there’s a report looking at rental trends in Rockville (starts on page 271) from city staffer and longtime GGWash contributor Jane Lyons-Raeder. A few highlights:

• The median rent in Rockville is $2,101, higher than the county median of $1,980.
• Between 2010 and 2022, rents have increased 32%, significantly faster than renter incomes, which increased by 21%.
• Forty-five percent of Rockville households rent, and 55.7% of those renters are cost-burdened, meaning they spend more than 30% of their income on housing costs.
• Like many places around the United States, rents spiked in 2022, increasing 7.3% from the year before, though rents have increased more slowly since then. Some residents, however, have reported rent increases as high as 40%.

Her report also looks at some local case studies, which serve as cautionary tales. After Montgomery County first introduced rent control in 1973, landlords responded by taking 9,700 apartments off the rental market entirely and converting them to condominiums, and the county repealed it in 1981. Rents in the city of Takoma Park, which has had rent control for nearly 40 years, are lower than elsewhere in Montgomery County–but the city has also lost rental units, as apartment buildings are either converted to condos or combined into single-family homes and very little new construction is occurring aside from teardowns.

I’ll say it until I’m blue in the face: rent stabilization is a sometimes food!!! In another report to the City Council last month, Lyons-Raeder lays out a variety of strategies (starting on page 100) the city can pursue alongside rent caps, like streamlining the development review process, allowing multi-family homes in single-family zones, expanding subsidies for dedicated affordable housing, and relaxing parking requirements.

“The emerging best practice for housing policy is to think of it as a three-legged stool: supply, stability, and subsidy,” she writes. Later this summer, the City Council will take a deeper dive into ways to increase housing supply, and we encourage them (and encourage you to encourage them) to pursue both strategies together. Until then:

If you’re free Monday night:

• Testify at the Rockville City Council weekly meeting on whether the city should pursue rent stabilization, located at 6:30 pm at City Hall, 111 Maryland Avenue. There’s a “community forum” at 6:30 pm followed by a staff presentation on rent stabilization at 7:55 pm. You can either speak in-person (signing up when you get there) or virtually (sign-ups close at 12 noon on Monday).

If you have a few minutes this week…

• And live in the City of Rockville: Send an email to the Mayor and City Council at mayorcouncil [at] rockvillemd [dot] gov by 10 am Monday morning and let them know you support rent stabilization AND increased housing production to address our regional housing shortage.

And live in Montgomery County: Send an email to the County Council and let them know you support passing the rent stabilization regulations sooner rather than later. The council has a new form you can use without typing out all their email addresses, which is very convenient.—DR

Virginia

This week marks one year since Arlington’s Expanded Housing Options–better known as “Missing Middle,” allowing up to six homes on lots previously zoned for one house–took effect. It’s also when the second lawsuit filed by opponents will finally go to trial (the first one was dismissed a few weeks ago). Arlington WINs, a new group formed to support more abundant and diverse housing options in the county, has broken down the arguments behind the lawsuit and how the trial will work. It’ll take five days, and a ruling will likely come down several weeks later.

The stakes are high–if they win, the county would have to scrap the policy and start over again, and this might put a chill on efforts in other places to end exclusionary zoning. But what are these people trying to stop? The County Board capped the number of missing middle developments that can be built at 58 a year, and the county’s tracker, which shows that all of the duplexes, townhomes, and little apartment buildings approved over the past year could fit in a single new apartment building in National Landing.

I do want to hold the very real feelings people have about change. As I wrote when I first started here two years ago, “most people who get involved in their community do it because they love where they live.” This is what animates anyone who gets involved in this stuff, supporters and opponents, me spending the past twenty years of my life as an advocate and now a professional, and ten homeowners who decided to spend a bunch of money and time filing a lawsuit. I don’t agree with them, I think they’re causing harm, and I hope they lose. But I can also see the ways we’re alike, even if we’re on opposite sides of the room in a public hearing. Fingers crossed.–DR

Your support of GGWash enables us, Dan and Alex, to do our jobs. Our jobs are knowing how development and planning works in DC, Maryland, and Virginia. If it’s appropriate to take action to advance our goals, which we hope you share, we can let you know what will have the most impact, and how to do it well. You can make a financial contribution to GGWash here. And if you want to see Do Something in your inbox, scroll down and sign up for our daily emails.