'In God's Backyard' Housing Movement Finds Believers In Montgomery Co.

MONTGOMERY COUNTY, MD — Montgomery County officials will be holding a public hearing on Feb. 27 on a proposed change to zoning codes that would allow churches to build both townhouses and apartment buildings on their property as a way to increase the supply of affordable housing in the county.

County officials believe that letting churches build housing on spare land will increase the county’s housing supply at a time when affordable housing is becoming harder to find.

The proposed zoning change plan is called Facilitating Affordable Inclusive Transformational Housing, or FAITH. Montgomery County Council Vice President Kate Stewart told WTOP that the idea is part of a national movement called “Yes in God's Back Yard,” a movement similar to the YIMBYs, or Yes In My Back Yard, a twist on NIMBY or “Not In My Back Yard.”

NIMBYs have a reputation for fighting various types of residential, commercial and industrial development in their communities, while YIMBYs, whose goals often align with developers, use the acronym to sound inclusive and appealing.

Across the Potomac in Arlington, YIMBYs worked with faith groups to convince local leaders to adopt a new zoning policy called Missing Middle that eliminated single-family zoning in the Virginia jurisdiction and allowed developers to build town homes, duplexes and small apartment buildings on the former single-family lots and then sell the new housing units at market rates.

At this time, Montgomery County officials are not prepared to adopt a zoning policy as radical as what Arlington approved a year ago.

The current zoning proposal under consideration in Montgomery County would allow churches that have a parking lot or land that they no longer need to build both market rate and affordable housing on their land. The zoning change could keep the churches financially solvent and help address the county's need for more affordable housing.

Current county codes restrict the building of apartments or townhouses in areas of the county where many churches are located.

The zoning change proposal would lift zoning restrictions for churches and other religious institutions, as long as between 30 percent and 50 percent of the units proposed on the property would be for affordable housing. Affordable housing limits the prices for households earning between 30 percent and 60 percent below the area median income.

"It basically removes barriers to having faith institutions move forward in their mission in helping the county address affordable housing issues, and do it more quickly," Council Vice President Kate Stewart told 7News. "We want to make sure by making it easier to build this type of housing, whether it's for rental or homeownership, that it is also increasing the number of affordable units in our community."

The Montgomery County Council has scheduled a public hearing for Tuesday, Feb. 27 in the Council Office Building at 100 Maryland Avenue in Rockville to discuss the proposal.

Stewart is hoping the council will vote on the bill in March. Of the 11 members of the council, 10 have signed on as co-sponsors.