Category: Montgomery County

Testimony: SRA 25-02 — No more barriers to new homes on corridors (MoCo)

Posted on by Elena Sorokina

September 15, 2025
Montgomery County Council
100 Maryland Ave
Rockville, MD 20850

Re: Support for SRA 25-02

Dear Council President Stewart and Councilmembers:

Thank you for accepting this testimony on behalf of the Coalition for Smarter Growth. CSG advocates for walkable, bikeable, inclusive, and transit-oriented communities as the most sustainable and equitable way for the Washington, DC region to grow and provide opportunities for all.

I write to you to share our support for SRA 25-02, and to urge you not to further limit lot consolidation or add additional barriers to the review and approval of new homes under ZTA 25-02 and SRA 25-02.

The guidelines provided for in SRA 25-02 align with those put forward for public consideration during the passage of ZTA 25-02, and are thoughtfully informed by the Council’s discussions with and feedback from community members both for and against the More Housing N.O.W. package.

Lot consolidation can provide needed flexibility in site layout to preserve mature trees, meet stormwater requirements, and provide for more homes than may be possible if each lot were developed separately.

As Planning staff shared (see starting at page 220) during the Council’s worksessions on ZTA 25-02, limiting lot consolidation will severely limit the number of homes that can feasibly be built under this ZTA by making it impossible to meet stormwater management, parking, and site coverage requirements on certain sites. In the R-60 zone, for example, a single standard-sized lot can only feasibly accommodate a duplex, whereas two- and three-lot consolidation could allow for four to seven townhomes or eight apartments with significantly more greenspace and workforce income-restricted units.

Please do not create additional obstacles to building the new homes we need near transit, jobs, and amenities by further limiting lot consolidation or requiring additional layers of review above what was agreed upon during the Council’s consideration and passage of ZTA 25-02.

Sincerely,
Carrie Kisicki
Montgomery County Advocacy Manager, Coalition for Smarter Growth

Testimony: Support for University Boulevard Corridor Plan (MoCo)

Posted on by Elena Sorokina

September 10, 2025
Montgomery County Council
100 Maryland Ave
Rockville, MD 20850

University Boulevard Corridor Plan

Dear Council President Stewart and Councilmembers:

Thank you for the opportunity to testify. My name is Carrie Kisicki, and I am the Montgomery
County Advocacy Manager for the Coalition for Smarter Growth. CSG advocates for walkable, bikeable, inclusive, and transit-oriented communities as the most sustainable and equitable way for the metro D.C. region to grow and provide opportunities for all.

We ask for your support for the goals of safe streets, vibrant and inclusive communities, and transit-oriented homes and businesses laid out in the University Boulevard Corridor Plan and in our county’s 30-year general plan, Thrive 2050.

This plan is responsive to the leading concerns and goals that community members shared during extensive outreach conducted by Planning and county partners.

One pressing concern is the need for safer streets. You do not have to be a traffic engineer to understand that being a pedestrian on University Boulevard does not feel good. There is a wide gap between the experience of being a pedestrian or riding your bike in the plan area today, and the community that people want to see where anyone walking, biking, or rolling feels safe getting around.

Community members have also expressed a desire for thriving local retail, more gathering
spaces, and accommodates people at different ages, household sizes, and incomes.

How do we get from here to there? That is exactly what this plan is designed to do. It outlines clear steps that bridge the gaps between the challenges our communities have identified today, and what they would like to see in the future. Wider sidewalks, an expanded bike network, more frequent transit service, allowing more types of homes near transit, allowing more of the kinds of multi-family buildings that are small enough to fit with the scale of the community, but actually large enough to support space for local businesses and subsidized affordable housing—this is just a short list of the specific steps laid out in the University Boulevard Corridor Plan to achieve the goal of a welcoming, thriving, and sustainable community.

These recommendations did not spring from nowhere—they are a direct response to the needs that community members shared, and spring from our county’s core values of accessibility, equity, and sustainability. Each of these measures is how we get from here to there.

We urge you to support the recommendations of the University Boulevard Corridor Plan as drafted by the Planning Board, and to follow through on this vision for a safer, more accessible, and more sustainable community.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,
Carrie Kisicki
Montgomery Advocacy Manager

VICTORY! M-83 Highway is Removed from Montgomery County Plans

Posted on by Elena Sorokina
Advocates spanning the generations celebrate our win at the Council Office Building on Tuesday, July 29! 
 

On Tuesday, the County Council voted 10-1 to remove the unbuilt portion of Mid-County Highway Extended (M-83) from county plans.  This was a victory decades in the making! 

Left on the books since the 1960s but largely unbuilt, M-83 offered false hope that extra road capacity could solve upcounty traffic problems. If built, it would have bulldozed farms, forests, streams, and wildlife in its path.

With this vote, our county leaves behind an outdated and harmful highway plan, and can focus on real, meaningful transportation investments upcounty. 

Thank you for your advocacy!

This win took a village. I am the fourth CSG Montgomery Advocacy Manager to have worked on this campaign (shout out to Kelly Blynn, Pete Tomao, and Jane Lyons-Raeder!) and am proud to have worked alongside dedicated advocates at TAME, ACT, and other partners who have advocated to remove M-83 for decades, as well as a new generation of advocates like Eco MoCo, led by high school and middle school students.

