Montgomery County has little room left for sprawling subdivisions of single-family homes and must try to build high-density, mixed-use developments near public transportation and services, according to the county’s planning commission.
Only 4 percent of land zoned for development still sits undeveloped, with county planning officials expecting 195,000 new residents by 2030, according to a new report.
“We have pushed to our maximum expansion boundary,” the report said. “We must now look inward, at how we can grow differently.”
Roughly 316,800 acres are left in the county, of which 29,000 can be developed, county developers estimate. That includes an overlap of 14,000 acres of undeveloped land, 8,000 acres of surface parking, and 10,500 acres in and around transit and strip malls.
The county has prohibited development in 93,000 acres of farmland and 33,000 acres for parks in an upcounty agricultural reserve.
The report is a draft of the county’s growth plan, which is proposed by the planning board and some form of which is ultimately adopted by the County Council every two years.
This year’s report advocates replacing some commercial and office space with housing, a break from past county planning policies.
A primary goal of the county, the report said, should be to reduce the number of trips county residents take in their cars by having them live within walking distance of the shops and services they need.
To do so, the county should give incentives to developers who build mixed-use, energy-efficient buildings within a half-mile of a transit station or near basic services, the report recommends.
These types of buildings will help ease traffic problems, help the environment and fight obesity, the report said.
But Councilman Marc Elrich, D-at large, called the growth plan “simplistic” and said it was geared toward accommodating the influx of county residents in the next 20 years at the expense of the nearly 1 million current county residents.
The growth plan “does not serve people who are living here,” he said.
The report is set to be presented to the county’s Planning Board on Thursday.
