one. Good evening everyone and welcome back. We are up to item 13 on our agenda for today and this is a public hearing on zoning text amendment 25-01 self storage civic and institutional ZTA is called the street activation and vacancy elimination ZTA. This would allow self storage above ground in CR zones with a charitable philanthropic institution or a cultural institution on the ground floor a Planning housing and parks committee work section is scheduled for March 24th 2025 those wishing to submit Material for the council's consideration should do so by the close of business on March 17th 2025 as a reminder of our public hearing guidelines, your comments must be limited to issues relevant to the public hearing topic for which you are testifying and are appropriate for a public meeting. You will hear a tone when your time is up and we appreciate everyone abiding by there a lot of time. Minesa Katz, we are first, you have five minutes. You are speaking on this ZTA as well as CTA 2502 and Bill 2-25. Thank you. Good evening Council members, my name is Manasseh Katz. I've been a resident Montgomery County for my entire life. I will start with the information I had to review to prepare for this meeting. We have the agenda, we have the CTAs, we have more CTAs. I then had to start looking into budgets of how this affects the CTA. I'm here because of the University Boulevard plan and the Glenmont plan, a related plan that I feel will do major damage to Montgomery County. All this is based on 52050 attainable housing strategies, Vision Zero, more Vision Zero, complete streets, and BRT, bus rapid transit, which is all part of all of this is connected together. I'll try to speak as fast as I can. Thank you. ZTA-20501 is about self-storage changes. It doesn't have much in the way of climate or diversity or tax impact, but that has nothing to do with improving the lives of residents in Montgomery County. This is what's called a private bill. It's designed to help a single-divisual company. There's no shortage of self-storage, the self-storage industry, as documented here as well able to adapt to market conditions. It is also not the type of thing that one would walk a bike roll or take transit to because you either drive, you rent a truck or if you don't drive, you get your friends to help you for beer and pizza. I will be shocked if this ETA passes. the CTA pass and there's exactly one self-storage company that makes use of this amendment, likely in pretty short order, once they find an emulously defined charitable film traffic or co- and pizza. I will be shocked if this ETA passes and there is exactly one self-storage company that makes use of this amendment, likely in pretty short order, once they find an emulously defined charitable film traffic or cultural institution for the ground floor, and they likely already identified building together with the landlord waiting anxiously for this amendment to pass. Private bills to solve real problems are great, private bills to have one company in a healthy industry is simply wrong, this bill smells a little off. I think the rest of these bills stink. Next is workforce housing in the pilot bill. My first job when I heard workforce housing was concrete blocks in Soviet Russia, but this is actually market rate housing with a twist. Developers get 100% tax debatement for 25 years and trust me this will not be passed on to tenants in any meaningful way. Public schools are 46% of the budget. Property taxes are 47% of the budget. Property taxes are 47% of the budget, and here is the budget for you. If we look at roughly schools equals property taxes, you can get an idea of the magnitude of the problem. I have no idea how many new units are expected with more housing now, and the pilot program, the county executive research report, there are 30,000 other units have been approved during development pipeline. So let's play with 3000 units, and an average $500,000 assessed value and current taxes that 15 and a half million of lost revenue every year for 25 years. About 15% of Montgomery County residents are students. Average household size 2.7 people. So this means about 1200 students. County funding is just over 13,000 per student. The 2025 budget, $16 million to this group. Where will the 16 million come from? The answer is the rest of us.. Most people in this room are watching online, even most of the county council pay property taxes directly or indirectly through rented attacks building. Why should these developers get a huge tax break that we have to pay for? More students in more school, a desk of Shannon camp, middle school and camp mills, we bill $52 million for just over 800 students. There's another $75 million and unpaid bills to build more buildings. Additionally, obviously, Legislative Oversight has reported this bill would actually have a negative impact on racial equity and social justice. Many of the documents in front of me are full of lofty plans about racial equity and social justice. This would do the opposite. These bills should not be passed for these reasons. My interest here comes from what I learned about the UBCP, the University Boulevard Card or Plan. That includes lower in traffic speeds as part of vision zero with a 5 or 10 mile decrease in speeds on 55% of roads across the entire counties. This will impact every resident in their quality of life. And one group of bicycle association is trying to get a bill passed in the state of Maryland to lower speeds to 15 miles per hour in the neighborhood streets that's parking lot speed. one-third of pedestrian stress, deaths and injuries are on crossing not in an intersection. Ticket J walkers on major streets and you will change behavior and save lives. Red light runners and people turning right on red when they're not supposed to is also a major problem. Ticket these drivers with real people, real tickets, with points instead of automated and you will change behavior and save lives. BRT, Bus Rapid Transit, is the boom dog at the highest level. Plan systems rejected increase overall transit ridership by just 2 to 6 percent. Decrease in vehicle miles travel less than 1 percent. People will still be driving because that's what they want to do. $200 million from Rears Millibular RT, that's the only one where I could find specific numbers. That worked out, if you had just under a million riders of projected increase in overall transit ridership in 2040, would be, and spread out over 10 years, would be $20 for additional ride. You could take that same money and help some of the 8% of Montgomery residents who don't already have cars, buy cars. You could buy for every $200 million on BRT. You could buy 4,000 low-income families, $40,000 new electric cars, subsidizer insurance, and charging for 10 years, $1,000 a year. And they wouldn't just get a slightly faster ride to and from work. They would get much longer ride wherever they want to go, whenever they want to go. residents of Montgomery County County are here because they want to live here, not in a city. If they did, they would live in Washington, DC. Montgomery County, state of Maryland, United States, America. So it's your five minute. Thank you. That is all for this public hearing. Thank you for sharing the feedback on this item. The public hearing is now closed. Item 14 is a public hearing on zoning text amendment 25-02, workforce housing development standards. This DTA would allow additional residential building types in the R40, R60, R90, and R200 zones along certain corridors with a minimum percentage of workforce housing units. A planning, housing and parse committee work session is scheduled for March 31st, 2025, those wishing to submit material. The council's consideration should do so by the close of business on March 24th, 2025, and the council will continue to accept correspondence after this date. As a reminder of our public hearing testimony guidelines, your comments must be limited to issues relevant to the public hearing topic for which you are testifying and are appropriate for a public meeting. When you hear your tone your time is up and we appreciate everyone abiding by their lot a lot of time. Before I begin I just want to mention that our colleague council member Luki is virtual this evening. Our first speaker for this is Mr. Liu Moorsberger. Thank you, President Stewart and Council members. Thank you for the opportunity to speak on this important bill on behalf of Chevy Chase Village. We generally support the tailored approach to adding housing taken in ZTA 2502. We have not had sufficient time to evaluate this bill since the interactive map was published. And so we ask that you take into consideration as you deliberate this legislation, the preliminary topics I raised here tonight, along with our written testimony, which includes a list of questions submitted earlier into the record today. We also intend to submit supplementary testimony, which may include specific amendments prior to the closing of the record on March 24th. The first point to raise this evening, please prohibit the assemblage of lots located behind corridor lots, and prohibit the assemblage of lots located side by side on a corridor. This will limit adverse impacts on existing single-family neighborhoods and as consistent with the intent of the lead sponsors. Second, amend the bill to clearly prohibit the redevelopment of lots within established historic districts, which we also believe is consistent with the intent of the lead sponsors. Third, for clarity, please identify eligible lots in an appendix or on the Montgomery County's mapping atlas, not just by reference to road classifications, which can be confusing. Fourth, we ask that you retain planning board site plan review of all workforce housing optional method development to ensure the open and transparent process envisioned by the lead sponsors. Fifth, please implement action number A13 of the county's 2021 climate action plan and require that triplex townhouse and apartment units provide onsite stormwater management controls and disallow waivers. This is very important given these housing types are likely to create more impervious surface and in turn more runoff than a single family or Duplex unit. Sixth, we ask that the floor area ratio remain capped at a minimum, sorry, maximum of 1.25. Seventh, we urge you to continue to require two on-site parking spaces per dwelling. Corridor, properties eligible for redevelopment are located along major roadways and in our municipality There is no adjacent on street parking one parking space per unit Ignores the parking needs of two vehicle households guests and service vehicles Which necessarily will park on a budding residential streets already suffering from a high parking demand and narrow roadways with limited visibility. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next we have Greg Chernack. Thank you, Council President. Thank you, Council President and members of the Council. Good evening. My name is Greg Chernack. I'm Chair of the Council of Section 5 of Chevy Chase. I hear with me, or perhaps stuck in traffic, as my fellow town council members saw in Downey, as well as many residents of our municipality who have been active on this issue for more than six months. In my two decades of living in Chevy Chase, I have never seen residents so concerned about a local issue as they have been about this one. Our residents understand understandably worried about how allowing for sweeping changes to zoning, even just along the eligible carters, could lead to significant impacts on drainage, parking, and the worsening of speed and traffic in our small neighborhood, as well as exacerbate the situation in our already crowded schools. We appreciate that several members of the county council accepted our invitation, which was made to all of you, to visit Section 5, to see for yourselves the density of our neighborhood and our narrow streets, which the Montgomery County Fire Department has already warned us are too difficult to navigate. In particular, we thank council members Glass, Friedson, Joando, and Katz for their courtesy in visiting our community. We appreciate that the Council as a whole has listened to concerns from our community and others and narrowed the scope of ZTA from what the planning board initially proposed. I want to focus on two principal areas of concern. First, we have discussed with Council member Freedson at our most recent town council meeting issues that exist regarding the possibilities the developers combining lots along or behind the eligible corridors. We are concerned that a developer might purchase multiple adjoining lots along an eligible corridor and build an extremely large multi-unit dwelling. Council Member Freedson stated our council meeting last month that although developers could understandably purchase adjoining properties, the setback rules for each lot would remain intact. If that is correct and we hope that it is, we ask that it be made explicit in the ZTA. Likewise, we are concerned that a developer could purchase a lot along an eligible corridor and an adjoining lot that is not a long one and then combine the lots. Again, Council Member Freedson stated that this would not be permitted, but we would like that to be made explicit. Second, we have serious concerns that easing parking requirements for multi-unit dwellings would severely impact our neighborhood. Not only is parking extremely limited, but we have attempted to address concerns from the fire department to try to ensure that emergency vehicles have access to our narrow streets. If more cars are present, we fear that our safety will be compromised. In recent years, we've seen dramatic increases have cut through traffic on residential streets with 20 mile per hour speed limits traveling well above that threshold. We've seen recent near misses and we're taking steps to do all we can to keep streets safe, but fear that this will inevitably have a reverse-well negative impacts without your help. We ask that the ZTA not change any existing parking units from multi-unit dwellings. I thank you for the opportunity to share our mind and our residents' concerns. Thank you very much. Next we have Dan Reed. Good evening. My name is Dan Reed. I'm the Maryland Policy Director for Greater Greater Washington. We work on better housing transportation and land use policies in the DC area. And we support the more housing now package, which is an important first step to addressing our housing crisis. You know, at this uncertain time at the national level, It's here at the local level that we can truly make a difference. And one of the main powers that local governments in Maryland have is land use, deciding where things go, who gets to live where, and who has access to all the things needed to live a full happy life. We recently conducted a statewide housing poll, which found that three-quarters of Marylanders say that rising housing costs are a burden for them or someone they know, and 71% believe governments should reduce barriers to home building to lower home prices. It's not surprising that right now Governor Moore has introduced the Housing for Jobs Act, which identifies housing production gaps in counties that have not enough homes for the available jobs. This county's official policy on land use, Thrive 2050, is explicit about the need to make our zoning more flexible and allow more types of homes and more places. Smaller homes, lower cost homes, and multi-family homes are increasingly diverse population, needs an increasingly diverse housing stock, less than half of the county's residents live in single-family homes, but they take up most of the land. And while 63% of the county's white residents live in single-family homes, just 29% of black residents do. I don't live in one. Home prices in this county have gone up 20% since 2020 and as long as we devote most of our land to the most expensive housing type Where the average sale price is now a million dollars this trend will only continue According to the county's own survey 18% just 18% of county residents are satisfied with the availability of quality affordable housing down from 27% 8 years ago. Given the urgency of our housing crisis and public support for doing something about it, which is out there, the county council has an opportunity to step up. In the near term, that means passing this package. And we have a few requested amendments to allow these housing types by right to put them on power with single family homes today To include corner lots and corridors and to expand the areas covered to include Metro mark in the purple line Which is probably the biggest opportunity we have to provide more housing that our our workforce can access We're also asking the council to finish the job and Commit to pursuing broader countywide zoning reforms as directed by the previous council when it passed through 2050. As a community, we have to stop pushing our housing issues, our workforce, and our family, and friends and loved ones to other counties and states. We have to admit that zoning for more housing is a key part of the solution to our housing crisis alongside the MPDU program, alongside the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, and Rainstabilization. And we have to acknowledge the most people are not going to come to listening sessions or town halls for public hearings to give you permission to do the right thing. So we urge you to pass this bill, and let's get going. Thank you. Thank you. Next, we have Mike Englisch, who gets five minutes, because he's also speaking to Bill 2-25. Thank you and to be honest I drafted this before I remember that I have five minutes I'll probably be closer to three and do it's all a favor. Thank you all for agreeing to hear my testimony and Council President and to all the sponsors for sponsoring this package. For the record I took the market and it was fine and traffic and parking free and I I think it would be great if other people could live in the neighborhoods around downtown Silver Spring and have the same option. So I'm speaking for myself today, my English only, but as I'm partly hiding, I'm a member of the Montgomery Feral Steering Committee, which is all volunteer, I'll add. Taken together, the various bills that make up the more housing now package are a solid if modest, reformed, or housing policy. and i think the broad coalition that came out when the package was announced in support proposal and pulling showing its popularity reflects just how unclutterversial it is to most people. The Cacophony and various unrepresented venues, including this one, notwithstanding. You know as well as I do that the voices here, both in support and in opposition, as well as those of this afternoon, are not presented of the population at large. Everyone in this room is the exception, not the rule. I support. that the voices here both in support and opposition, as well as those this afternoon, are not presented of the population at large. Everyone in this room is the exception, not the rule. I support the packages bill is as written, but encourage changes that could make them better, including making as many reforms by right as possible, allowing office and retail conversion incentives to work on projects that have already been initially approved, far from guarantee to be completed, expanding up zoning to areas around transit and in blocks around major corridors, and more broadly by listening to and deferring to our affordable housing partners, and others who have technical suggestions and knowledge that people like I frankly