Over the years, CSG joined leading advocates at TAME in forums, walking tours, and research, reports, and testimony that demonstrated the ineffectiveness of the proposed highway, its environmental and community harms, and the benefits of more sustainable alternatives.

And we couldn’t have done it without you, our network of CSG supporters and advocates. In the past year alone, over 200 CSG supporters contacted the Planning Board and the County Council to support the removal of M-83 from county plans. That’s over 1,350 total emails!

What happens next?

Better street connections, safe bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure, and investments in frequent, reliable public transit all can help provide much needed transportation improvements upcounty—and upcounty residents need these changes sooner rather than later. 

When combined with mixed-use walkable neighborhood designs, these solutions will reduce the amount people have to drive, shortening car trips and increasing walking, biking, and transit use. 

As part of their vote on the Master Plan of Highways and Transitways, the Council approved an amendment to fund a comprehensive upcounty transportation study. CSG plans to support the special appropriation for this study at its September 30 hearing (sign-up opens August 1).

Once more, with feeling—THANK YOU, and let’s celebrate this win! 

I am so grateful for your support as we celebrate this victory, and I look forward to continuing to work with you all to win the sustainable transportation solutions upcounty residents need!

CSG in the News: County Council votes to abandon M-83 highway plan

Posted on by Elena Sorokina

July 29, 2025 | Ginny Bixby | Bethesda Magazine

An advocacy group that lobbied against the highway plan praised the council’s decision Tuesday in a press release.

“Plans for M-83 were based on obsolete planning assumptions that are out of sync with what we know today about effectively meeting transportation demand and protecting community and environmental health,” said Carrie Kisicki, Montgomery advocacy manager for the Washington, D.C.-based Coalition for Smarter Growth. “With their vote to remove M-83, the County Council showed we are ready to offer upcounty residents transportation solutions that will offer real relief—not a costly and environmentally harmful false promise.” 

Read the full story here.

RELEASE: Montgomery County Council votes to remove the unbuilt northern portion of the M-83 highway from Master Plan

RELEASE: Montgomery County Council votes to remove the unbuilt northern portion of the M-83 highway from Master Plan

Posted on by Elena Sorokina

The Montgomery County Council voted today to remove the unbuilt northern portion of M-83 from the Master Plan of Highways and Transitways, a move strongly supported by the Coalition for Smarter Growth and local leaders in the TAME Coalition.

Big win in Montgomery County! Council allows more multi-family homes on county corridors 

Big win in Montgomery County! Council allows more multi-family homes on county corridors 

Posted on by Carrie Kisicki

Yesterday, the Montgomery County Council voted 8-3 to pass Zoning Text Amendment (ZTA) 25-02. The legislation will allow more housing types, like townhouses or small apartment buildings, along major corridors, creating more homes near jobs and amenities.

CSG in the News: In raucous session, County Council votes 8-3 to approve controversial housing zoning change

Posted on by Carrie Kisicki

July 23, 2025 | Ginny Bixby | Bethesda Today

The Coalition for Smarter Growth released a statement prior to Tuesday’s vote voicing support for the zoning change. The nonprofit advocates for “walkable, bikeable, inclusive, and transit-oriented communities” in the Washington, D.C. area, according to its website.

“By making it easier to build more duplexes, triplexes, and small apartments near transit and jobs, [the] ZTA is an important step toward more sustainable housing options in Montgomery County,” the statement said. “Measures like this that take on the structural problems feeding our housing shortage are a necessary step to achieve our shared vision of a sustainable, inclusive county for all.”

Read the full story here.

CSG in the News: Montgomery County Council to vote on ‘missing middle’ housing plan

Posted on by Elena Sorokina

July 22, 2025 | Maureen Umeh | FOX 5 DC 

“Montgomery’s economy, the economy of Maryland, is in some trouble right now. If we cannot provide housing, that’s affordable to the workforce, they can’t come to the county and provide their talents and services to the county,” said Stewart Schwartz with the Coalition for Smarter Growth. “Companies will not come to the D.C. region and to Montgomery County if they don’t believe housing is affordable for their workers, they’ll go to places where it is more affordable.”

Read the full story here.

CSG in the News: Montgomery County Faces Pushback On ‘Landmark’ Housing Package

Posted on by Elena Sorokina

July 21, 2025 | Jon Banister| Bisnow

Carrie Kisicki, the Montgomery County advocacy manager for pro-housing group Coalition for Smarter Growth, said requiring property owners to go through an approval process would make these multifamily projects take more time and money to pursue. But she supports the overall proposal because it creates a pathway to building more housing on lots that have long been restricted to detached single-family homes. 

“We’re still living in that world where people who 10 or 20 years ago would’ve been able to buy a starter home, or young professionals who would’ve been able to buy an apartment in the county, started to not be able to do that because of how little we’ve been building the types of housing that people needed,” Kisicki said.

“So this is to me a landmark package because it shows we’re willing to go back and look at some of those things we’ve taken for granted about where we build homes or don’t build homes.”