By Adam Pagnucco.
My last question to Council Members Andrew Friedson and Kate Stewart was about the economy, which I profiled at length in a recent series. Sadly, I could not transcribe their answers from the file I had because that section of it was inaudible. But this was not the last question of the morning as I was handed an index card containing a question from the audience. And it was about what is currently the hottest issue for both the county council and the real estate industry: rent control. Following is the question and the answers from the two council members.
Question
The sources of economic data, including in the OLO report – the Office of Legislative Oversight – show that rent control really hurts housing stock. How does Montgomery County passing rent control help the housing stock that we really need?
Council Member Friedson
Yesterday, the Planning, Housing and Parks Committee had a hearing on a version of rent control. It was approved. There were two different proposals. One was a strict rent control, one of the strictest in the region if not the country. The other one was an anti-gouging measure that I along with several other colleagues had introduced to address gouging. I was prepared to lower the anti-gouging bill to a number that would have been acceptable that would have found a balance between not acting on housing stock, which has been historically challenged in Montgomery County which tried rent control in the 1970s and shows we have challenges across the country, and the need for protections for renters among Montgomery County residents.
Ultimately, the committee decided to move forward with something that is a slight amendment from the HOME Act, the more strict rent control policy. I did not vote for it because it goes too far.
The challenge in housing is trying to find that appropriate balance between protecting those people who desperately need housing and making sure that we address the fundamental issue in housing, which is supplying enough. And we can only nurture nature. And nature is the market economy. And we are just a county government. And the challenge that we have that I’m concerned about is that we have historically not built nearly enough housing. And if we don’t do the right thing on this particular legislation when it comes to full council, that we’re going to run the risk of making it harder and less desirable to build housing and we therefore will get less of it.
And it speaks directly to broader economic challenges that we have when it comes to housing. You can’t take three steps forward with incentives and then take three steps back with disincentives. We have to find the right balance to provide the level of protections that we need while incentivizing what we want. I don’t think what came out of committee ultimately reflected that…
Photo credit: Greater Bethesda Chamber of Commerce.
Council Member Stewart
I did before the last committee – I’m not on the Planning, Housing and Parks Committee – but I did write a memo, and thank you for putting it out in your blog, that outlined my position. And as I have talked to many of you, I always look at what the role of our government is on these issues, is to ensure that people have safe, stable, predictable housing. And it is that balance between looking at the supply and how do we keep encouraging housing to be built and making sure that people can plan for the future by having predictable housing. And I will say predictability and our role as a government to be sure that our community is not just for people who are renting, but one of the things that we also just did then – I realized the other day that on the impact tax cap that we co-led on was actually my first bill in the county council. And that is also important because what we were seeing is because of inflation the impact fees were really shooting up. And we needed to make sure that we had predictability for the market and for people who are coming and building in our community.
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Rent control is THE issue of the month and probably of the year too. When it comes to rent control, the details matter a lot. We shall see how those details evolve as the council moves towards action later this month.