don't have. Counting that could have averaged in his weekly email recently said that we need to slow down and quote, put the community back in the planning process. And frankly, the county executive needs to make room for the community before it fades away. We need to wait wait for what? For more people be priced into cheaper red states where it's not safe for them to be who they are. Wait for more jobs to go somewhere else because the workforce can't afford it. Wait for more teachers to be driven away from the school system that needs them. He speaks about people not getting everything they want. I assure you, this package is far from everything I want, but it's a start and starts matter. This isn't about the next year or the next four years. It's about continuing to take our initial steps down the path of writing decades of wrongs, and that will continue past number than one economic cycle or frankly, more than one council. The council should consider community testimony, decision, but should not do so under the assumption that the opposition will be satisfied. We have seen time and again that this is not the case. I was able to catch some of the testimony from this afternoon on the way over. Again, a nice thing about taking a trade. And what I heard from multiple opponents, including some here today, was thank you for listening to our concerns at the listening sessions. Thank you for making the changes. They weren't enough. We still oppose the bill and that's not really going to change if you make more changes. The problem is not that people opposing these changes are cruel and uncaring most are earnestly motivated. The problem is a fundamental fear of change that is both understandable and impossible to placate and that must not be heated with unlimited deference. And I don't say this to be dismissive. I know how scary change is in a way that most people don't. Early last year, I was diagnosed as autistic, which my therapist I had suspected for a couple years. And as my lifelong friend Dave says, explains a lot. And I don't bring this up to try to blunt criticism or evoke sympathy. I bring it up because as is true from many on the spectrum, I actually hate change a lot. Given that someone who advocates for a lot, it can be a little bit weird. But be it in where I live, in my work, or in my social life, change big and small can throw me off for days at a time. And every time I adapt to it, and the change becomes the new normal. But every time I feel to really learn that lesson that, you know, that I'll adapt, that'll probably be okay. And I've worked on it and gotten better and I still can prevent that initial panic, but I can adapt. I can adjust. Some change is good, some change is bad, but we buy a large underestimate our ability to adjust to it and deal with it. As it becomes clear that where people live, we'll have a big impact on how their rights are respected in this country. I think it's important to remind you that the most progressive place in the world cannot protect people that can't afford to live. As it becomes clear that where people live will have a big impact on how their rights are respected in this country, I think it's important to remind you that the most progressive place in the world cannot protect people that can't afford to live in it. I do not care about anyone's neighborhood character as much as that, and it is not close. If we cannot take even this step, I mourn for our ability to be the place we will claim to be. Thank you. Thank you. Next, we have Bridget Howe. Good evening. My name is Bridget Howe and I'm testifying tonight on behalf of nonprofit Montgomery. Nonprofit Montgomery is an alliance of nonprofits that serve Montgomery County residents. As an organization we provide capacity building support to strengthen operational excellence as well as advocacy and education about the nonprofit sector and its important role. For the past eight, we have been hard at work on our 2025 state of nonprofits in Montgomery County report. The research for the report included a needs assessment, deep dives into data around nonprofits, as well as an active engagement process with our members to identify key recommendations for the community to ensure a sustainable and thriving nonprofit sector. We're gonna launch our report next week week on March 20th at the Silver Spring Civic Center at our Tools to Thrive Nonprofit Expo. You can go to our website, nonprofitmoco.org, for more information. That report is embargoed until next week. We want it to be a great launch event, but showing our support of this legislation was important enough for me to lift the embargo on one topic, one particular recommendation. When we received the results from the needs assessment that went to nonprofit leaders in Montgomery County, I was genuinely surprised by the number of comments that mentioned affordable housing as a challenged barrier for nonprofit operational excellence. Not for their clients, although those needs were addressed, but for their workforce. One of our survey participants said, this is a direct quote, it's a challenge finding young skilled people to work in the field who can find affordable housing to live in Montgomery County and serve the community. Our report shows that while wages paid by nonprofits have increased, providing competitive salaries to support the high cost of living here is a real barrier for local nonprofits. Another nonprofit leader said in the survey that the greatest challenge facing the nonprofit sector is affordable housing and resources. And finally another said, the inability to recruit and retain staff if funding doesn't keep pace with rising costs in Montgomery County is a barrier. These are the people that work in our child care centers. These are our social workers. These are mental health therapists. These are people who provide home ownership counseling to many members of our community. They are important. Given what we learned in the needs assessment and based on that engagement process, we did include housing recommendation in our report. In our section that is to advance economic policy that benefits middle income residents. It reads to offset the high cost of living in challenging real estate market in Montgomery County the following recommendation is proposed. Specifically focused on affordable housing, this recommendation would benefit all residents including many nonprofit employees who face economic hardship residing in the county. and the recommendation is to advocate for federal, state and local investment in and zoning adjustments for affordable housing production in the county. As previously highlighted, the high cost of living impacts many factors, including the ability for nonprofit employees to live in or near the communities in which they work. Amended zoning codes and increased investment in supportive market rate and subsidized affordable housing will help meet the important market demand from nonprofit employees as well as the clients they support each day. While there's more to do, this is a great start. Thank you. Thank you very much. That is it for our first panel on this VTA. Next I'll call down Alex Campbell, Aaron and roller, Karen Bulti, Michael Larkin, Jane Lyons, Raider. Okay, Alex Campbell can kick us off. Hello. My name is Alex Campbell. I am a civil engineering student at the University of Maryland. Oh, you're Mike just went off. Good? Okay. All right. I am here to urge the council to pass the more housing now plan because my generation's future depends on it. Montgomery County is facing a severe housing crisis. Prices have risen by 20% in the last four years and 11% in the last year alone. The trend isn't just continuing, it's accelerating. As a result, young people and working families are being priced out of our county. Despite a growing demographic nationwide, Montgomery County has lost tens of thousands of young working-class people in the last 20 years. If we fail to act, we will continue to price out the children of Montgomery County. The more housing now plan is a crucial first step towards solving this crisis by allowing more housing along transit quarters, including missing middle housing. We can create housing types that people can actually afford. Here are some numbers. The average sale price of a single family home last year Montgomery County was $1 million. Currently on Redfin, as of yesterday, the average condo cost is $284,000 and the average townhouse cost is $475,000. Those are 70% and 50% less than a single family house. This is why we need to change and allow these housing types in more areas. I also support a few amendments to the bill. I support allowing developers to combine lots and deliver more of these more affordable housing types. I support allowing these housing types on corners, and I also support allowing these housing types by right. Much of the testimony opposed to this bill comes from older established folks whose futures are not at stake. They benefit because they already own homes and when young people pay them extremely high costs, they make a ton of money. I urge those in opposition to think of the futures of their children and grandchildren who are being priced out of this county where have to pay exorbitant prices to stay. Montgomery County is an incredible place to call home and we need to take action to ensure that young working people can continue to do so. I urge the council to pass the more housing now plan. Thank you. Thank you. Next we have Aaron Drollett. Thank you, thank you, council president Stewart and members of the Montgomery County Council. I want to start by thanking you all, particularly Council Member Freetz and Council Member Funning and Zalus. I know that the process of listening, doing the listening sessions across the community was a lot of work with the attainable housing strategies initiative, but I actually think it really helped create a better, more palatable product. And I think more housing now is a more palatable product to more of the county. That being said, I do think it is being rushed a bit. Most neighborhood associations have not had the opportunity to review the voluminous documents with this plan. And I think you really have to slow it down a little bit. Maybe that means going back and having more listening sessions. I don't know, but I do think you need to really take your time with this plan. On the specifics of the plan, I oppose it based on the fact that where I live is where all these corridors intersect. So I live in the four corners neighborhoods. Call. On the specifics of the plan, I oppose it Based on the fact that where I live is where all these corridors intersect So I live in the four corners neighborhoods call four corners for a reason University callsville and then Georgia and the beltway right there And I do feel like neighborhoods like mine as well as some neighborhoods in Wheaton and others that are identified on the map are really being Called upon to bear a disproportionate burden here and I got to to tell you that the traffic, the way this plan is designed, the traffic is going to be a nightmare. I think you have to create some kind of a limiting principle here with this plan for where the different corridors meet. What that looks like, I don't exactly know, maybe it's, maybe you do only do plexes. Maybe you established some sort of limited number. But I really, really think you need to create a limiting principle because you're setting up a tragedy of the common sort of situation that you really want to avoid. I want to just speak briefly. Oh, also for the parking minimums, I mean, it should have been very, very clear from the attainable housing strategies process. People do not support reducing parking minimums, especially in neighborhoods like mine that have very narrow streets, old houses, and no off-street parking. That should be an absolute no-go whatsoever limiting or reducing parking minimums. Even the greater-greater Washington poll that a lot of advocates of this plan like to cite to, even in that poll, people were against reducing parking minimum. So I think that's important to point out. The last thing I want to say is on the converting office to residential, that's a good idea, but you know better than anybody how complicated and expensive that is. And I'm going to be the skunk of the Garden Party here. You've got to look at the rent control provisions, again, with regard to any new development that's going on. We are seeing red flashing warning lights already in the data because of that. We are not competitive with Northern Virginia. We do not exist in a vacuum. And you have got to look at that law if you want this plan to succeed. Thank you for your time and for your service to Montgomery County. Thank you. Caron Bolte, you have five minutes. You're also speaking on bill two, dash 225. Can you turn your mic? Great. Hi, I'm Caron Bolte with the Wildwood Manor Citizens Association, which represents over 500 Bethesda homes. WMCA has many of the same concerns with the more housing now proposal as we did with the AHSI. WMCA is very concerned about the negative impact of increased population density along the county's corridor roads on the environment, schools, infrastructure, transportation, public safety, and adequate public facilities and services. Before moving forward with the more housing now or similar proposals, the county council should take the necessary time to conduct, analyze, and consider evidence-based studies of the proposals expected impacts on the county and its resonance quality of life. Our concerns and recommendations are detailed in our written comments which we submitted for the record, but there are a few areas I'd like to highlight tonight. ZTA-2502 will exacerbate school overcrowding in the Walter Johnson and other school clusters. Ashburden Elementary is at 100% capacity and is expected to be at 110 capacity in 2025 through 26. North Bethesda Middle School is beyond its capacity of 1,203 students with a current enrollment of 1,224. Finally, WJ High School is at 134% of capacity with 19 portables. There simply is not enough space in the Walter Johnson cluster to accommodate the additional students that would be generated under ZTA-2502. ZTA-2502 would also place severe strains on the water supply and sewer systems. According to WSSC, approximately 40% of the water means in the WSSC water system are more than 50 years old. In addition, as Council Vice President Joondo has pointed out, if your house was built before 1993, you have these skinny pipes that are less than an inch, and that impacts the water capacity. The county's aging infrastructure was designed to handle the density of our single family neighborhoods, not a significantly increased population. Furthermore, in its climate assessment for ZTA-2502, the planning board confirmed harms to the environment stating, quote, depending on the number, density, and location of projects, sensitivity-related minor to moderate negative impacts are expected, due to decreases in non-forest tree canopy and other green areas, increased heat impacts due to increases in impervious surfaces, decreases in pervious cover, potential need for enhancements in existing stormwater management systems, increased stormwater runoff and decreased water quality, and decreased air quality due to increases in numbers of motor vehicle trips and vehicle miles traveled. The county council should not pass CTA-2502 with its attendant environmental harms. Instead, WMCA urges the council to consider other effective ways to address the need for workforce and affordable housing. With regard to ZTA-2503 and Bill-225, WMCA supports the conversion of underutilized office and commercial space into affordable housing. However, we join the strong opposition to Bill-225, which represents a corporate giveaway. In its RESJ impact statement, OLO concluded that the bill provides an insufficient number of affordable units for the size of the proposed tax abatement. OLO states that quote, the foregone property tax revenue from tax abatements could undermine the county's ability to provide future public goods and services. This could particularly harm BIPOC community members. WMCA agrees that the council should not enact bill 225 is currently written, but instead determine whether there are more cost-effective alternatives to tax abatements and what would strike the right balance between tax breaks and affordable housing units. With regard to the budget items, the council should consider the impacts of the state budget deficit and the Trump administration's policies on county residents and the real estate and job markets before committing the county to any new expenditures that we can't afford. Thank you for your consideration. Thank you. Michael Arkin, you're next and you have five minutes as you're also speaking on ZTA 25-03. Good evening members of the county council. My name is Michael Larkin and I'm speaking on behalf of the action committee for transit. I'm a member of their board. First off, thank you for your time to talk tonight. On January 10th of this year, ACC sent a letter to the county council requesting legislation that addresses the housing crisis. ACC wants to thank the sponsors of this workforce housing now package. And we're supportive because it is a necessary step in the direction of reforming restrictive zoning, or maybe we better if if I called it exclusionary zoning, because these practices are harmful to people. They're also harmful to the financial health of the county. Restrictive zoning is tightly correlated with many societal problems, such as widening wealth inequality and homelessness. This package has many good ideas. One of them is Office of Residential Conversions. I know these projects may be very expensive, but as much as possible, we should transform underutilized buildings into better usage. Another good ideas are in ZTI ZTH-2502, which would legalize more housing types in our busiest corridors. And this is a tried-intested in other parts of the country such as in Minneapolis where they reformed restrictive zoning in their major corridors and transit hubs and they achieved greater levels of housing affordability. Now, ACC does have some suggestions for improving this ZTA-2502. Some of you already heard already, such as making sure that you build us closely within our public transit sheds, where mod a red line, purple line. I would note that in September 2022, the National Center for Smart Growth recommended an appropriate distance from transit for building housing is one mile. Secondly, the ZTA is currently written, whereas I currently understand it, would exclude corner lots in the side streets of corridors. Locating every last unit of new housing or materials, or excluding corners and side streets could send the unintended message that the workforce were trying to attract is a burden. Nothing really could be further from the truth. Moral, we're corner lots provide some of the best places to redesign our streets for complete streets. Many of these streets are still unsafe for walking and biking and rolling. If it doesn't make good sense to pull out spots where we can re-retro fit in the most efficient matter. Lastly, act would strongly suggest that the county council consult with home builders, including enterprise community partners, Habitat Humanity, to make sure that this new housing that we want to build does not face more hurdles to becoming a reality than homes that are being torn down all the time and just made bigger. We should be making it as easy as possible to build homes for the workforce. It is simply not fair to make those homes face more burdens than any other home. Now I want to conclude by stating that I think we need to be keeping the most important context for me I would think is our vegetarian context. Decades of land use policy has contributed to a housing stock that is broadly unaffordable. And our land use pattern is now threatening the financial health of the county. We're failing to retain and attract the workforce and the employers that we need to grow our tax base. That is a tax pay set pays for schools, parks, libraries, libraries where I printed this testimony out. It's also going to help us pay for the infrastructure that we need to take on the climate crisis, which is happening in parallel to the climate crisis. Now a month ago, I sat at this table speaking on behalf for ACT during the operating budget hearings, requesting that the county keeps its commitments to build world-class transit and active transportation options. It's in many plans from FRIVE, pedestrian master plan, climate action plan, bicycle master plan. I won't go on. I'm sure you tired of hearing about it from me. However, I think it's important to keep in mind that whenever we hear that a duplex or a triplex is destroying someone's neighborhood, keep in mind the growing of the tax base that we need. You're not destroying neighborhoods. You're building a secure future that we need to build a county that's economically and socially healthy. I would say that's a more humane county to live in. So pass this workforce now package, make it stronger where we can, and get it done, and let's move on to the next bigger and brighter things we need to do to build more housing and world-class transit in the county. