Rent Limits Lead To Mixed Results In Suburbs Here
Apartment construction in the Washington suburbs has been primarily affected by the availability of land, government subsidies and interest rates, rather than the presence or absence of rent control.</br></br>In the past six years, both during and after rent control in Montgomery County, twice as many apartments have been built there as in Fairfax County, where there has been no rent control. Rents in the two counties have remained comparable, although Montgomery still imposes an informal version of rent control on newly built units.</br></br>In the year after rent control, nearly 40 percent of the rent increases in Montgomery exceeded the "voluntary guidelinesÛ of 10 percent. Last year, more than 45 percent exceeded the guidelines, which were set at 7.1 percent. The average rent rise, however, was 7.6 percent, close to the guidelines and less than the 8.4 percent average rent increase in Fairfax.</br></br>Prince GeorgeÛªs County lifted rent control in 1976, but only 1,306 new units have been built, mostly for the elderly. County officials made a conscious decision to discourage multifamily housing and spur building of single-family homes, following the surge of garden apartment construction in the county during the 1960s, County Executive Parris Glendening said.</br></br>ÛÏAs it happened, we lifted rent control at a time when we also decided the county didnÛªt need more apartments,Û said Glendening, who had been a member of the County Council that ended rent control.