“Parking can be a shockingly large expense, and that expense gets passed on to residents in higher rents,” said Carrie Kisicki, the Montgomery advocacy manager for the Coalition for Smarter Growth, an advocacy group that pushes for affordable housing, better public transit and safe streets in the greater Washington region.

Thank you for joining the Coalition for Smarter Growth and Montgomery for All on August 28, 2023 for a conversation about how reforming minimum parking mandates can help us achieve our climate, housing, and equity goals.

Prince George’s County Council is considering a bill to freeze new townhouse construction for 2 years. We agree that too much growth is occurring outside priority centers, leading to increased traffic and high infrastructure costs, while diverting resources from existing communities. But a townhouse ban is an overly broad, indiscriminate approach that overlooks the underlying problems of Prince George’s zoning: too much single family zoning across the vast acres outside the beltway, and not enough flexible residential and mixed use zoning inside the beltway.

While we oppose CB 52 as not the right approach, we wish to express our support for the concern expressed in the bill in terms of ensuring residential growth is directed to the right locations. We find the singling out of townhouses for blame unjustified when permissive single family zoning across vast acres outside the beltway “established communities” are the underlying problem. Most of the land outside the beltway is zoned for low density housing, causing growth and additional demand on urban infrastructure, and robbing reinvestment resources from existing communities.

We wish to express our support for the Concept Site Plan for construction of two multifamily buildings at 9, 11, 13, and 15 Park Avenue and 201 Brookes Avenue.