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Ms. Lyons, writer. Good evening. My name is Jane Lyons, writer and I associate myself with the comments of CSG, MHA, and many others in support of, but with suggestions to improve the more housing now package. I am very grateful to the sponsors of this legislation for their leadership, and I encourage the council to work particularly close with affordable housing developers to make sure that this makes their job easier. There are many reasons to allow for more housing types and more places. The environment, economy, affordability, equity, the list goes on and on. But when I make those arguments to people, I've noticed that I often run into a wall, which I can only describe as a tightly held anxiety that people are a burden. People mean traffic, or another student taking a teacher's attention away from your own child, or a longer line at Starbucks. But I want to take a moment to challenge that belief. Someone living closer to their job down county is one less person to clog up traffic on 270. A new neighbor is more tax-revenue to support the badly needed infrastructure upgrades to our schools or the economic activity that supports the small businesses that we love. People are our essential workers, our friends, our public employees, our beloved neighbors. This is why I care about land use. It's not just about the way our neighborhoods look and feel it's about people and their communities. Land use is our economy made spatial and if we want to have an economy that prioritizes economic mobility and justice our land use must reflect those values too. Instead where are we now? If you cannot afford a single family detached home, over 80% of the county is off limits to you. That is exclusionary. That is the real cookie cutter zoning, a cookie that costs an average of $970,000 compared to $440,000 for attached homes. I'm excited to say that I recently bought a home and was able to do so doing it due to it being a pretty old townhouse and need of some love and also due to a lifetime of my own economic privilege. It's also important to remember how we got here. The prevalence of single family detached zoning is not because of well-intentioned planning. It is because of segregationists like Colonel Brook E. Lee who planned and developed most of Montgomery County in the early 20th century to intentionally use zoning to keep neighborhoods exclusive. And I bring this up not to imply that anyone who wants to keep single family zoning agrees with Colonel Brook E. Lee, but because it's an incredibly difficult yet important thing to contend with the ugly history of these policies so that we can forge a path forward that is welcoming and inclusive. And the leaves behind the scarcity mindset, the leads to the belief that new neighbors are a burden. In conclusion, now more than ever, it feels important to be welcoming and to tear down the invisible walls that are created through our current land use policy. This legislative package is a step in that direction and I urge you to support it. Thank you. Thank you, thank you for that testimony and to this panel. Our next group includes Michael DeLong, Mr. Courtney Aliyah, Jordan Day, Kimberly Prasad, and Alexander Burland. All right, Mr. D'Along, you can start when you're ready. Thank you very much, Council members, for hearing my testimony. I'm Michael D'A 35-year-old resident of Silver Spring active in local politics and advocacy. I strongly support zoning text amendment 102 regarding workforce housing development standards and I urge the council to pass it as quickly as possible It's going to build more housing that Montgomery County badly needs and encourage housing in areas where it will be most beneficial and Help lower rents and mortgages You've all heard we're currently facing a housing crisis homes are unaffordable for a lot of people Working people are being priced out of the county and if they work here They often have to live in another county and endure lengthy commutes here a lot of people are housing burdened and Montgomery County we need a strong workforce and we need to be able to make it so that middle and class and working class people can live here. And so this amendment aims to try and fix that. It's going to accelerate the construction of housing in certain zones, encouraged construction of duplexes, triplexes, and other townhomes, small apartment buildings, and other things. And this proposal is really welcome. In fact, I actually wish it went further. When I was looking for a home three years ago, I quickly realized that I couldn't afford a townhouse or a single-family home at all, because of the lack of a lot of housing. A lot of people are in the same boat. And before that, when I was a renter, for several years, I actually lived in a basement with a house with several other housemates, which were great people. same boat. And before that, when I was a renter, for several years, I actually lived in a basement with a house with several other housemates, which were great people, but we all had to like sort of do this because we, none of us could afford an apartment on our own. The rents were simply too high. And I grew up in the Bay Area near San Francisco, have very fond memories of that community, love it, go back and visit my parents, but their failure to build more housing there has made it a struggle for anyone but they're really wealthy to live there. And so I hope that Montgomery County doesn't go down that path. So I think Montgomery County is a place, should be a place where both upper class, middle class, and working class people can live and own homes and pay affordable rents. Building more housing is essential for this to happen. The County Council also should adopt this zoning text amendment 2502. Strongly encourage the construction of townhouses, duplexes, triplexes on their housing to bring down rents. But I also hope that it will adopt the other proposals as well. The proposal to convert vacant offices into housing, the proposal to basically make it so that these new housing types can be built on corners and other things like that. I hope it will also include in the future more amendments that encourage the construction of, say, like larger apartment buildings in certain places, especially near places like metro stations, the Mark Commuter Rail, important bus lines, and the purple line. We need more housing now. I thank Council Member Freedson and Council Member Fanny Gonzalez for the sponsorship of this. You have an opportunity to do the right thing, reduce housing cost, and help everyone. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Next we have Mr. Ellis. I'm calling me Mr. Ellis or Mr. Elia. I'm sorry there was a typo on the sheet, so my apologies. I realized it's Mr. Ellis. No, we have not. But just amusingly, when I was a student many years ago, before I worked for two years making $24 a year to train as a lawyer, not privileged. I made it in a rugby game and I had my picture in the paper, but unfortunately instead of calling me court today, they called me Chris, as luck would have it. I am here as a homeowner who is tied out and taxed out. I have not been able to keep up with your number three venture, more housing now, which sounds like a dream slogan for developers. You are an ever-moving target. The first law of politics is don't mess with people's homes. Now wonder, people were in shock at your initial plan to allow single home zoning to become multiplexed by right. If you desire stability, mocos not the place to be. For soon you would be groaning when by right they change your zoning. You can't rely on the master plan before you came. They changed it with a wave of the hand. They turned smart growth into thrive, Hans Rima. And then the county took a dive. Thrive is code for pave and tax. Something they, you have got developers backs, dollarocracy in action. They thought that they could ignore the zoning in existing law, and so they tried to change your zone to make condos from your home. What did this cost our budget? They don't know. They just fudge it. Workforce housing. I have no stuff. I'm afraid. Workforce housing is there plan B where they want you and me to fund a housing subsidy in a moco housing lottery where we have paid for our homes also pay for others loans and cheap down payments too will be billed in taxes to you. Cheap housing is no problem at all when you rob Peter to pay poor. To cut housing costs, take your axes and cut our soaring property, for taxes in the county moco have now gone completely loco. Also why not take a bit out of developer profit? Do you mind some homes that cost less for a project to progress? This is a much simpler way than your complex ZTA. And it's also much more fair for big profits to be shared $100 million or imagine what the heck why not work with the county exec. Over half my social security goes in taxes on my property, the American dream. So we taxpayers are in the same boat as the workforce fighting to stay afloat. Therefore it seems most unfair to tax us more than we can bear. And remember this basic thing, you are a council, not a king. Ooh. Yes. Oh, my. Oh, my. Oh, my. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Ellis. Mr. Day, you're next. Yeah, I'm sorry. Mine doesn't rhyme. It's OK. All right. Good evening. My name is Jordan Day, and I'm a renter in downtown Silver Spring. I want to start by stating my support for the ZTA as the first step towards solving our housing crisis. Our county faces a set of interlocking issues, a plateauing tax base and exodus of working-age citizens, high housing costs, and high costs to build more housing, allowing more homes and more types of homes is the obvious solution to all these problems. This issue is personal to me. I was born in this county, grew up in this county, and I want to stay in this county. I was born in 1997, when 45% of county residents could afford a home in my childhood zip code 20817. The average home price in that zip code is now above $1.4 million and only 27% sense of residents could afford to live there. Even with a white collar job and no college debt, it will be unable to afford to live in my childhood neighborhood without outside help. The majority of my peers with debt or less lucrative job will be shut out of the neighborhood, the county and the advantages I grew up with, if costs continue to rise. I support the ZTA, but it does go far enough to create more housing and cannot be the only step this council takes. On one hand, it establishes an important precedent by allowing more housing and more types of housing in single-family zones. Housing types like duplexes and townhomes are cheaper to build and cheaper to buy compared to single-family homes. homes, that is a fact. On the other hand, it hamstrings a good idea by limiting where we can build to lots facing wide, polluted, and unsafe corridors. Many of the largest parcels are schools, parks, and golf courses, and functionally off-limits for development. Other lots are undesirable because of their proximity to the noise, pollution, and danger of these wide roads. At minimum, the council should consider extending this performed to all lots bordering a major transit corridor or road. Extend the rezoning to one block from these corridors and allow these homes by right. To truly achieve the goals of this ZTA, the council needs to extend the same rezoning to all single family zones, as recommended in the attainable housing initiative. I consider myself a progressive, and I'm sure many in the audience and the county council consider consider themselves progressive as well. To me, a core tenant of being a progressive is the idea that your government will ensure equal access to advantage for all of its citizens, that means being able to house as many people as possible in places with the best services. Every pause, extra study, and limit on housing production means more people unable to access the advantages we all enjoy. It means we can't house our children's teachers in the districts they serve. It means we can't house our essential workers who are demanding and dangerous jobs for our community. It means we can't house the thousands of queer people, people of color, and immigrants who live in dangerous conservative states and need to move to our sanctuary county. If we can't build housing, we shut the door to these workers and refugees from across the country. If we want to be an equitable, competitive county, if we want to house our essential workers and the less fortunate among us, and if we want to take our housing crisis seriously, we must make room for more people in our county. We need to build and we need to build as much as possible. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Next you have Ms. Prasad. But can you turn it up? Hello, I'm Kim Blin Prasad, and I live in Wheaton for almost 22 years. And I'm here today to call out the blatant injustice of the more housing now. A policy that will rip apart Black, Brown, indigenous communities, line the pockets of developers and continue the violent cycle of racial exclusion that Montgomery County has been complicit for an end for generations. Let's stop pretending. This isn't helping struggling families. This isn't about affordability. This isn't about justice. This is about greed. This is about prioritizing profit over people. This is about forcing out BIPOC residents to make way for a wealthier, wider newcomers who will benefit from a plan that never had our community in mind. This plan is a direct attack on the BIPOC residents. For decades we have watched predatory policies destroy our neighborhoods, replacing us with high-rise luxury condos that no working class person can afford. This plan is no different. It does not guarantee truly affordable housing. It does not stop developers from jacking at rinses and forcing out tenants. It does not protect the working class black and Latinos and our seniors who are barely hanging on in this county. And they keep talking about exclusionary zoning. But Andrew Freason took out Darnstown and outside the beltway. So we need to get that straightened out. This plan accelerates the gentrification machine that has already swallowed up communities like Latensville, Kengar, and Silver Spring. You can talk and spend this till you turn colors. Blacks have been here before. We know how this plays out and we have never come out ahead. We need to call this policy what it is, a county sanctioned removal of communities of color. How can you be pro-immigrant and then support a housing policy that will literally wipe out the transit corridor? Because that's where our immigrants live. That's where the blacks and brown people live. How is your priority issue mental health when one of the greatest stressors in communities is being displaced? Because Andrew Freason has said it several times, displacement is going to happen anyway. Andrew says 500 homes in his district one will be impacted, Natalie how many homes homes in your district? In a district where its majority Spanish speaking, majority of them make less than the median income. How many? What's the number? This is what systemic racism is. And you and anyone who supports a housing policy that displaces blacks and Latinos from their homes. So wealthy white people can have a place to live. It's racist into discussion, racist. And this is what you're doing. