Montgomery County Council votes to increase impervious surfaces days after new flood risk was revealed

The Montgomery County Council speaks loudly and often about climate change and the environment, but their warmed-over Reaganomics policies betray their true values. This has been revealed once again as the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments has commissioned new flood zone maps that show much more of Montgomery County's land area to be at risk of flash flooding than the standard U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) maps. Several of the areas highlighted on the new maps experienced significant flooding during an unusually-heavy rain event last month. But just four days after MWCOG released its new flood danger maps to elected officials in MoCo and elsewhere in the region, the Montgomery County Council went ahead and approved new zoning rules that will increase the amount of impervious surface area in many of the very neighborhoods identified as now being at high risk of flash flooding.

Under the Reaganesque Thrive 2050/"More Housing N.O.W." zoning text amendment approved by a majority of the Council on July 22, 2025, the allowed increase in impervious surfaces are almost entirely permitted in the downcounty areas like Bethesda and Silver Spring. That is where the greatest flooding risks are located. Despite having access to this new flood danger report and maps on four days earlier on July 18, our "green" County Council bulldozed ahead, and voted to approve a massive increase in impervious surfaces in the very areas at highest risk. Single-family home neighborhoods where houses are currently surrounded by soil and grass lawns will now be open to four-story apartment buildings.

Just in the River Road corridor of Bethesda alone, the properties where the greater impervious surfaces will be allowed are within the flood zones of at least three major streams. Of course, the increased flooding we have already been experiencing in Montgomery County over the last decade is in large part due to the massive development approved this century by the County Council. This is the same reason we have an overpopulation of deer and even wandering bears in the downcounty, as these animals have been forced out of their forests that have fallen to the chainsaws and bulldozers of our supply-side, trickle-down, voodoo economics County Council. The same Council that swears by the Laffer Curve - but only when it applies to their developer sugar daddies.

The reckless decision by the Council could have ramifications in the 2026 elections. Councilmembers Evan Glass and Andrew Friedson voted for the ZTA to increase impervious surfaces in flood danger zones, and they are both running for County Executive. One of their opponents in the Democratic primary is their colleague, Councilmember Will Jawando, who did not vote for the ZTA. Jawando could now use this scandal as another point to differentiate himself from his Reagan Democrat rivals. And Councilmembers running for reelection will have to answer to voters who might raise the topic on the campaign trail, to explain why they voted to put their current and future constituents at greater risk of flood damage and death. Heckuva job, Brownie!