Houses of worship and other private educational institutions would be allowed to build apartments and multi-unit housing on their land if a zoning text amendment bill introduced in the Montgomery County Council on Tuesday passes.
The bill, ZTA 24-01, is also known as the Facilitating Affordable Inclusive Transformational Housing (FAITH) ZTA is sponsored by Council President Andrew Friedson (D-Dist. 1) and Vice President Kate Stewart (D-Dist. 4).
“We’re facing an affordable housing crisis at the same time houses of worship in our community find themselves with an oversupply of land, and they also face barriers to easily putting this land to use to forward their mission and to help our broader community,” Stewart said during Tuesday’s council meeting.
Under current county zoning laws, multi-unit living is not permitted in non-residential zones. This bill would change that for qualifying institutions, such as houses of worship. This would enable these institutions to build housing on their land, however, they would still have to follow county affordability guidelines, with at least 30% to 50% of units being designated as “affordable dwelling units” under county government rent standards.
Friedson said the bill is “the next frontier” when it comes to addressing the affordable housing crisis.
“We need to be leveraging the resources that we have on public lands and public properties,” Friedson said. “We also need to be partnering with mission-based organizations that have assets and resources but need those tools to be unleashed with the support from the county government to be able to move them forward to actually support their mission.”
The “YIGBY” movement, which stands for “Yes In God’s Backyard,” has picked up steam across the country as houses of worship advocate for the right to build affordable housing on their land. In November, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.) signed a bill into law that allowed houses of worship in that state to develop housing on their land, regardless of local zoning codes, Axios reported.
“We can’t do this alone in the public sector. If we’re going to really address the housing crisis, it has to be an all hands-on deck approach,” Friedson said. “We know that not every faith-based and mission-based organization will be able to take advantage of these efforts, but we believe many will and we hope they do.”
Councilmembers Natali Fani-González (D-Dist. 6), Evan Glass (D-At-large), Laurie-Anne Sayles (D-At-large), Kristin Mink (D-Dist. 4), Dawn Luedtke (D-Dist. 7), Marilyn Balcombe (D-Dist. 2), Gabe Albornoz (D-At-large) and Sidney Katz (D-Dist. 3) have signed on as co-sponsors.
The community can weigh in on the proposed legislation at a public hearing scheduled for 1:30 p.m. at the Feb. 27 council meeting in Rockville.