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Alexander Berland. Good evening. I want to thank the council for the opportunity to speak tonight and for the co-sponsors and sponsors for their support of this bill package. My name is Alex Berlant. I am a lifelong Marylander and a member with action among gummery. After graduating college, I moved into my first apartment in Gathur'sburg. Despite a well-paying job, I can only afford rent because my roommate generously pays more than 50 percent, and I still spend over a third of my income on rent. In the years so that I've lived here, I've come to think of Gaythus Wyrgis-Hole. I love living in such a diverse community. I've found hidden gems in natural parks, taking classes at the library and community college, and becoming involved in community groups. However, I'm also a federal worker and my job is not secure. I would like to work here in Montgomery County, but finding a job where I can still afford rent has been very difficult. On top of this, I rent got higher this year and my roommate might be moving out at the end of our lease. I desperately want to stay in Montgomery County. I want to live here, I want to work here, I want to pay taxes here, I want to spend my money here, and I want to give back to my wonderful community of neighbors. But being both a young person and a vulnerable federal worker, I don't know if I can. And despite all this, I still consider myself incredibly lucky. Most of the people I graduated, especially that grew up in Montgomery County, can't afford to move out of their parents' houses at all. The more housing now packaged would give people like me more options. Action Montgomery has adopted the three S's from the book The Affordable City by Shane Phillips. In order to make and keep housing affordable, we need one supply. Building more housing at any price point stabilizes housing costs in a region. This has been shown time and time again. Two, stability. Preserving affordable housing and protecting tenants' rights so families living in the county can stay in safe affordable housing. And three, subsidy. Subplementing housing costs to give options to the most vulnerable. All three aspects are essential to address our housing crisis. We do not need to choose one at the expense of the other. In fact, they work best when all three aspects, supply, subsidy, and stability, are thoughtfully implemented together. This bill package, and particularly this CTA, removes barriers to building much needed, high-density housing, where most benefits, younger residents, working families, and the county as a whole, whether or not you plan to move in. It will increase our housing stock, slowing the skyrocketing costs of buying or renting a home. It will make housing more accessible for working people by incentivizing workforce housing units. What this package does is create housing options where the jobs are ensuring that people that want to live and work in Montgomery County like me can do both. I strongly support this important bill package making the zoning changes by rights so these bills can effectively meet the urgency of the housing crisis. Thank you again for allowing me to speak. Thank you. Thank you to this panel. The next panel is Amy Wyckhoff, Brooke Thomas, James Williamson, Jose Messina Torres, Howard Schoenholtz. Okay, Ms. Wycoff, you can begin when you're ready. My name is Amy Wycoff, a long-time resident of this county. I appreciate the opportunity to testify. I am impressed with the sincereness of members of the county council who want to find a way to provide more affordable housing for county residents struggling to make ends meet. However, I see some faults with specific details of the proposal and the way in which it has been presented to the community. Too fast, too soon. This new CTA has only been under discussion for about a month. Unlike with the master plan process, the land parcels potentially under development are scattered throughout the county, so the engagement of many different civic groups is necessary. But such groups do not meet often enough to be able to gauge the opinion of the affected residents, let alone explain it to them. The speed of this proposal raises concerns about the weather, about whether the focus is on long-term solutions, or short-term political gains. A more reasonable slower method of addressing our housing issues is through the master plan process. Every parcel should go through a site plan review. This tried and true method is the only way to ensure buy-in from the surrounding community, and that community, by the way, is your voter base. Is it fair? While ZTA 2502 may only affect about 2500 in the county, that is still a lot of real estate. There are people living in those houses who worked hard to achieve the American dream. Given the nature of the lots chosen along major corridors, many of these houses are considered naturally occurring affordable housing. If some of these houses get torn down, gentrification will inevitably ensue, displacing the very lower middle class people you were trying to help. Putting the cart before the horse. Opponents of this proposal have repeatedly raised the issue of whether more housing is actually needed. County Executive Mark L. Rich stated last fall that, quote, our master plans have enough zone capacity to house more people than are projected to come here through 2050. End quote. I welcome the planning department's decision to do a thorough analysis of why so many projects remain in the development pipeline. Shouldn't we wait until that analysis is complete before we try to add to our housing stock? Finally, there is the issue of insufficient infrastructure to support the new housing. Even the Planning Department acknowledged in its discussion of the development pipeline that new housing should only be built in quote, the places that have the infrastructure to support it, and quote. I understand the pressure to add quickly given rising housing costs, but a rush solution risks doing more harm than good. I urge the council to slow down this process, conduct the necessary studies, and ensure that community voices are heard before making significant zoning changes. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Topp. Applause. Ms. Thomas. Good evening. My name is Brooke Thomas and I'm a resident of Montgomery County. I helped form the press pause coalition when the attainable housing strategies initiative was announced. Our goal was simple. Give the county council more time to answer critical questions about upzoning before moving forward. While the housing now proposal is more scaled back, many of those questions remain unanswered. We urge the council to take more time to address these issues now, while changes can still be made. I support the technical adjustments suggested by many local municipalities, because if you move forward with the proposal as written, there will be serious unintended consequences for pedestrian safety, emergency vehicle access, and storm-modern management among other issues. I will also submit these concerns for the record. But tonight I want to ask some broader questions about housing now corridors. Let's start with workforce housing. Even the Planning Department acknowledges workforce housing's quote, limited success and recommends revisiting its regulations. As best I can tell, in its entire 19 year history, the workforce housing program has produced less than 200 units, of which almost 50 have been reverted back to market rate. With any evaluation of the program's effectiveness conducted before proposing expansion, and shouldn't that happen first? A stated goal of the Workforce Housing Program is to build housing within quote, metro station policy areas, MSPAs, to reduce traffic and shorten commutes. Yet much of the housing now corridors are outside of MSPAs, which seems to be detrimental to decades of work focusing on housing near public transit, with any analysis done on the benefits or drawbacks of this shift. Now let's talk cost. My understanding is workforce housing units would be priced around $556,000 for a family of four. Meanwhile, a community of garden apartments mostly priced around $600,000 was recently torn down in my neighborhood to build luxury town homes, starting at $1.7 million. Even with required moderately priced well-in units, there is a net loss of low-work priced homes. Focus on a number of limited workforce units that don't cost a lot less than what's being torn down nearby. We urge you to prioritize strategies that make sense. We urge you to consider reopening the other plans and evaluate what hasn't been built to create more desirable housing. If you're serious about creating solutions for sustainable housing long term for Montgomery County, now is the time to ask the hard questions and make meaningful improvements to your legislation in ZTA. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Williamson. I attended some of the attainable housing sessions and then presentations by supporters and sponsors of the workforce housing proposal. There are still lots of questions and discrepancies. The prevailing opinion of the dozens of people I've spoken with is that at least most of the council, of the original attainable housing proposal, but saw it was rejected by the majority of the dozens of people I've spoken with is that at least most of the council one of the original attainable housing proposal But saw it was rejected by the majority of the county So some council members came up with attainable housing 2.0 which is your workforce plan Considered to be just a wood or down version of the original attainable housing It is thought you will pass the workforce plan then come back air of year and add a little more incrementally with new zoning text amendments. Next year you could pass another text amendment for more density going to two or three blocks in neighborhood rather than just along the corridor. The same goes for the height limitation and houses being converted to triplexes or more, being done by right versus approval after reviewed by the planning department. And who thinks anyone in the planning department is going to reject any building? They have been outspoken advocates for all these plans from the start. The sponsor say the average home soul is over a million dollars to show far how out of reach it is for many at or near the median income. That is disingenuous. An average and a median are not the same. The average price is skewed by high end sales. The median price is under $600,000, which is admittedly a very high number, but is not a million as we keep hearing. You tell us many of the 35,000 approved housing units have been on the docket for as long as a decade. Okay, I'll bite. How many? 10%, 50%, 90%, peace-specific, and tell us. And then ask, maybe ask a developer why haven't they started building. is is already a workforce housing plan, but is rarely used. Maybe fix that instead of unnecessarily changing zoning rules. Please stay with me on this next part. The University Boulevard Carter Master Plan is front and center for those of us living in a part of Silver Spring and Wheaton. And I appreciate Council Member Mink, I wish you was here, for attending the Lobs cited in opposition planning board hearing two weeks ago. Any Carter master plan can allow for much greater housing density, transportation changes without any study of the impact or effectiveness, and calls up people along the Carter. Who's to say you don't plan even more Carter master plans across the county, each of which would override and negate your proposed tax amendment with the workforce housing limits. The current zoning rules in our single family residential neighborhood service well, please leave those rules alone. The point is lots of people don't believe you now because of the way this has been handled from the start and how extreme your initial housing proposal was. This appears to be nothing but a backdoor way in your first step towards the original housing, a tangible housing plan. I oppose the zoning text amendment 2502 and hope at least six members of the council will also. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Torres. My name is Jose Vesini Torres. I live in the Woodmore neighborhood of the four corners area on Merwood Lane one block from University Boulevard I have a wife two little girls age four and two and a fluffy little canine senior citizen Let me tell you about my Sunday this past weekend. It was sunny, right? But just cool enough. I took my girls to play out in the street most of our Woodmore neighborhood doesn't have sidewalks So playing in the street street means just that, playing in the street. I was pushing Lucy, my youngest in a hot pink car. Ellity, my eldest, was using her little feet to propel herself in a bright yellow and red Flintstones car. Any time a car would come down the street, they would call out Daddy a car. We'd move over to the side of the road and let the car go by, and wave to our neighbors as they wait back. What allowed us to play like that is that our street and those around us are not busy thoroughfares, nor are they packed with parked cars. But if they become that, what will happen is that you will have cars coming in opposite directions playing chicken because they'll have nowhere to tuck themselves away and kids, pedestrians and dogs will all be jumping to take shelter in between parked cars. That's what was in the back of my mind as my girls and I roamed the street playing. How much longer will it be safe for my kids to do this? I understand that this won't be the case for area impacted by rezoning, but that's what happens when you do a cookie cutter approach to an entire county. Some places will thrive and others will be left with casualties. And I say that hoping I'm speaking metaphorically, but I fear it may be literal. To follow up on another point raised, I've said it before and I'll say it again speaking as a proud Puerto Rican. A housing policy that gives developers tax breaks, defers the pricing to the market, but doesn't ensure home ownership for minorities is an equity. A house for me and an apartment for you is exclusion. As on a final note, as the DMV area becomes ground zero for democracy in the United States, and as we watch our trust and government as a force for good be rift out of existence, I must also appeal to this council to be a force for good and for democracy. Much of my neighborhood is utterly confused by so many proposals overlapping, concurrent, fast-moving. If nothing else, please slow everything down. Walk the streets and neighborhoods that will be impacted or displaced. Meet the people who live there. Our federal government has already abandoned the best democratic interests of Americans. Don't you do the same. Mr. Schaunhoff. Good evening members of the Council and my fellow residents and thank you all for hanging in. I'm Howard Schoenhoffs. My wife and I have lived in Bethesda for 32 years. We currently live one block from River Boulevard, sorry River Road. It's a sad day in our county when the best thing you can say about more housing now is, well, at least it isn't the attainable housing strategies. But the truth is, draft CTA-2502 in this package are the opening act for AHSI. It moves forward with a dangerous concept that the definitions of zoning designations can be rewritten. Maybe today that would only happen in the proposed corridors. But what about tomorrow? And what effort was made to get input from the very communities that would be affected when ZTA-2502 was being written. I personally pulled 22 individual civic associations and homeowners associations around the county as well as five organizations that represent civic groups county-wide. Not one of them was contacted by council member Freedzen's or council member Fanny Gonzalez's office to provide their input while more housing now was being written. Not one. And then there's 25.02's oft-repeated noble goal of providing housing for our first responders, teachers, and others. Well, the truth is, and it was Council Member Frieden Sin himself who said this at a community meeting, the only test for this workforce housing is income. You can't ask someone what their job is, or use their job to give someone preference when deciding who gets the workforce housing units because that's illegal. It is a shameful use of our brave first responders and dedicated teachers as marketing props. To the members of the council who are planning to run next year, especially the four members who are co-sponsoring this proposal. Do you really want to spend your time explaining to the voters why you supported a proposal that will not deliver what it promises, more affordable housing? And to the members of the council who may not run again next year, Please, ask yourselves if this unfocused, deeply flawed proposal is what you want to have as your legacy. Please step back and consider the effects more housing now could have on the people you were elected to represent. Fixing the affordable housing challenge needs more work, consistent and verifiable numbers, and real community engagement. Don't just do something. Do the right thing, not now. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you to this panel. The next panel is Shazka Barely, Bill Wood, Kent Mason, Rebecca Hans start whenever you're ready. Thank you. My name is Shasca Byerly. Thank you for your attention, council members. By the way, I lived in a basement apartment until I was 36 years old, because that's all I could afford. I have five points that I would like to make today in the three minutes, concerning the ZTA's 2503 and 2502. Number one, please preserve, don't destroy, naturally occurring, affordable single family housing. These ZTAs will result in tear downs of such housing and will create pressure on moderate income homeowners to sell. This will lead to displacement, gentrification, and smaller units unsuitable for families and multi-generation households. All this destruction for what? A measly 15% allocation for workforce housing? How is that going to make a dent? The guiding principle should be do no harm. Number two, alternatively, learn from other cities, innovative approaches to creating workforce in affordable housing, such as Atlanta, Austin, and Cleveland. For example, unlock public land as in Atlanta. Do a first-timer, updated inventory across all parts of MoCo, focusing on publicly-owned land and real estate assets to create both workforce and affordable housing. Create something like the housing strike force that was launched by Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens. As is happening in other localities, bring into the fold county municipal property advisers. These are professionals that help local governments convert public land to affordable and workforce housing. Point three, instead of these ZTAs trickle down housing approach, tackle high housing prices directly by supporting the uptake of modular housing, which reduces ever increasing construction costs as in Cleveland and Boston. This even involved companies setting up localized manufacturing facilities that led to job creation and FYI Virginia already has modular housing codes. Four, stop using outdated average home prices. This is misleading. To quote one real estate website, in almost every case, you'll get a better answer by taking the median of a set of home prices, not the average. The more housing now plan refers to the average home sale price being over a million dollars. False. Bright MLS data, the most comprehensive data set available states that the average 2024 MoCo home sale price was $757,846. And most importantly, the median price was $615,000. A far big difference from 1 million. Brokridge firm data for 2025 also indicates that prices have been flat to falling. Finally, kudos for the home ownership and office conversion components of the Plan. They should be enacted. Thank you. But, just barely that is your time. Thank you very much. Thank you. Mr. Wood. Mr. Wood? Yes, Mr. Wood. You're next. Thank you very much. Good evening, Council Members. My name is Bill Wood. And I'm here in opposition to zoning text amendment 25-2. I have lived on Bradley Lane and Chevy Chase section three with my wife Marie for 43 consecutive years. We raised our four children and paid a lot of real estate taxes. This is a historic community with a wonderful history that dates back decades, which many of us in the community really appreciate. In the last decade, however, traffic congestion has become a major problem, much of which is attributable to development. There is a massive new residential department development with a lot of real estate stores, real retail stores inside the Beltway at the intersection of Connecticut Avenue and Manor Road. Also inside the beltway at 7100 Connecticut Avenue is the former 4-H Club Youth Conference Center which has been sold and approved for even more apartments. My house is one long block from Connecticut Avenue. On the published list of roadways impacted by 2502, I counted 217 road segments on 50 roadways, including Connecticut Avenue. When I commute to work in Rockville, I see an incredible increase in traffic. Traffic can be backed up from the beltway all the way to Chevy Tays Circle in the mornings. I recently pressure washed my patio and exterior steps in my entire house to remove grime and pollution from all of the traffic on Connecticut Avenue and Bradley Lane in front of my house which has become a Connecticut Avenue bypass. I can't sleep and I can't sleep at the windows open in my bedroom because of the noise that starts at 5.30 in the morning on weekdays from the traffic. So last Thursday, I attended a listing session regarding 2.5.02 held at the Rockville High School and hosted by council member Friedson, who I had the pleasure of meeting that evening. And I want to say that all of us in attendance really appreciated that he took the time to meet with us and answer our many questions from the concerned people who were present. So I want to thank him for that. Thank you, Mr. Wood, Mr. Mason. Is