By Adam Pagnucco.
Below are the top ten stories on Montgomery Perspective in July 2025, ranked by page views.
1. MoCo’s Multifamily Construction Market Disappears
2. Response: The North Bethesda Lease is a Bad Idea and a Serious Mistake
3. Elrich Wants to Tighten Rent Control
4. MCPS’s Wildly Skewed Community Survey Responses
5. The Banner Holds a Coming Out Party
6. The Eight Billion Dollar War
7. MoCo Rent Control Story Goes International
8. Rockville Rejects Rent Control Again
9. MCEA Files Grievance Against MCPS Over Payment Problems
10. Has Rent Control Reduced Homelessness and Evictions in MoCo?
MCPS, move over – MoCo’s rent control disaster accounted for half of July’s top ten stories on Montgomery Perspective. After I published details of how MoCo’s multifamily permits vaporized after rent control took effect, the excuse coming from my county government sources was that the housing slowdown was a regional phenomenon and not specific to the county. Then I published this chart from the planning department and – POOF! – that excuse was vaporized too.
What now? It’s useful to consider what is happening in St. Paul, Minnesota, which passed rent control a year and a half before MoCo did and saw its building permits collapse by more than 80 percent. Panicked local officials weakened their law twice in 2022 and just this year and now allow landlords to routinely bypass their rent cap. (Meanwhile, the taxpayer-funded Renters Alliance laughably claimed that St. Paul representatives “report that their rent stabilization program is going strong and is not being ‘walked back.’”)
Yes, St. Paul is starting to walk back rent control.
The other big story in July was the eight billion dollar war over the county’s pension and retiree health care funds, which has culminated in the waste of millions of dollars in procuring unnecessary, half-empty office space. Is anyone in county government going to put a stop to this abuse of public money?
On to August!