Leaders in Montgomery County, the third-largest county in Pennsylvania, are looking to ramp up housing development.
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Members of the county's board of commissioners on Thursday set a goal of building 2,000 new housing units each year going forward, and they detailed a plan to do so, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
The first step of their plan is hiring a consultant to study the county's housing market and land-use policies. They then plan to put in place new guidance and tools for municipalities to spur housing development. And they intend to use an incentive approach, offering county grant funding to municipalities that build more housing, the Inquirer reported.
County officials are also reportedly considering creating a land bank that would partner with developers to build housing on underutilized properties. The housing plan also calls for improving the pathway to homeownership and prioritizing the preservation of existing housing stock.
“This is not just another government document that sits on the shelf,” board Chair Jamila Winder told the Inquirer. “These are real, aggressive goals that we have, and we’re going to continue to push the envelope.”
Municipalities in Montgomery County have been an impediment to building new housing in recent years, county officials and developers said at a Bisnow event last summer.
“We need to cut through some of the red tape here in these municipalities,” Montgomery County Commissioner Thomas DiBello said at the event.
Montgomery County has a population of 880,000, trailing only Philadelphia County and Allegheny County in the state, according to U.S. census estimates. But it didn't crack the top 10 in the state's fastest-growing counties between 2020 and 2026, growing just 2.7% over that span.
Rent prices in the county have risen 24% since March 2020 to an average of $1,584, according to Apartment List data. For-sale housing prices in Montgomery County over that same span jumped 47% to $490K, according to Zillow.
The county's new housing plan comes as Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro is pushing to spur more residential construction across the state. He released a plan in February that called for the creation of a $1B state infrastructure fund to support new housing development, and he has said local officials should curtail regulations to make it easier for developers to build housing.
Pennsylvania Apartment Association Vice President of Government Affairs Steven Chintaman told Bisnow in February that local zoning reforms are "critical to address the shortage of affordable housing."
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