that time up? Well, so be it. You can send it into us, thank you, Mr. Wood. Hi, my name's Kent Mason. I have been a resident of Montgomery County for 58 of my 70 years. I don't know what I was thinking for those 12 years away, but who knows? I'm here today representing the Kenwood Park Community Association. Thank you for how holding this hearing. Thank you for the opportunity to testify. I'm going to be brief, which I think everyone's going to be grateful for. I really just going to talk about three myths. And I'm going to make one observation and actually sort of really react to something I have some of the things I've heard tonight. Myth number one, this proposal is about affordable housing. No, it's not. No, it's not. All you have to do is read it. You read it. It's the aimed at people who make at least 120 percent of the median income. That's $185,000 for a family of four. Is that affordable housing? I'm in favor of affordable housing. This has nothing to do with affordable housing. How come this is the, I can't even understand. Sometimes it's turning tonight, I'm wondering, did I walk into the wrong meeting? People go talking about affordable housing. This has nothing to do with affordable housing. I want affordable housing. This doesn't do it. Myth number two. This has been thought out. No, it hasn't. Look at what what were the issues raised on AH HSI. Can't only say that. What were the issues? None of them were addressed. Not a word was addressed. There's nothing about school capacity. We don't care about our kids' education. Nothing about school capacity. Nothing about traffic. Nothing about parking. Nothing about pedestrian safety. Really? Nothing about pedestrian safety. I was moved by the one speaker and the last one who takes take his girls out in the street. No, you can't do that anymore. They don't care about that. Myth number three, and I apologize for saying this, but Myth number three is the council is interested in feedback. You know, I know you're having this hearing, but let me give you two facts that speak volumes to me and our neighborhood. First, a majority of this council sponsored this bill without a single discussion with any member of our community. Not a single discussion. That is not democracy. Second. Did you really want, if you want to feedback, you did this November, I mean, February 4th. Almost just over 30 days later, you're scheduling this hearing. My part alone, 117 pages of opaque technical language. You're not interested. This is the people speakers who have said, you're trying to rubber stamp this. They're right. My question. Here's my question. We know the residents had no input into this. My question to you, let's be transparent. What role did the commercial interests play? Did the builders and the developers play in this proposal? That's what we want to know. All the neighborhood, my neighborhood wants to know. We don't know. Here's what, I mean, the obvious strategy here is I listened everybody here the proponents I agree with them There should be affordable housing. I support their objectives This doesn't do it. Why can't we just in an open and transparent way sit down? I listened to them. I want them to achieve their goals. I'm not against their goals I'm not against change where I get word for I... I... I... I... I... I... I... I... I... I... I... I... I... I... I... I... I... I... I... I... I... I... I... I... I... I... I... I... I... I... I... I... I... I... I... I... I... I... I... I... I... I... I... I... I... I... I... I... I... I... I... I... I... I... I... against change. Where do we get word for? I, a smart change. I know that's a loaded word. But yes, I, yeah. Wherever smart change. Why can't we have an open dialogue? Don't give us this 117 page thing and call a hearing for a few days later. That doesn't make sense. Openness, transparency, public discourse, we can solve this. This is not the way. Rebecca Hansen. Thank you. My name is Rebecca Hansen and my family has lived in Montgomery County for over 20 years. I am also co-president of the Westmoreland Citizens Association, a community of almost 1000 homes, straddling Massachusetts Avenue and District 1. My ask of the council is to pause this bill until you evaluate its impacts on schools, traffic, public safety, tree canopy, parking, stormwater management, and other infrastructure concerns. You also need to incorporate the federal workforce reductions whose impacts are still unknown. I worked with other civic associations on the attainable housing strategies initiative, and now on ZTA-2502. I haven't heard of one neighborhood association that believes ZTA-2502 will result in meaningful workforce or affordable housing, or that its community won't be harmed by it. Opposition is not limited to District 1, as you've been hearing, but includes districts of various demographics, meaning you can't write off District 1 as closed-minded and exclusionary because we aren't. I support the goals of workforce and affordable housing and believe that many would be open to a housing proposal that includes actual demand supply projections using transparent methodologies, is data-driven and supported by facts, not theories, is comprehensive in its infrastructure impact analysis and addresses a clearly delineated goal. But ZTA-5-02 does none of these things, as other testimony illustrates in greater detail. Many people in District 1 no longer trust this council and its lack of transparency. You have lost our confidence in your planning proposals and who they are intended to serve. Examples of our frustration include the fiasco of the linear park on Little Falls Parkway, which has still not been restored to a safe configuration. Bike lanes that sit empty and unnecessarily reduce traffic, capacity, and parking. The years of time and cost utterly wasted on the attainable housing strategy initiative, your failure to respect existing master plans, and the perception that you're favoring special interest groups over your own constituents. Like bike lanes and linear parks, indiscriminate up zoning is a fad, and one that has proven to increase the cost of housing in numerous cities where it's been implemented. You should resist the urge to jump on this bandwagon, even if you're being pressured to do so from political leadership and other Yimbi proponents. Because as written, it is likely to fail and you could be voted out of office. If the council wants to provide affordable housing for the county's existing workforce and others, then it needs to craft a targeted program for those specific workers using proven tools and methods. I'm confident that you would find support in more tailored legislation, but you are all putting your next election at risk with this bill in this form at this time. Thank you. Excuse me. Cheryl Broth. Hi, my name is Cheryl Broth. I live in Camp Mel. I just want to show you this is from AP Euro History class and it's called the Urban Game. The students create maps and rapidly add layers upon layers to their maps. It becomes quite chaotic with their plans growing crowded and disorganized. The simulation teaches them how quickly industrialization impacted society. What struck me was seeing how successful urban centers throughout history included critical infrastructure such as hospitals, schools, green spaces and transportation networks as foundational elements that make communities truly livable not afterthoughts. The ZTA plan lacks these essential components while aggressively promoting increased housing density. It fails to address the corresponding need for expanded schools, health care facilities, transportation infrastructure. Transportation infrastructure doesn't mean a lane for cars. We still need to be using our cars. I chose to live in a suburb deliberately for a specific quality of life reasons, space, quiet neighborhoods, community character, and reasonable density. This plan fundamentally alters the community we chose and invested in. Our health care system is already strained. A close acquaintance of mine, who is a high risk OB, had a schedule surgery last week at 6 p.m. It was delayed and delayed until after midnight and then was told, I'm sorry, we might not have an OR for you. How would you feel if you're that mother of the unborn child that needs help, that needs your child saved? Your plans does not include for hospital capabilities. The ZTA predominantly encourages multi-family units and apartment complexes, precisely the type of dense urban housing that historically drove residents to seek better living conditions elsewhere. Let's talk about affordable housing, but affordable housing at whose expense you're giving substantial tax breaks to developers whose lost revenue will come from existing residents. Utility costs. Let's talk about that. Make this so-called affordable housing unaffordable. This summer, I paid $600 in electric bills, tripled what I paid five years ago, and I now only have three people on my home as opposed to the seven. The planned ignores critical factors, infrastructure, environmental impact, community character, and the hidden costs. The plan fails to count for utilities, plumbing, sanitation, etc. At last week's meeting, there was a council member, I'm not going to say you, that said, our staff doesn't Google information. I find the comment insulting and condescending. Your staff has the information at their fingertips, yet you're implying that we, your constituents, who voted you into office are not smart enough to find information. On the contrary, we're doing double the word to ensure our neighborhoods protection, figuring out for Nacular we're not used to and reading through backward legal terminology. Despite these obstacles, we have still managed to come before you, united against this plan. Please don't insult our intelligence. I urge the council to pause the ZTA plan and adopt a more balanced approach that ensures infrastructure development keeps pace with growth, preserves neighborhood character and addresses total affordability. Thank you. Thank you to this panel. Our next panel includes Caroline Namro, Barbara Winnick, Katherine Lucas McKay, David Schneider, Jeremiah Pope begin when you're ready. Hello, my name is Dots of Caroline Namro and I'm a pediatric emergency physician and I live in Camp Mill. Regarding Bill 225, I feel strongly that an amendment is needed to this plan of no taxes for 25 years for developers when the projected shortfall to Maryland's income is $280 million for the next coming year as announced at the end of last week, which must also mean that the income from Montgomery County will be projected to fall significantly. And as property taxes have increased among Montgomery County in 2023 by 4.7%, and people's property values have been evaluated as being approximately greater at 20% in 2025, the burden of paying for the shortfall in income among Gomorray County will inevitably be placed on the shoulders of all the home owners in the county. So therefore, an amendment to any tax relief to developers must be significantly less than 25 years. Secondly, as regards Bill 2502, workforce housing, this bill states that it would like 15% of units to be for lower income workers, with a ratio of one lower income owner per every three units built. In my neighborhood, the University Boulevard corridor plan, an area, I see an aim for 4,000 units. There are currently two middle schools in my area, one of which has 823 students with a capacity for 1200, one with 858 students and a capacity for 1,012 students. If current ages are looked down, one in three Montgomery County Marrains are under 55. So let's slow-ball the predictions and assume that 50% of the homes to be built in my neighbourhood are going to be used by families under the age of 50, approximately 2000 families. If you look at the majority of the homeowners in Kemp Mill and University Boulevard, a large number are Orthodox Jewish and Catholic. The average number of children per home in such families is 3 to 4 per Catholic family and 4 to per orthodox Jewish family, which makes several thousand children who are going to suddenly appear in this community. We do not have enough space in the middle schools for all these children, which means more schools are needed, will be needed desperately. Also, there's nowhere in this plan, as it say, that there is a plan for increasing pediatric, pediatric and primary care of medical officers. These are going to be desperately needed. The tax for businesses in Maryland is 8.5%. It is unlikely that new, young, graduating doctors with horrendous debt of an average $250,000 per student will be able to afford to open offices in Montgomery County. Lastly, regarding 2503, I am appalled and disappointed by my elected officials announcing this plan in January of this year with no outreach to my community. The meeting Miss Fanny Gonzales held was on the same night as the Montgomery County Planning Board meeting in February, which had been previously announced. More disturbingly on page 43 of the plan, the University of the University of Boulevard corridor plan, it says, Camp Mill Park will remain zoned as R90 and further down on the same page, it says it will rezone the park to CRT. It also states will rezone the synagogue to TMD. Does this mean that Montgomery County is interested in eliminating a park with beautiful play equipment for all the children in the neighborhood and it will also eliminate a place of worship for Jews in this neighborhood without any community involvement because that is exactly what is happening. Thank you. Thank you. Barbara Winnick is next. Okay. President Stewart and members of the council, thank you for the opportunity to testify about CTA-2502. Hi, hello. My Barbara Winnick, and I have lived in Chevy Chase Village for more than 42 years. And more than 30 years in my current home at 5804, Connecticut, Avenue. My property and location are unique, and I am very grateful to own and inhabit my home and live in this beautiful neighborhood with wonderful neighbors. For context, my home was built in 1892 for the vice president of the Chevy Chase Land Company, Edward Stalwegan, and occupied by Land Company architect Leandes As. It was one of the first five cottages built in Chevy Chase to attract buyers by showcasing the land company's residential design standards and mine was the first one to be occupied. For some time the house was named the lodge and used by the Chevy Chase Hunt Club which is now the Chevy Chase Club. The house is designated as an outstanding resource in the Chevy Chase Village Historic District. And I understand it could not be demolished to build workforce or other multiple family housing. However, and I have an attachment that I'll put in the testimony. My house is in a unique location. My neighbors at 5800 and 5808 are listed as non-contributing resources in the historic district. Okay, that means these houses could be demolished and redeveloped as workforce housing. It may also be that adjacent properties could be assembled with the 5800 Connecticut Avenue property and the existing houses on those adjacent lots demolished with even more space for multiple units because I'm in the middle between those facing my property surrounding my property. If I were to sell my property and these proposed developments were instituted, then the historic value of my home and other properties nearby would be substantially decreased. And the beautiful property would be overshadowed by potentially two, three, four story buildings. The properties next to mine at 5,800 and 5,800 Connecticut were originally built part of my home's property and I believe had been sold to untime in the 1950s along with many other properties on Magnolia Parkway. And I was you have to look at the picture but as I I was saying, my home doesn't font on Connecticut Avenue, even though it has a Connecticut Avenue address, but instead faces the rear of the other houses. And if I would be in the rear between all these high buildings, it would just be a shame. So thank you for your testimony. Miss Lucas Kay? Okay, thank you. My name is Catherine Lucas. Okay. I'm here in part because I own the type of home that this package would expand. A modest townhouse on the edge of a single family neighborhood. We don't have any of those and minus 40 years old. We could use some more. I'm also a member of the Silver Spring Citizens Advisory Board. I'm here tonight speaking only for myself as an individual, but I mention it because I have heard from hundreds of neighbors over the years of service on the board, and I know that there's a deep desire within my community for more housing like what I am lucky enough to have. In general, I agree with the positions taken by folks from Montgomery for all shared earlier and I urge the council to make some improvements to these proposals and then pass them as quickly as possible. I support the more housing now package because the types of housing it envisions up zoning for are urgently needed for people like me who are often left out of the conversation, disabled working non-drivers. Disabled workers tend to have lower incomes than our peers. We are less likely to own homes. We are also less likely to drive and to be full-time pedestrians. Building more workforce-forced housing in the county's growth corridors directly expands the opportunities available to people like me by providing relatively lower-cost new homes built to modern accessibility standards connected to denser communities close to good jobs. The most important amendment needed to ZTA-2502 is to allow a greater variety of housing types near transit. When my wife and I were struggling to buy a home, one county leader told us to leave Silver Spring for a cheaper car-centric place. But for me, access to transit isn't a perk. It's a necessity for holding a job. Disabled workers who don't drive and dream of home ownership face so many barriers and the county has an opportunity to tear down even more. I want to address affordability issues here and I appreciate that ZTA-2502 would complement our existing county policies on subsidized affordable housing for lower income households. insisting that we only allow new housing that is affordable to the county's lowest income residents misses the forest for the trees. We need both. This bill focuses on one. Other work has focused on the other. Moreover, new duplexes, town homes, and small multi-family buildings are less expensive than new single-family detached homes, which are currently the only allowable option. Finally, I'm sad that the fundamental message that opponents have offered tonight is that people who can't afford million-dollar homes are drains on the community whose presence threatens prosperity. I find it offensive, but more importantly, it's just wrong. CTA. Thank you. Thank you, Katharine. All right. Next we have David Schneider. Good evening and thank you for your time. My name is David Schneider and I live in Silver Spring, Maryland. I don't have written testimony, but what I would like to share with you tonight is the view from my kitchen window. What you'll see in the foreground is my kitchen sink. And then in the background is a White House here that was about 1920s bungalow, about 1200 square feet. It was sold for about $780,000 last year. Blue House right over here peaking up. Used to be a house about the size of this bungalow. It was torn down and what was built was a million dollar home over a million dollars now. I think it would have been nice if the developers had at least had the option of building a duplex or a triplex instead of a