On Tuesday, the Montgomery County Council voted unanimously to approve the Thrive Montgomery 2050 update to the county’s general plan.

In comments ahead of the vote, Council President Gabe Albornoz noted that an extraordinary amount of work had gone into the project.

Councilmember Hans Riemer added, “We’re today going to act on a long-needed update to our general plan.”

“In many ways this document is the beginning, not the end,” Councilmember Sidney Katz said. Katz had been the one potential holdout to a unanimous vote, but on Monday he said he’d support the plan.

A number of community members present for the vote waved signs opposing Thrive and reacted with loud booing as councilmembers expressed support for the plan.

Albernoz used his gavel to quiet the room, saying it was the first time he’d ever had to do so.

Thrive Montgomery 2050 is the first comprehensive update to the county’s general plan in decades. In the works since 2018, the plan provides a framework for planning decisions in the county for the next thirty years, addressing everything from equity in development to public transit to environmental resilience. The Planning Board approved a draft of the plan in 2021 and sent it to the council for a vote.

But what has sparked the most contentious debate in the plan is housing, including how to add more affordable housing in an area where both the cost of living and housing prices have skyrocketed. With approximately 85% of the land in Montgomery County already developed or “otherwise constrained,” the challenge Thrive 2050 aims to tackle is how to address the needs of a population expected to add 200,000 residents over the next thirty years.

Proponents of the plan say Thrive would undo zoning policies that have reinforced segregation within the county for decades. Many of the wealthy majority white areas of Montgomery County are that way today because of zoning ordinances once used to create racially exclusive neighborhoods.

Montgomery for All, an advocacy group organized by the Coalition for Smarter Growth, has been a leading voice supporting Thrive. The group says the plan encourages building a range of housing options near public transit and protects existing public housing. It also supports encouraging mixed-use development to create walkable neighborhoods with a range of amenities. All of this, the group says, “paves the way for a more equitable, prosperous, and sustainable future” for Montgomery County.

But some are not sold, including County Executive Marc Elrich, who has expressed his opposition to drafts of the plan. Elrich says the plan will do little to address the shortage of affordable housing for the county’s lowest-income residents. Elrich has repeatedly criticized the plan over the potential for future upzoning – changing zoning codes to allow bigger buildings and more density. He says this approach has not worked in the past to get developers to build more lower income housing units.

While Thrive itself does not change any zoning, it could allow for zoning changes in future general plans, which planning officials will base on the Thrive 2050 blueprint.

On Friday, Elrich sent a letter to the County Council asking councilmembers to vote “no” on the plan.

Albornoz called the move “political posturing,” and sent a response on Monday.

The Montgomery County Civic Federation, a non-profit umbrella group of community organizations, also opposes the plan, and the group  released a formal resolution calling upon the county council to vote down the plan and continue the process with the new council that will be elected in November. The Federation wrote that there has been “grossly inadequate public outreach and community engagement related to the draft Plan,” and cited flaws within the plan. The group opposes all potential upzoning and proposes scrapping the plan and starting from scratch.

Some homeowners have also expressed concern over Thrive’s plan to create more multi-unit housing near Metro stations, which they say could affect neighborhoods currently zoned for single-family homes.

At a Kojo in Our Community event hosted by WAMU 88.5 earlier this month, Tanya Stern, the county’s Acting Planning Director, responded to criticism from some in the audience about inadequate outreach by the department.

Prior to stepping into her current role earlier this month, Stern served as Deputy Planning Director and was part of what she described as the “core team” for Thrive Montgomery 2050. Stern says there was a year of in-person outreach and education about the plan before her team was restricted by COVID. Then, despite the limitations COVID-19 imposed, the County Council gave her team a deadline of April 2021 to complete outreach. Stern says the planning department pivoted and held virtual forums in both English and Spanish, along with other forms of community engagement.

With the vote on the council drawing closer this month, public debate grew more heated. Meanwhile, the county’s planning board descended into chaos. Multiple scandals led to the resignation of all five members of the board earlier this month. That led to questions about the future of Thrive 2050, but the council vowed to stay the course and vote on the plan this month.

In a press conference on Monday, Albernoz had said that if the plan was approved, “The next phase of this will be discussing the actual implementation within zone text amendments, and so there will be more of an opportunity for more conversations at that point.”

He also noted that passing the plan is the responsibility of the council, and “well within its purview” to enact it.

On Tuesday afternoon, County Executive Elrich released a statement saying he is disappointed that the council decided to vote in favor of the plan. “There were many important questions that were never answered and reasons to postpone this vote,” he wrote. But, Elrich wrote, he looks forward to collaborating with the council to “develop solutions to our ongoing housing affordability crisis,” which, he said, is not addressed by Thrive.

Elrich cannot veto or amend the plan.

“I think [Thrive Montgomery 2050] does a reasonable job of striking a balance between a number of interests and views, and does provide a roadmap for how the county can grow and prosper for generations to come,” Albornoz said.

This story was updated to include a statement from County Executive Marc Elrich.