Housing Affordability in the Balance as County Debate Continues

The Prince George's County Council continues its debate over new housing development, including the fate of two Bowie-area properties.

As part of its work on the Bowie Sectional Map Amendment, the Prince George's County Council voted to prepare amendments that would retain both the Freeway Airport and Frank’s Nursery properties in single-family zones rather than allow townhomes as the owners had originally hoped.

Those amendments are two of several offered at the work session that will eventually go to a public hearing. The two properties are part of a tug-of-war between the County Council and the property owners.

The fights started when residents opposed to townhome development at the locations persuaded the new County Council to undo previous changes that made the higher density possible.

Back and forth court rulings, notably on the Freeway Airport Property on Church Road, resulted in wins for the developers. The Maryland Supreme Court found that initial text amendments allowing the higher density were lawful.

A new county bill that would have paused townhouses at these and other locations has shifted instead to a task force to address the properties.

County bill CR-081-2023 will create a task force that county planning staff have described will square current development policies with the county's General Plan and address residents' opposition to denser development.

Housing demand in Prince George's County has become insatiable in recent years, powered by a growing regional tech sector and strong federal job availability. The fast-growing, high-income workforce has sent area home values skyward.

Single family Bowie homes that sold for $285,000 in 2013 are now regularly selling for up to $475,000, with new single family homes listing above $700,000.

Some new area subdivisions are seeing listing prices above $900,000, including the new Fairway Estates community bordering Bowie and Glenn Dale. Solel at Bowie, a small gated subdivision is listing new homes at $1.25 million.

Housing experts have expressed concern that fast-rising prices could result in unintended negative affects.

Among the concerns is greater multi-family cohabitation in neighborhoods built for single-family living. This trend can create pressure on communities for additional services without capturing the needed tax revenue to fund them that would come with ample housing growth.

"When there's unmet demand for housing, people still need a place to live, so they start turning to multi-family cohabitation wherever housing exists," according to one housing expert.

Area residents have observed jammed residential streets where multiple families increasingly live in single family homes, sometimes as renters, sometimes as co-owners.

The sky-high prices have also attracted the attention of Wall Street, with real estate firms increasingly getting into the single family housing market.

"When prices and interest rates are this high, and there's a belief that prices will only go up, investors take notice. Major firms have the capital to invest in property that individual families just don't have in this environment."

In the long run, a lack of attainable housing can trigger the worst outcome of all, namely the pervasive homelessness that has descended on many US cities.

"When the market prices out more and more families, you see the rich buying middle income housing, middle income residents buying working class housing, and the working class left living crammed into what's left, or worse, living in cars and on the street."

Left unaddressed, endlessly fast-rising housing prices can trigger the sort of intractable homelessness seen in San Francisco, Denver, Portland, and increasingly Washington, DC.

"Once widespread homelessness sets in, it can take decades to solve. It's just not a problem that ever goes away easily."

With sky-high interest rates adding to the burden of fast-rising home prices, townhomes are replacing the once affordable single family starter home for first-time buyers.

New townhomes in the county are listing closer to $500,000.

Challenging the ever popular townhome demand are incumbent residents concerned about worsening traffic and loss of green space to make way for new development.

The DC region, like many across the car-centered US does not have especially good traffic solutions to address growth apart from encouraging new development to be as self-contained as possible.

There is some hope that the DC region's high work-from-home culture and growing prevalence of walkable, mixed-use communities will help curb some of the additional traffic from new housing.

Anne Arundel, Howard, and Montgomery Counties have seen a greater prevalence of high-end, walkable townhome and apartment communities with on-site restaurants and stores.

While these communities are never totally self-contained, the reduced car trips and higher tax revenue relative to infrastructure costs have helped balance those housing markets, meeting growing demand while not adding to the unsustainable public costs of new low density subdivisions.

Prince George's County will have a good deal of work ahead to balance resident opposition to growth with the need for housing accessible to increasingly priced-out middle income families.