multi-million dollar house. But what can you do? Chevy Chase is spoken. In the back here is what I really want to talk about is the Silver Spring Towers. So the Silver Spring Towers are about 400 apartments. They start about $1400 a month. I look at it every day. I guess to some people it's a looming monstrosity, but like I'm fine with it, right? It's giving people an opportunity to live in my community near downtown Silver Spring, near Metro. I've lived in Silver Spring for 20 years. find with it, right? It's giving people an opportunity to live in my community near downtown Silver Spring, near Metro. I've lived in Silver Spring for 20 years. Many buildings that maybe not this big, but much bigger than what we're talking about today have built up. And I'm here to tell you, it's been a great place to live. The streets haven't been over, we've been overrun by traffic. I sent my kids to the public schools. They were good schools. A lot of the things that I just wonder if people, when they think about duplexes, they're thinking about something this big in you know in your mind. If I can live next to the Silver Spring Towers, I think some of my neighbors can live next to duplexes or triplexes. I've been listening to a lot of the testimony. I guess since I'm a homeowner and I'm over 50 and I've got the gray hair, I should, you know, want to roll the drop or jump behind me. But I don't want to roll the drop or jump behind me. I want to welcome more people into my neighborhood. I want to say yes in my backyard. I want to say more housing now. I am saying more housing now. And it would encourage you to support it. And I support a lot of the amendments that my more housing now supporters have also voiced. Thank you. Yeah. Mr. Pope. Good evening. Good evening, Council President Stewart, Vice President Joondo, and members of the council. My name is Jeremiah Pope. And I'm nearly 20-year resident of the Eastern part of Montgomery County. Currently living in the civil-spring area with my family. Not only am I a community member and taxpayer but I'm also a local activist deeply committed to increasing access to opportunity for all residents in the county. I fully recognize depressing pressing need for affordable housing. However, I'm testifying today with concerns regarding certain elements of the more housing now package. There are several aspects of this legislation that I strongly support, including the budget amendment that will double the county's investment in home ownership assistance as well as ZTA 25-03, which proposes an expedient approval process for projects that convert high-vegacy commercial properties into residential use. These are positive steps and I appreciate the effort to address the housing crisis Which as we know is a complex issue Trust me I understand that change is never easy However, while the intent behind this legislation package is commendable I have I have concerns about its logistical and financial soundness. For example, ZTA 25-02 fails to address the lack of infrastructure along major corridors in the county. Specifically, it would impact service roads, such as the 20-foot wide service road along New Hampshire Avenue in Hillindale, which stretches from Rupert to Macinney. Adding housing density to this road could eliminate crucial on street parking and exaggerate already limited vehicle passage. Moreover, I find the 25-year tax abatement in the office to a housing pallet bill, two dash 25 to be excessive. While I understand the need to incentivize developers, given the county's limited resources and the scale of this project, offering such a lengthy tax break seems financial unsound. Beyond the logistical and financial concerns, I am particularly worried about the unintended consequences for marginalized communities. As a county committed to promoting diversity and equity, we must ensure that this legislation works for everyone, especially for those who are less able to engage politically. ZTA 25-02. If passed, as is, could unintentionally displace black, brown, and low income residents along these corridors, exacerbating existing inequalities and undermining the very goals this legislation aims to achieve. Most of us moved to Montgomery County seeking opportunity, including a chance to live and say. Oh, sorry. The timer didn't buzz, but your time. Sorry about that. No, I appreciate it. It didn't. Thank you. Just want to call Michael Jones. Make sure he's not here. If he didn't hear his name before. No, okay. Then Monica, yes, you're next. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. My okay then Monica Reyes your next thank you good evening everyone my name is Monica Reyes the more housing now including the corridor for the new city a 25-02 I'm focusing in area where affordable houses are most of the area target at Wheaton As Aspen Hill, Connecticut Avenue, Georgia Avenue, which residents at Black and Latinos, owners and renters. The intentions are clear for now, for more housing now, is to displace and get people of color out of their houses and rent in a apartment by high rental unit and high county taxes. For this reason, more houses now seem to be discriminatory, racists in nature promoted by government officials and especially interest groups. The more house now promoted housing for workhorse, force, reality is all this proposed in its market rate prices, no affordable again, as much as some council members seem to say the contrary to the public. The more how it now, this document is written is unclear and lack definition and clarity about the corridor's location. Seems a clear indication to keep the public from asking question or challenging their veracity. The more house now is proposing a developer give away if they convert their office building into housing with the minimum hour affordable housing with a minimum 15%. The most will be market rate for 25 year the tax abatement for the developers. How these tax will affect the resident of the county, this gift tax surely will come from the homeowners, we should already heavily tax it. This tax giveaway is a terrible option for the resident and the economy of the county. The more house now document will not provide, surely not providing affordable housing. It will give away tax for decades to the developers. It will displace for sure Latinos and Black from their communities. We Latinos and Black are not disposable citizens. We don't deserve these disparities from the counting planning and six council members. Thank you for your consideration. Thank you. Thank you for the panel. Those are all the in-person testimony we have on this DTA. We'll now go to our virtual participants and we have Ellen Godwaw. Thank you. Sorry, my name is Ellen Godwaw. Can you hear me all right? Yes, we can hear you. Sorry, my name is Ellen Gadwag. Can you hear me all right? Yes, we can hear you. Great. Thank you. Thanks for the opportunity to speak tonight. I am speaking generally in favor of the ZTA, although certainly folks have raised some concerns tonight that I imagine the council will take into consideration. But my comments really focus on support for more housing options to enable people at different income levels and different stages of life to be able to choose and to live in neighborhoods, ideally throughout the whole county. I think we have more vibrant and understanding communities when we are not living in socio-economic or age-specific bubbles. But this is my middle-aged viewpoint. People like me are not the future of this county. I urge you to seek out and listen to the young people. This we should be working to attract and keep them with fresh education and training to build their careers and their families here and energize our neighborhoods. I noted in the report from the County Economic Development Conversion and Montgomery Planning that from 2013 to 2023, we lost 10% of workers aged 25 to 34. On the other hand, the country as a whole saw a 10% increase. So we're going the wrong direction with our young workforce. And people have already talked about home values. It's clear we need more housing, less expensive housing, and more types, including duplex and triplex units, which are going to create less sprawl than going further out if you don't have those kinds of buildings. I think we need them throughout more neighborhoods in Montgomery County. We've heard people making predictions about traffic tonight and I hope they consider the proposals underway for best rapid transit lanes and other non-car transport. It does seem to me that most cars per household go with the big single family homes. So bottom line, this county risks losing our own kids and vibrant young people if we don't create more affordable housing throughout the county. And I think our neighborhoods and communities will benefit from that. Thank you. Thank you. Next we have Ellen Myers. Excuse me, Ellen Myers. Good evening. My name is Alan Myers. I'm President of the Maplewood Citizens Association. I got an echo of some of the comments I heard earlier about rushing this. Our normal meeting date will have been March 19th. So we heard up and had a Zoom meeting on March 5th of the neighborhood, which doesn't always draw as many members, but at that meeting, the residents who did attend expressed support for the plan because it included optional method. And they do not want to see as of right, Proposals will allow us to address issues such as parking situations and stormwater management The big concern for us is the map itself. It's not reflective of what would actually be built here if you look at our streets and we're in Just north of NIH with the Rockville Pike on east side and Old Georgetown Road on the west side. There are only about seven or eight homes that could be developed there. The remaining parcels are occupied by institutional use schools, senior citizen center and so on the YMCA. They are not going to change. So if you're going to put a map out that shows where you think it's appropriate for this housing to be built, make the map actually reflect what will be happening. Those properties when they are developed, it'll be many years in the future. And we won't be talking about more housing now and this type of development. We'll be looking probably something entirely different. I think I could linear lineage those more if you want, but I think that for now that'll include my testimony. Thank you. Michael McKee. Michael, we can't hear you, Mr. McKee. Yeah. Can you hear me now? Yes, we can hear you now. Okay, thank you so much. All right. Hello. My name is Michael McKee. I am a renter and a chemical engineering graduate student at the University of Maryland. Before speaking, I would just like to say that I really appreciate that the members of the County Council are paying attention to this issue. So thank you for the work that you and all the Council staffers do. Okay, right up front. I strongly support the more housing now package because I think that restrictive zoning policies are leading to higher rents and higher home prices that are making it harder for many people, including myself, my friends, and my family members to live in Montgomery County despite strongly wanting to move or remain here. I believe that there are many negative effects from maintaining our very low current housing construction rate, including higher inequality, longer commutes for people who aren't rich, and in the long term, higher homelessness and higher crime. I am also very worried that this is going to lead to inhumane politics because if the amount of firefighters and social workers who perform important public services that aren't paid like rich neurosurgeons are, falls at the same time that existing residents age and retire, then the county council is going to face a choice between accepting declining public services such as for example longer response times for an ambulance needing to pay more for police officers who commute in from outside the county or steeper and steeper property tax rates to simply maintain the level of services that we currently have. And then when voters get mad about homelessness and high taxes the response from Brighton's council members will be to criminalize homelessness instead of actually solving the problem and then voters will just get even angrier. What I'm talking about is a vicious cycle. I want to convey to everyone at this hearing that the reason I am worried this is going to happen if we do nothing is because it is what is currently happening in cities across the country. So please pass this package and then build on it using the attainable housing strategies recommendations that we had the listening sessions for this past fall because if we don't our problems with inequality and displacement of working people and renters are only going to get worse. Thank you again. Appreciate it. Thank you. Next we have Harriet Quinn. Good evening. Thank you, President Stewart, Vice President Chowando, members of the Council for this opportunity to speak. I appreciate the ongoing work trying to address housing issues, affordability, and paths to home ownership. I do have some questions and concerns. I'm a resident of one of the five neighborhoods in the area of four corners in eastern Silver Spring. The borders to my neighborhood include University Bill of Art and Colville Road, two of the carters in the CTA. Most of the lots affected in the CTA are in the eastern part of the county, which is one of the more affordable places in the county. Our community has been trying to understand the proposals in the University Bill of our plan, which proposes up-zoning over 500 existing homes to the commercial residential zone. These are some of the most affordable homes in the area. People were already concerned about displacement. So the introduction of this proposal without consultation has caused a lot of confusion. Unfortunately, residents found out about it through social media, not by any notification process. Our neighborhood association hasn't had sufficient time to review and discuss the details with residents in order to form meaningful responses and testimony, and I respectfully request that the council pause work on the proposal, especially during this time of great uncertainty in our region. I also have three additional requests. Number one, that in the meantime, please send notification to all affected property owners regarding the proposed changes to their property, along with an explanation about the proposal and how it interacts with the University of Lovard Plan. Number two, please provide the impact analyses of the proposal regarding school capacity, transportation, public health and safety, water and sewer and stormwater management. And third and finally, I was very surprised to learn this week that the planning department had not yet done a analysis of the development pipeline. It's difficult to understand how a proposal like this can go forward without out having done that analysis. The planning department's own residential capacity analysis shows that between January 2020 and May 2023, there were 23 to over 23,000 housing units completed in the county, including in municipalities. That's 561 units completed per month. The development pipeline as of September 2024, shows over 35,000 approved, but not yet built units in the pipeline. In 2020, the pipeline was over 44,000 units. These approvals are within master plans, where analysis was already done regarding the adequacy of the infrastructure. No one is opposing the construction of those units. The capacity analysis also shows that in addition to the over 35,000 units in the development pipeline, there's additional capacity and improved master plans for over 80,000 units that can be applied for in development projects. Please ensure that this complete analysis is done before moving forward. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you. Alice and Gillespie. Hello. I am here tonight to say I am glad for the more housing now proposal before you tonight. I have lived here since 1998 and I've owned my home in the Forest Glen neighborhood of Silver Spring for about 25 years. My husband and I raised two children in our current home and those two children are now young adults beginning their careers and I absolutely love it here. During my time I've served as PT president neighborhood association president and a parks volunteer and I volunteered with numerous nonprofit organizations. While I want to make it clear that I'm saying what I'm saying tonight because it's my own opinion and I'm not here to represent any entity. Those civic experiences always inform my point of view. And have led me to believe we need to do something to make housing more affordable for more people to live here. And we cannot and should not delay doing so any longer. Waiting will only empower our county's economic health and well-being and cause hardship for many people who need homes. I like that this proposal will allow more homes near transit. That's something I've often come to you and ask for and advocated for. So that's great. I also think that providing housing near transit all the time is especially good. And it's the main reason we bought our house where we did two decades ago. But more people need to have that option. I also like that this proposal allows multi-family housing on lots along county corridors that are currently zone for single-family only. And I like the way it'll make it easier to convert office buildings to apartments and condominiums and add 4 million to funding for first-time home buyer down payments. You know, in other hearings, people have voiced where I've voiced support for affordable housing and multi-family housing. People have asked me if I'd want multi-family housing like that next to my house and I'm here to tell you the answers. Yes. And in fact, I live directly across. I am looking out the window right now at the almost complete residences of forest school and where that's are being built by Montgomery Housing Partnership. And it's wonderful to see that go up. And in fact, my neighborhood association voted unanimously in support of that development several years ago when they came to us and talked to us about it. We desperately need more housing and I my only complaint is that this bill doesn't go far enough. I'm a little bit sad. It wasn't the solution. I was dreaming of But I want you to go farther and think as big as you possibly can for the future of this county. I I'd like to just say in closing that it always surprises me that we prioritize a few people that already live in a place, maybe four or five people, over the four or 500 that could live in a place. I think that speaks volumes about what value we make, about people's worth in our community. And I really don't think that's good for our future. So think of everyone and build more housing. Thank you. No, Norman Rosenthal. My name is Norman Rosenthal and I live in the Luxemann Renéberhood of North Bethesda, just off our Town Road, and I've been here for almost 40 years. I've talked with many of my neighbours about this latest iteration of the Housing Initiative and the great majority agree with me about the following problems with it. One, the infrastructure of our development is under severe strain. There have been extensive water problems in the neighbourhood for years, including severe of flooding and adding buildings, especially multiplexes and apartment complexes, without making major infrastructure changes before any building changes occur, is a formula for flooding, especially given the severe climate changes observed in recent years. Second, traffic