A Montgomery County proposal to limit the size of homes on smaller lots to protect neighborhood character is gaining traction among council members and could place restrictions on residents’ options to renovate and build.
County Council Member Roger Berliner wants to lower the maximum building height for homes on lots smaller than 40,000 feet from 50 feet to new maximum heights of 35, 40 and 45 feet depending on lot size.
Residential, single-family homes in the most crowded parts of the county would also be limited in the amount of land they could cover.
Berliner called his proposals a “balanced approach to promote a more graceful transformation of our older neighborhoods.”
“These do result in slightly smaller homes,” Berliner said. “Hopefully we’re in a position by early fall to enact comprehensive reform in an area that has long needed work.”
Berliner represents Bethesda, Chevy Chase and Potomac, all communities in which residents have complained of mismatched neighborhoods where older homes are torn down and replaced with far larger ones, and mammoth additions dwarf older houses and block out sunlight.
Council Vice President Phil Andrews and Council Members Duchy Trachtenberg and Marc Elrich quickly signed on to co-sponsor the bill.
Elrich said he wished Berliner had placed even tighter restrictions on building height and size.
“I will support this at any number,” Elrich said. “We’re not really talking about smaller houses but rather slightly less enormous ones.”
Council Member Nancy Floreen told The Examiner she was concerned about how the proposal would affect existing homeowners on the smaller lots common in Bethesda and Silver Spring.
“The average person doesn’t want to build their whole house over again, they just want to do a project like redoing their kitchen or adding on a family room,” Floreen said. “I’m wondering whether they can still do that without having to take down their house and start all over again.”
In a separate measure, Berliner proposed requiring applicants for certain building permits in residential zones to notify neighbors and request neighborhood design guidelines from civic and homeowners associations.
