The rent in Montgomery County is too high, and so is a mortgage — but there is little consensus on what to do about it.

That’s the crux of a new poll commissioned by The Banner, which found housing costs to be the top issue that residents want county leaders to address. The responses mirror several other surveys that show housing at the forefront of Marylanders’ minds, as demand for homes outstrips supply.

More than eight in 10 respondents said that the county’s lack of affordable housing is a problem.

“It’s a difficult place to live and have ends meet,” said Sara Mogilski, who took part in the poll. Despite her steady paycheck, the mother of two, who lives in Olney, started looking for a more affordable place to live not long ago, but she found nothing that met her family’s criteria.

The poll shows residents are divided over proposed solutions to the problem. Many don’t want to see zoning code changes to allow for multifamily and taller buildings. Proposals to open up more agricultural land for development have met resistance. And the idea of permitting more housing for people with lower incomes also faces opposition.

These tensions aren’t exclusive to Montgomery County. But as the most populous jurisdiction in Maryland, they’re amplified. County leaders feel the pressure to act, but they also know that much of what they propose will anger large swaths of voters. Doing nothing, the poll shows, won’t play well with their constituents either.

The poll sheds light on the intensity of the frustration over housing in Montgomery County. But it could also point to changes that may be more palatable than others, such as developing housing near transit hubs, which scored favorably with more than 70% of respondents.

“It would be an overstatement to say that Montgomery County residents want growth at all costs,” said Steve Raabe, owner of OpinionWorks, a nonpartisan research firm in Annapolis. “They want growth in a certain way.”

A stab at the problem

County and state leaders have made several attempts in recent years to make homes more affordable.

In 2023, the Montgomery County Council voted in favor of a rent stabilization law. They followed up in 2025 with the More Housing N.O.W. legislative package, which, among other goals, encourages the construction of duplexes and small apartment buildings along major transit corridors.

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore signed an executive order earlier this month to boost housing development, including a provision that would allow building on state-controlled land.

Approaching the final year of his term, Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich said he plans to propose increasing the number of affordable and moderately priced units required in larger buildings.

The lack of affordable housing is also weighing on people with higher incomes.

Tyler McClenithan, a faculty member in Montgomery College’s counseling department, said that most of his colleagues can’t afford to live where they work.

McClenithan, 34, makes a six-figure salary but said it’s not enough to purchase a home as a single person. He rents an apartment in Rockville and started volunteering with a community group pushing for the Rockville City Council to pass rent control legislation.

He also keeps a close eye on other local housing issues, such as development around transit stops.

“To me, it’s batshit insane that literally right next to the Rockville Metro there’s a surface-level parking lot,” as opposed to apartments, he said. “That just is a terrible use of our land.”

A slim majority of poll respondents — about 53% — said county leadership should be doing a better job of managing growth.

Some longtime county residents, many of whom live in predominantly single-family-home neighborhoods, have serious qualms about increasing the pace of development.

Sarah Price, a retired IT manager who also worked as a real estate agent, said the abundance of open land and trees drew her to Montgomery Village in the 1990s.

It’s where she and her husband want to stay. But she feels that an influx of townhomes in Montgomery Village is encroaching on the green space that she loves.

“It seems like they’re putting them up overnight,” she said.

Out of touch

Though Montgomery County residents have one of the highest median incomes in the nation, the projected salary needed to afford a house has jumped by about $30,000 since 2000, according to a statewide housing study from the University of Maryland.

This has prevented all but the wealthiest to enter the market and deepened racial disparities in housing.

It’s also led to more overcrowding in rental units. The county has one of the largest shortfalls of homes for extremely low-income households in the state, the study indicated.

One Montgomery County program meant to make housing more affordable for some has also left many people behind. The Moderately Priced Dwelling Units program offers homes to renters and first-time buyers who make no more than 70% of the area median income; in the Washington metro area, the limit for a family of two is around $79,500, according to the county’s Department of Housing and Community Affairs.