and parking are also a major problem for us, especially as we have two large schools in our development, Luxemann or Elementary and Tuldon Middle School, as well as three smaller schools. All our roads are narrow with only two lanes and no sidewalks, which is a formula for overcrowding, accidents and injuries. To mitigate these undesirable consequences of greatly increased traffic, I would like to see clear wording indicating that traffic from the newly developed multiplexes, etc. will have to exit onto the main arteries, not into the developments themselves. Also, I ask that the current restriction on parking spaces provided in the new housing units to one per unit be increased to two. Otherwise, the act is a formula for increasing street parking on narrow lanes. After all, how many families do you know that have only one car? Three, these are all major causes for concern, especially since no infrastructure accommodations have been included in the proposed bill. Before this bill can even be considered, such infrastructure changes would need to occur, which is a necessary part of proper development. For all these reasons, I respectfully submit that amendment 2502 is not ready for prime time. Thank you. Mr. Lloyd Garcia. Good evening. I'm Lloyd Gersy. First, let our60 zoning be R60. R60 should not be amended such that R60 means one thing on one lot and another thing on another lot. If you're going to proceed with legislation along these lines, you need to create new residential zones. And any rezoning of specific lots should be through the master plan process. Second, there is an elephant in the room, namely the pending state bills titled Housing for Jobs Act that you've been briefed on. ZTA-2502 must be considered in these bills' contexts. These are sweeping preemption bills intended to force counties to approve housing projects. Under them, a county may deny a housing project in only six specific circumstances. If the county doesn't satisfy one of those, the project approval is, denial of subject to be overwritten. One of the six is the project does not comply with objective written development standards. But zoning standards with discretionary decisions making are not objective unless are not exempt from the state override. The use of the discretionary optional method in ZTA 25-02 opens lots subject to it to a state more override. The housing legislation before you needs to be revised to preclude state preemption. Third, ZTA-25-02 does not specify any amount of parking, much less sufficient parking. Parking needs to be specified with minimum requirements, including two per unit. I live in Bethesda, on the first block off of Route 355, Wisconsin Avenue. At the corner of Wisconsin Avenue in R Street is Concord Hill, a small private school. On a designated lot, ZTA-2502, it is an R60 lot, amounting to over 37,000 square feet. On my block, there are 27 houses and 28 on-street parking spaces, all on one side of the street. Often, there are no parking spaces available at night. The takeaway you should have from this testimony is that it would be wrong to assume that parking for new housing units, particularly on a lot over 37,000 square feet in size, is available on nearby streets. As to implementation, the parking places must be in the implementation. The planning board and the AHS strategy did not give any weight to parking needs. No one trusts the planning board and they shouldn't have any discretionary authority over parking. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Jerry Garcin. I think I'm finally unmuted. Yeah, we got you. I'm Terry Goss and speaking on behalf of the Seven Lock Civic Association, Ayns Zoning Text Amendment, CTA 2502, and opposed to it. We are concerned on the impacts to our local neighborhoods. We have been told that in Regency of Stacey, the entire sewer system has to be replaced due to the over 60 years old system, according to WSSC, but it cannot be done in this coming fiscal year. Our electric and natural gas mains are beyond their pro-capted life. We continue to have gas leaks in the area many in the last few weeks. We should have sidewalks before any ZTA is passed. The impact in Reg here states where there are over 3,000 residents live, which is zoned on 90 as has followed. The proposal will permit two plexes, triplexes and townhouses to be built, and the only required one parking spot per unit. This can result in more on-screen parking. It will also overburden the sewage system which has to be replaced in the next few years. According to WSSC, we're now getting the 100-year rain regularly. At all the main roads in the Seven Outs region, our above capacity, I-270, R-195 have every congestion seven days a week. And the traffic from them are diverted to Seven Outs road from River River Road to Montreal Road six days a week. How can we say that we have adequate public facilities by adding additional residents? Winston Churchill High School still has portable classrooms. A ZTA is not the correct way to add additional housing. We have received transferable rights for additional density from the Agri-server to add additional residents in our our area Maybe we should build the additional housing in the ag visor with with cheap land is available Yes, they would need infrastructure, but in the seven locks region we do not have adequate infrastructure You can look at the property like on Glenbroke We're 114 acres are valued by SD 18 at 2525,000, with $218,000 and 23 cents per acre. This is where you can build affordable housing, not in locations down county, we'll land this value at over $1,000,000 per acre. According to the Maryland State Department of Assessments and Taxation, the increasing interest rates have had no impact on the housing prices. They say that single-family houses will last 180 years and that air conditioning is not needed in houses. And the air conditioning systems will last for 190 years. This is some of the reasons why we have affordability problems in the county. Thank you for the time. Thank you very much. Next we have Brandy Pan, Panbok. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Brandy Panbok. I'm a resident homeowner in Montgomery County. Tonight I'm speaking as an individual, but I do volunteer with Montgomery for all. I previously have rented on the condo and I currently own a single family home here. I was not born here but I chose to live among Montgomery County due to its diversity of people and housing stock, job access, schools, parks and transit systems. Our county is experiencing a housing affordability crisis that prevents others from choosing to live here, even those that work here. The median priced home in our county now requires twice the median household income in our county, and that's not sustainable. Any policy that increases the number of housing units will increase housing affordability. I strongly support zoning tax amendment 2502, the workforce housing development standards. I think it's a great step forward to increasing affordability though due to scope I think its impact is likely to be modest. I think there's also a few ways that the county council should consider tweaking the ZTA to improve its effectiveness. First I think the county should consider having the ZTA also apply to areas of a half mile of Metro Railmark and Purple Line stations in addition to the growth corridors. Second, some corner lots located in corridors that are part of the ZTA, at least on the map that was provided, are currently excluded from it based on the map that was posted. And this seems to affect those that are on a side street rather than the corridor itself. And these corner lots should be included. Lastly, I'm strongly supportive of the Workforce Housing Opportunity Fund and I urge the council to support 4 million in new HIF funds as opposed to using HIF funds that are already located to other programs. And I just want to applaud the county council and in particular council members, Freeman and Fannie Gonzales for introducing policies like ZTA-2502 that are working to increase housing for our ability and create more homes for working families. Families that policies like ZTA, 2502 that are working to increase housing for our ability and create more homes for working families. Families that work here deserve the ability to live here as well. So I urge you to pass this ZTA and continue to work to create more housing supply and attainable housing. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next we have Dale Ingrid Barnhard. Hello, did you call Dale Barnhard? Yes, we did, Ms. Barnhard, it's your turn. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I was doing this bar six. Yeah, my name is Dale and good Barnhart and live in Silver Spring. This housing now proposed or primarily benefits deep money, developers and speculators who will hoover over the more modest neighborhoods in the east side of Montgomery County, snatching up those older homes in alphabetically displacing the more moderate income residency, the renters are owners enticed by cash offers for their homes, particularly impacting Silver Spring with housing density is already nearly twice the the density the Thesda Chevy Chase and the 25-year exemptions from impact fees for office to housing conversion is also just a generous tax funded bailout for office property owners who have allowed their buildings to deteriorate. Again, mostly in Silver Spring, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that someone else will have to pay for the impact of this proposed increase of housing. Montgomery County also has a severe social, racial, division between the East and West side of the county with most of the affordable housing rentals, projects placed in Silver Spring to Carmel Park. Well, but there's the builds more million dollar condos. Execrated by the county officials when they turned over county-owned properties in downtown Bethesda to high-end developers with a few token MVD used instead of a Florida month workforce housing agencies. This action in itself is a clear violation of Council's own racial equality and social justice bill by deliberately keeping affordable housing out of job rich, the best of this proposal does not offer teachers, firefighters, etc. I'm not the opportunity to build home equity. A good example would have been to the at Sikisamper, the far-of-way-built, Falkland Chase and Spring Gardens, both World War II, Eric Garden's style apartments surrounded by mature trees and beautiful greenspace, would be a perfect and desirable place to convert to co-ops or condos providing a sense of pride of ownership for those firefighters and a sense of community. I would personally jump at the chance to buy one. There's no clarification. Also, there's no clarification about what constitutes a quote unquote, cord, or your maps are quite obscure. We are clear that rain avenue and silver spring will be impacted. But what happens to day-of-drive that intercepts rain Avenue? Will this spread like a cancer? Will that eventually become a whole of our world? Will this now proposal and once you get the foot in the door? This plan is sloppy at best and poorly thought out. And too many questions and concerns are not being addressed. I attended to... The copy at Best and poorly thought out, and too many questions and concerns are not being addressed. I attended two recent meetings, one in Somerset office, Compton Avenue, where not one council member showed up to speak. And then another meeting at Kensington Town Hall, where council members, him, that very carefully edited written quote unquote questions to shoot the role in agenda. This is the epitome of deception. Residents have a right to ask questions and this housing mob proposal has weighed too many uncertainties. Thank you. Thank you. Next we have Ruth Beitreau. Good evening everyone. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. My name is Ruth Beitreau. I have lived in the Oaks community for almost 20 years. I will be directly affected if the billable area proposed on Old Georgetown Road near the corner of Old Georgetown and Lux Lane occurs. There are many reasons why I'm speaking today. The number one reason is safety. Safety is our number one priority. Where all parents have kids in the the area and have lived here for a long time. The potential wall removal to add the billable area in our proposed area jeopardizes the structural integrity of the neighboring properties imposed a serious safety risk to nearby residents. As I stated earlier, my home is directly parallel to the buildable area. The wall that is being proposed to be removed to add the building area will leave us with no protection from traffic and noise in the area. The wall is essentially a sound barrier. The existing wall functions as a crucial sound barrier mitigating noise pollution from busy roadways enhancing the overall quality of our lives in the area. In my home, which I've lived in for 20 years, we do not open our windows. In my home, and that is due to the pollution that has continuously gotten increasingly worse and worse throughout the years. This bill will only make the noise pollution problem worse. And I want to make sure I'm clear. When I say noise pollution, and this is where I looked up, it refers to unwanted or harmful sound that disrupt the natural environment and negatively impacts human health and well-being. It is typically caused by various sources such as traffic, industrial activities, construction, and other urban developments. Prolonged exposure to noise pollution can lead to multiple health issues including stress, hair loss, sleep disturbances, and cardiovascular problems. We in this family have already experienced some of those items. Sorry. There's a retaining in our neighborhood. The retaining pond in our community was built for only 30 homes. The infidstressure of more homes in the same pond will cause drainage and infrastructure issues. The existing pond could suffer adverse effects further compromising our local ecosystem. We also have grounds to ability concerns that have not been studied. The soil is unclear at this moment because those studies have been found whether news construction will be able to be handled on the property. Currently we are having flooding issues. Residents at the base of Rosemont Circle have already faced flooding issues due to inadequate infrastructure. Additional building would only exaggerate the problem. We also have utility complexities that have not been considered. When the Oaks community was built, gas lines were embedded underground and utilities are... Thank you so much, Rita. You can please submit your job. Okay. Next we have Stacy Band. Hello. My name is Stacy Band and I'm here tonight representing my condo association Bradley House located in Chubby Chase, Maryland. We are deeply concerned about these ZTA proposals, particularly the zoning changes. Bethesda and Chevy Chase are already awash in new development with plans to lift the density cap in Bethesda. We do not have a housing development shortage. We have a pipeline issue. With current building developments, residents must deal with high traffic, closed sidewalks, block roadways, and endless construction. Our schools are overcrowded and our county research has found that public transportation cannot handle an increase in our local density. We also need a new traffic study to assess the full impacts and feasibility of doubling the population of downtown Bethesda. County's plan, sorry, county planning school enrollment estimates also wildly missed the mark. Bethesda Elementary is back to using portable trailers because the enrollment counts are so off. Silver Creek Middle School is already over capacity and Bethesda Chevy Chase High School is a few students away from capacity. It is not possible to shift school and cluster boundaries every few years to try and compensate for poor counting. Planners have said they assume almost no impact on schools from students coming from apartments and and condo buildings. In our building and across Bethesda, that is not remotely true. We are seeing the impact of these disparities now in our student test scores and learning outcomes. Schools do not have the staff required to provide adequate special education services and elementary school classrooms routinely have near 30 students. There are also no provisions in these ETAs for basic amenities. Our residents already lack the most minimal green space. Exactly zero new parks have been built since the major redevelopment of Bethesda began more than 10 years ago. The ZTA proposals will only add to this problem. No thought has been put into the consequences for our young people by putting development first and schools and the environment last. We all agree that Montgomery County residents need more affordable and workforce housing options, but there are already properties in the county that are underutilized and strategic development could revitalize these spaces and include amenities that residents want and need. Hap hazard and scattered planning with multiple initiatives, often working at cross purposes, isn't creating more options. It's creating a mess and the burden will fall on residents. We want solutions just as much as you but we want solutions that work. Please listen to us, please read our comment and let us know part of any changes. