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Pipeline review: Montgomery Planning finds about 29,500 approved-but-unbuilt housing units; staff separates 'permit-ready' subset
Summary
Planning staff told the committee the county’s entitlement pipeline includes roughly 29,500 unbuilt housing units across several hundred projects, but just under 15,000 units are ‘‘permit-ready.’’ Developers flagged financing gaps, rising construction costs and local policy concerns (including rent stabilization in interviews) as frequent barriers to advancing projects.
Montgomery Planning presented a reappraisal of its development "pipeline," showing roughly 29,500 approved-but-unbuilt housing units across the county and proposing a dashboard that separates those entitlements from a smaller "permit-ready" subset closer to construction.
"When we began this project in February, [the pipeline] consisted of 278 development projects accounting for just under 30,000 unbuilt housing units," planner Kayla Prendergast said, explaining that pipeline entries start when a project receives preliminary-plan approval and that entries are updated three times a year.
Staff said the analysis focused on 88 projects (more than 10 unbuilt units each) that together account for over 99% of units in the entitlement pipeline. "Our initial estimates suggest that while there are roughly 29,500 unbuilt units across 212 projects in the overall entitlement pipeline, only about 14,700 of these across 110 projects are currently permit ready," Prendergast said.
A developer survey and follow-up interviews informed the findings. Alex Pemberton, a real estate planner, said the most frequently cited barriers were "financial feasibility, rising construction costs, and local policy constraints, particularly rent stabilization." He said roughly two‑thirds of responding projects are advancing to some degree, but only about one‑third are "full speed ahead," reflecting a cautious development climate.
Developers and interviewees told staff that approved unit counts often represent an upper bound rather than a guaranteed build count because detailed site design and engineering can reduce unit totals. Staff emphasized the new dashboard’s two-bucket approach — overall entitlement vs. permit-ready — and said additional status fields (e.g., under construction) and recurring quality-control efforts will help avoid misinterpretation of the headline numbers.
Committee members pressed staff for more data and coordination. Vice President Shawanda Truong asked for the developer survey instrument and recommended stronger coordination with the Department of Permitting Services (DPS) before the next briefing. Several members cautioned that while interview respondents raised rent stabilization as a financing concern, it is too early to draw causal conclusions about the law’s effects on the pipeline without more evidence.
Staff proposed preliminary policy responses that include recurring pipeline reviews, improved data sources (permit checks, aerial imagery), publishing user-friendly dashboards and one-pagers, exploring shorter validity periods for approvals coupled with incentives, expanding expedited review categories, evaluating permitting delays with DPS, creating a "Development Approval Specialist" position to help projects get unstuck, and targeted financial tools (pilots, tax increment financing) for large multi‑phase projects. Planning staff will return with refined, fully baked recommendations to the Planning Board on Oct. 16 and to the committee on Oct. 27.