“We’re always bragging about our MPDU program. We still brag about it,” Elrich said. But “this isn’t serving everybody.”

To address this, he’d like to require around 30% of units in new developments to be reserved for people who struggle with housing costs — about half for those who make less than a median income threshold and half for those who earn somewhat more.

Both young people and older adults are feeling the pinch. Diana Bird, a retired Montgomery County Housing Authority employee, said her peers and daughter have struggled to find and afford housing, especially over the last few years.

Bird volunteers with Action in Montgomery, an interfaith community advocacy group she learned about through her church. People are having trouble paying rising property taxes, Bird said, and she knows some are considering leaving the county for more affordable places to live. Many fear they will no longer be able to live near their families.

“The strain on the housing stock, and on people’s ability to find decent housing, has increased over the years,” said Bird, who lives in the Silver Spring area.

Housing growth has slowed considerably in Montgomery County since it peaked in the 1980s, when nearly 80,000 units were built over a decade.

About 39,000 units were built in the 1990s, and construction has declined steadily since.

Montgomery County’s population — now at 1.1 million — is expected to continue rising too, increasing the demand for homes. The county’s planning department has projected that between 2020 and 2050 the local population will jump about 18%. Decreased building activity and fewer sales mean less revenue for the county budget and higher costs for consumers.

“Montgomery County is an awesome place to live and people want to live here, but they can’t afford to live here if we don’t build more housing,” said Russell Brazil, president-elect of the board for the Greater Capital Area Association of Realtors.

Some in the county have floated loosening restrictions in the Agricultural Reserve, an area that comprises about one-third of the county’s total land, where development is limited to one house per 25 acres. In the Banner poll, 47% of respondents were against opening up a part of the reserve to build more housing, while 35% supported it.

Meanwhile, some feel the county needs to better accommodate developers with looser legal regulations and more financial help as construction and labor costs rise.

Brian Anleu, vice president of government affairs for Maryland at the Apartment and Office Building Association of Metropolitan Washington, said law and policy changes have created a “hostile” environment for investors, who are “voting with their feet” by opting out of Montgomery County.

He pointed to the declining number of building permits issued in Montgomery County last year and said it should serve as a wake-up call.

Anleu said that new building and construction requirements in Maryland, including rules about air conditioning and fire safety, are well-intentioned but raise costs for builders. And county-specific tenant and landlord policies, he added, including rent stabilization, cause headaches for landlords and property owners.

Changing attitudes

Development plans often attract loud, coordinated opposition. But The Banner’s poll shows that residents are, on the whole, open to growth.

A clear majority, 57%, said that county growth over the last few years has been either about right or too slow.

“What we see in these numbers is very little appetite for the slowing of growth,” OpinionWorks’ Raabe said.

Robert A. Goldman, president of Montgomery Housing Partnership, which builds affordable housing in Montgomery County and nearby areas, said recent changes in attitudes about growth are a byproduct of the coronavirus pandemic, which wreaked havoc on the county’s economy.

Now, many are looking for ways to prime the county’s economic pump.

A recently developed 189-unit building near the Forest Glen Metro garnered more support from the neighborhood “YIMBYs” than from the “NIMBYs,” Goldman said, using the shorthands for “yes in my backyard” and “not in my backyard.”

Almost 900 people applied to rent in the building, despite little outside marketing of the project.

Montgomery County Council President Kate Stewart agrees that the county has to incentivize developers to build affordable units. Business owners, she said, tell her that their employees need to be able to afford to live near where they work.

Stewart, whose district includes parts of Silver Spring, Bethesda, Chevy Chase and Takoma Park, said constituents tell her that the county needs to be a place where young people can consider settling down.

“Right now, that’s becoming almost impossible,” she said.

Methodology: The Banner poll, conducted by OpinionWorks, surveyed 910 Montgomery County residents. Responses were gathered via telephone and online survey from Aug. 16-23. The statistical margin of error is plus or minus 3.2 percentage points.