Montgomery County has been suffering a major housing crisis for the past several years. Recently, in the past year, Montgomery County has been planning the Attainable Housing Strategies Initiative (AHS), which could lead to changes in the population and the cities of the county. Over one million people live in the county, and 200,000 more are expected to move in within the next 25 years. However, Montgomery County is not building houses fast enough to keep up, putting the county at a serious disadvantage.
To fix this, Montgomery County has implemented the AHS. For years, the county has gathered feedback from many members of the community and other stakeholders to find a housing plan that works. However, they have run into some issues with large apartment buildings not fitting in most neighborhoods, and a large part of the county is only for single-family houses. The goal of the AHS is to find a way to increase housing but still keep Montgomery County suburban.
The county has settled on allowing certain buildings such as duplexes, townhouses and apartment buildings to be constructed in areas that were previously solely single-family housing. “I feel that building more townhouses will get the county to make more shopping areas. It’ll also make it easier to walk everywhere,” Churchill sophomore Samuel Zhang said.
While some see the plan as beneficial, there are still some issues with the AHS. The new houses will be priced regularly, meaning that even buildings like townhomes will be priced in the millions of dollars, which is unaffordable for many. Additionally, Montgomery County already has space to build more houses, making the claims of necessary rezoning dubious to some. Residents of the county, including high school students, have mixed feelings about the plans.
“Basically I think that [Montgomery County] should just expand outwards from existing cities and not place townhouses and apartments in the middle of single house neighborhoods,” said RM sophomore Andrew Kuan. “Imagine living in a single-house neighborhood and suddenly a few houses next to you are replaced with a huge townhouse. It probably wouldn’t be a very enjoyable experience. Additionally, adding such big developments in single-house neighborhoods would probably have an adverse effect on traffic.”
Sophomore Anthony Wei from Winston Churchill High School expressed a similar view. “[The new buildings] will feel out of place. They won’t feel right, the community will have to make more room for parking and it will disturb residents,” Wei said.
Justin Chung, also a sophomore at Winston Churchill High School, agreed. “It’s gonna disturb the peace of the neighborhoods. To sum it up, there won’t be enough room, there will be more pollution, and it’s not good for the community.” Chung said.
