Montgomery County - Zoning - Density

[Lydia Lorraine]

Hey! 

I am working with an owner of an office building in Montgomery County Maryland. They are looking to redevelop their property into multifamily and wanted to research what is allowed by right... It seems that other redevelopment projects have far extended what's allowable by right. 

The Edge apartments is 160,000 SF and it sits on .37 AC, so with a 2.5 FAR I got 40,655 SF allowed.. how is this allowed? 

The Bethesda office center is going to be at least 270,000 SF (300 units x 900 SF). I believe has 3 tax parcels which is a little confusing. But in total it sits on 1.33 AC, with FAR of 1.5, making max allowable by-right 86,772 SF. Costar has the proposed site being 300 units, 50,000 SF, but that doesn’t sound right to me.

So there is some method in which these developers are building above the max FAR on the zoning map? What I'm thinking is potentially they are working with the county/city, and putting in x amount of workforce/affordable housing. Which will allow developers to beef up the density. Could also be a case where if these developers have affordable or workforce housing projects already in a nearby vicinity, they can build whatever else they want as an “extension” of a current/ongoing project, without having to put those incentives in a new development. Not sure. 

Are they buying density rights from the county? Could someone explain to me what the Bethesda Overlay Zone (BOZ) Density or FAR Averaging is??