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next we have Bronco Olanski. Hi, my name is Bronco or Lansky and I've been living in Camp Mill for 13 years. I oppose the plan. We all agree that we desperately need affordable housing in Montgomery County, but this is not the way to do it. I am appalled at the lack of transparency. The way this plan moves forward quickly without input from the residents, the lack of research, the lack of site plan review, and the lack of concern about having the infrastructure in place to support the additional residents. Sadly, this plan will not even help the working class for whom it is claiming to provide affordable housing. As stated earlier tonight, it is a myth that this ZTA will provide the affordable housing that it claims to provide. We cannot afford to have our property taxes go up to compensate for the tax break the developers will endure for the next 25 years. Particularly now when federal employees are losing their jobs, it's not the time to move forward with this major change. Not now. Please listen to the residents you were elected to serve and reject this bill. Thank you. Thank you. Next we have Marquise Zedek Zerkind. Hello. My name is Malki to Zerkind. And I oppose the housing now. It will create more traffic in the previous meeting where they were talking about the bus lanes. and they want everyone to get on the metro so that you can then have to move more people along the corridors. I looked up it would take me over four hours to get to work and I would need to leave the night before. That's not sustainable. This plan gets tax groups to develop and it's going to cost homeowners and residents more for the next 25 years. Infrastructure does not exist to include so many more people in the area. If the infrastructure did exist, I'll be happy to put up more buildings. This design was carefully designed to break up existing communities and it also does not include for any safety measures for the residents. Lastly is clearly against families just like the water bills in this county where families and multi-generational residences pay more for water than everyone else. So to this bill is against families and I oppose this bill. Thank you. Thank you very much. Those are all the comments for this CTA. Thank you for the feedback on this item. The public hearing is now closed. We'll move to item 15, is the public hearing on zoning text amendment 25-03 expedited approvals, commercial to residential reconstruction. This CTA would create a commercial to residential reconstruction use, provide an expedited approval process for that use and allow reallocation of the far and certain employment zones. A planning housing parks committee work session, scheduled for March 24th, 2025, those wishing to submit material for the council's consideration should do so by the close of business March 24th. 2025 and the council will continue to accept correspondence after the state. As a reminder of our public hearing testimony guidelines, your comments must be limited to issues relevant to the public hearing topic for which you are testifying and are appropriate for the public meeting. You will hear a tone when your time is up and we appreciate everyone abiding by there a lot of time. Our in-person panel is Robert Newter, Carter Dardi, James Keller, Robin Moton. Mr. Newton, you start. President Stewart, Vice President Joando and Council members, thank you for the opportunity to testify today in favor of the more housing now package and the expedited permitting procedures that it includes. I'm Rob Mooter. I live in Council Member Friedson's District. I'm a member of the River Road Unitarian Universalist Congregation, active in the Social Justice Group Action in Montgomery and in my Homeowners Association. My family is a living example of the demographics surrounding the housing crisis. My wife and I own a house that is about the median value of a house in the county. Our two young adult sons have early stage career jobs and they had both moved out of our house about seven years ago but moved back in during the pandemic. One of them just moved out a couple of months ago, living with several roommates now, and the other is still our roommate. Last year, our daughter returned from working overseas as a schoolteacher and relocated to Charlottesville, Virginia, partly due to the housing situation here. So the housing issues are real and tangible for us. To define the problem Montgomery County's housing deficit is 31,000 units with prices that have gone up accordingly. The number of single family homes permitted for construction in the last 10 years is 13,000, less than half of what's needed to make up for this gap. When people can't find housing and choose to live elsewhere, they sink routes and we lose them permanently. The outflow of young adults from Maryland last year alone was estimated to be 40,000. Consider these questions. Where do we expect our school teachers, public service and safety workers, retail personnel, construction workers, restaurant staff, and other members of the middle-class workforce to live within this county? Or do we want to compel them to live elsewhere and endure lengthy and expensive commutes? Do we want to turn our back on the taxes that these workers would pay to the county if they were able to remain here as residents? The more housing now bill provides a good starting point in solving these problems. They are first steps and they're necessary, but not sufficient to get the job done. Amendments or alterations to strengthen the bill would be to extend the expedited permitting process beyond the corridors included in the bill. Number two, increasing the targeting of housing assistance subsidies to favor many of the historically disadvantaged and underserved communities. Thank you Mr. Doer. Thank you, Mr. Dirty. Yes, my name is Carter Doerty. I am from Tacoma Park, Council President Stewart, aka my council member. Thank you for having us here. This is my first time testifying in Rockville as opposed to many times in Tacoma Park. And I have to say to the opponents, you were really falling down on the job here. If this were Tacoma Park, this place would be packed until midnight. There would have been at least several PowerPoint presentations and two episodes of performance art. So the opponents here do something to learn so come to our fair to come apart sometime and check it out. I'm here on behalf of Montgomery for all a grassroots organization that works with members throughout the county advocating for more housing sustainable transport and welcoming neighborhoods where the Yimbees. We do support more housing for now and I will, we will have more in our written testimony. For now on, I emphasize a couple of points. This package is an absolutely necessary step in the direction of increasing housing supply in our land constrained county and we really do extend our thanks to council members, and Fannyales for putting their arms in the meat grinder would be the only phrase to describe it. And to the co-sponsors for their support. The key thing here I think is that you've chosen a couple of approaches to improve the availability of housing in Montgomery County. And it's really important, I think, therefore that you maximize what you get out of each of these approaches. And I should say, you know, we want to make the most of the opportunities here and we have, we want to play a constructive role. First thing I would say is improve the number of corridors, raise the number of corridors and think about legalizing more residential building types within a mile of metro stations or Mark stations The second is think about those corners on the corridors and making sure that we can build there It's really an unnecessary constraint to say that we can't and this risks locking in a sub optimal zoning Probably for a generation There's really no logic to the current exclusion and the long term opportunity costs are significant. Finally, the height restriction of 40 feet is too low. The ZTA aims to promote the construction of more apartment buildings, but we would note that there are town homes in the county that are 55 feet tall. We're not arguing for town homes in those spots, but merely pointing out that if the height limit is too low for this very popular type of housing, it is surely too low for the sorts of apartment buildings you want to encourage. We gather you're talking to other stakeholders about adjusting the optional method for building, especially the affordable housing developers. We would encourage you to continue that and follow their advice there, the ones that in then you're going to be putting brick upon brick. So again, thank you for your time and for your consideration of our suggestions. And I want to know that we support us too. Can hold up signs, small pieces of paper saying do it. Thank you, Mr. Keller. Yes, now with the next situation. Thank you. Mr. Keller. I'm James Keller. I live. I've been in Montgomery County for about 25 years now. We live about a mile from here towards Rockville High School. In a single family home, I have two children who are one graduated from Rockville High School. The next one will be graduating there in a few years. The main parts of the county that I see, mainly driving along Rockville Pike, Veer's Mill Road through Wheaton for Corners. And at present, I say that I'm opposed to the 2503 for now at the present because I just don't understand enough of a lot of people have spoken here tonight on very elegantly more, more thoroughly than anything that I can contribute. What I see along Rockville Pike is a lot of empty office space. So I had three main concerns as I was reading through the 100-word, 100-page PDF was I'm a little concerned along the same lines as has already been spoken tonight of property owners who hold that vacant space. They've made business decisions and they're having troubles now. 10 years ago, food and drug administration moved out. That left a lot of office space vacant. And certainly we want to see something done with the vacant space. But I didn't see how any of these amendments would actually reduce housing costs. And I started to feel like this is being advertised to help lower income people achieve home ownership, but it also seems to be almost an underhanded way to help out the landowners who were struggling with trying to use their property profitably. If there was some type of proposal about helping convert apartments into condominiums where people might be able to pay towards ownership, I'd be completely in favor of something like that. I don't know how to go about doing that. But that would not change the population dynamics in the county. It would not change traffic or demands on schools. and I'm really somewhat mystified. I don't know how many lower income tax payers are needed to pay for a single salary for a police officer every year. Is that going to be a thousand new people, a ten thousand? They're not going to be paying a lot of taxes into the county. We already have volunteer fire and rescue and pressures for school populations and so forth are don't seem to be part of the plan here. So I think that this encapsulates my present position on the topic. Thank you. Thank you. Next we have Robin Moten. Good evening because it's kind of late here. My name is Robin Moten and I attended this afternoon's meeting trying to find out what is going on because I am a resident of the Georgia Avenue corridor. I was born here in Montgomery County at suburban hospital. I know somebody fight on the outspirit hospital because there's no longer function as a hospital anymore. But that'll tell you something. I graduated from springbrook. I returned to the area after we churned from the federal government in 2019. I chose to live in this area, Georgia Avenue, for several reasons. One being the convenience of the nearby shopping center and being on the bus line. It is also close to my elder, your mother, who lives in a senior building on Round off Road. I left here this afternoon, still not knowing exactly what is going on where I live. I felt like we were being kept in the dark, and was going on around us. What I did learn is how it will benefit in certain demographic. It appears that you are planning, wanting to plan, enforcing people out of their homes and displacing mainly people of color and low to medium income families. In my opinion, that's just corporate bullying because that's who's going to benefit from the two realatures that who spoke in favor of it, they're gonna benefit from it, okay? The residence, there's over 30,000 residents of the Georgia Avenue Carrot corridor, with 73% of those residents being non-white or of Hispanic Latin origin, 45% Hispanic, 17.6 African American and 10.6 Asian. This afternoon I also learned about the 85 market rate apartments and the 50% workforce housing. Based on that 73% of the residents that's living there now, I want to know how and where does that 73% fit in to the 15% for those affordable homes. The math is just not mapping for me. This just seems to me another form of gentrification. I know it's expensive to live in Montgomery County. It has always been a living Montgomery County. Montgomery County is one of the expensive counties to live in, has always been that way all my life. I ain't gonna say, hold on, I don't know what you're talking about. It has been flip-flopping back and forth between Montgomery County and Howard County. Are your constituents aware that the developers will be receiving a 25-year tax break at the expense of the taxpayer? Do they know that? You all have not come out. I went around to my community trying to, when I found out, and I just found out about this maybe a week ago, or two weeks ago, about what's going on. I went around to my community. Nobody knows about this. We all elected you. We left our homes to come out to like you all, but you all haven't come to us to let us know what's going on in the community. Thank you, Miss Motten. That concludes the in-person testimony for this CTA. Next we'll go virtual to Joel Tidalbaum. Good evening. I hope you can hear me. We can hear you. Thank you. Council President Stuart and the council members. I feel appreciative to have participated for all these hours listening to other people testify from whom I've learned a great deal. And I'd like to be optimistic since I seem to be the last person on the list and I suspect some of the fans have already left the stadium. What I would like to say is that I am in favor of the concepts of these more housing now. I'm in favor of the motivation of it in general. And it gives me pause as to the little level of preparation in advance. But I would like to address both the quarter front facing housing and the conversion of office to residents housing issues or agenda items in another way. I've lived here a long time. I've left. I've returned. My children live here. My grandchildren. I'm what they call old, 85 years old., I can remember what it was like when I was young here. And what I've detected, that I'd appreciate if you listen to this, is that there's been a slippery slope for Montgomery County from being a metropolitan suburb of Washington, D.C., heard of Washington, DC, which is a city to becoming a pseudo-urban set of county places, rather than what it really has been, which is a group of neighborhoods scattered across the county, sometimes cheap by jowl, from inner to middle to outer, with different densities, somewhat different population composition, but nevertheless, an ethic of suburbanism, not necessarily exorbitism. And I think the council is overlooking this idea of suburban neighborhoods in its ZTAs and development ideas. Not because there's developers that are greedy they always are. Not because there are no people that are needy, there are many. What I am concerned about is the concept and the history of how this comes about. I believe this council, which I applaud for having a majority of women and a president as a woman for the first time ever, therefore has a chance to redeem itself from a somewhat checkered past. The elephant in the room, and I need to say this acutely, is that it's an all-democrat county council in a majority-democrat county, and therefore even the Democrats don't agree with each other and form little, so we say, sections which fight with each other. Secondly, I would call that the elephant in the room by the way, although it's a democratic elephant. Secondly, this council, and the council is before it, including some members of this council who were reelected or R2B, has a monkey on its back. I'm gone from elephant to monkey. And the monkey is the total loss of trust that was engendered by the corrupt and abusive planning board commission led by disgraced planning board chair and commissioners and even the planning board director who are all gone now and they were gone in a scandal which you all know about and some of you were complicit in that scandal those who were voting them in repeatedly and following their dictates. We now have it reformed county planning board and maybe the the the planning director at the or planning directors Office is not yet reformed enough But the real story is we need a truth and reconciliation sensation From the council about what happened and how do how to correct These indignities that were voiced on the county If you think the federal government lacks trust from the population What's going on in Montgomery County lacks the trust of our suburban neighborhood communities? To restore it you must get truth and reconciliation While you do new new plans you can do it by chewing gum and walking at the same time. Thank you Thank you very much. Those are all the public testimony for this ZTA this public hearing is now closed item 16 is a public hearing on subdivision regulation 25-01 administrative subdivision expedited approval plan the SRA would create a new administrative subdivision process for a commercial to residential reconstruction expedited approval plan, a planning housing and parks committee work session, scheduled for March 24, 2025. Those wishing to submit material for the council's consideration should do so by the close of business on March 24, 2025 and the council will continue to accept correspondence after the state. We have no speakers for this, this public hearing is now closed. Item 17, our last item for the evening is a public hearing on expedited bill 2-25, taxation, payment and lieu of taxes, affordable housing amendments. This bill would establish a minimum payment in lieu of taxes for certain conversions of high vacancy, commercial properties to residential use, establish the amount of the payment in lieu of taxes and generally amend the law governing payment in lieu of taxes, a joint government operations and fiscal policy committee and economic development committee work section is scheduled for March 27, 2025. Those wishing to submit material for the council's consideration should do so by the close of business on March 24th, 2025. And the council will continue to accept correspondence after this date. We have one speaker registered in person, Pornela Richardson. All right, you are it and you're our last speaker for the evening. When the award is there not? All right, Miss Richardson, you take your time and get set and whatever you're ready, you can start. Thank you so much Madam President, do it and all the councilmen and council women that I sit before this blessed evening. I am Cornelia Richardson. I have been a government county resident since 1995. After completing my bachelor's degree in Daytona Beach, Florida at the Thuncupin College in television and radio broadcasting. I moved back to the DNV to take a job located at Walter Reed Army Hospital as a United States Army medic after completing my studies in Daytona Beach, Florida. I became a student to complete my medical training to be upgraded to a respiratory therapist, a respiratory specialist I apologize. Due to the increase in my then living in downtown service spring, so I've seen this happen before, where the out with the old and with the new policy was in place where the developers took the upper hand and it left us with an increase in our rent. I lived in a luxury apartment at the Summit Hills luxury apartments at, I believe that's Coastville Road and East West Highway. My husband, then husband and I at the time did have adequate housing with our luxury apartment and we were very satisfied there. But when the developers came in it gave a boost in our rent and we were pushed out to go to a county where we could afford housing and that was PG County. We then was given the opportunity to move back to Montgomery County when United States Army Hospital Walter Reed was moved to Bethesda. I took hold of that opportunity. Came back to Montgomery County to raise my younger children. So I raised my two children. Here in Montgomery County, I have been in the local area of Georgia Avenue for the past 20 plus years and that corridor is now being affected by the ZTA-2502. My children are now grown up in college, but they anticipate moving back to this community. But how can they win their mom is still here? And I am barely holding on to be able to afford the housing where I'm renting a town home here in the Georgia Avenue corridor. I am facing displacement. I am directly being, I feel like pushed out of my community for the second time in the role after being in Montgomery County residents since 1995. At this time, the plans that you all have are not including me. They're actually displacing me and where can I go with relocation. Thank you so much for hearing me this evening. Thank you very much. Thank you very much Ms. Richardson for joining us this evening. That is our last public speaker for the evening. This public hearing is closed and we are adjourned. Thank you everyone.