An explainer on how the IRS, property owners, appraisers, and engineers measure the lifespan of an apartment building, and why those measurements are not interchangeable. When someone says an apartment building has reached the end of its “useful life,” it does not mean the building is structurally unsafe, falling apart,Continue Reading
Gaithersburg’s city council approved a construction contract for its new City Hall in a 5-0 vote on Oct. 19, two weeks after tabling the same contract 3-2. The guaranteed maximum price, $24,705,523, came in 54.4% over the $16 million budget written into the city’s 2025 construction-manager contract, according to aContinue Reading
The Montgomery County Council’s Government Operations and Fiscal Policy (GO) Committee voted 3-0 Thursday, Oct. 29, to recommend three property tax credit bills to the full Council, after a Department of Finance official gave the panel cost estimates higher than the figure in one bill’s written fiscal note. In aContinue Reading
Montgomery County health officials gave the County Council a new figure Oct. 29 for how many residents are affected by a federal law that narrowed Medicaid eligibility for noncitizens starting Oct. 1: 1,082. Officials described the number in two ways. A slide shown to the Council’s Health and Human ServicesContinue Reading
Montgomery County Public Schools says it is running out of places to park its school buses, and that next school year it will park some of them at its own properties that will not be operating as schools. “ALL current transportation depots are operating exceeding capacity,” according to a slideContinue Reading
Replacing a single high school’s heating and cooling system now costs Montgomery County Public Schools $45 million to $55 million, up from the $30 million to $35 million the district projected a year ago, a 50% to 57% jump, according to a capital budget presentation MCPS administration gave the BoardContinue Reading
Montgomery County is backing a 7% ceiling on next year’s WSSC Water rate increase. Prince George’s County approved 5% on Oct. 20. The 2-point gap is worth about $22 million a year to the utility that serves both counties, and for the third year in a row, the two councilsContinue Reading
Montgomery County has 27,274 age-restricted housing units and beds for older adults, and 418 of them are in market-rate independent-living rental buildings, according to a July 2026 Urban Institute report going to the Montgomery County Planning Board on Thursday, Oct. 29. The Urban Institute report, Aging Well in Place inContinue Reading
The Montgomery County Council will introduce two resolutions on Tuesday, Oct. 27, that take opposite positions on the Resource Recovery Facility, the county’s trash incinerator in Dickerson. Option 1 supports keeping the incinerator open for the long term. Option 2 supports closing it and disposing of the county’s trash atContinue Reading
Montgomery County’s draft list of requests for the 2027 Maryland General Assembly session asks state lawmakers for the power to levy a local sales tax and to set different property tax rates for commercial, industrial and residential property. The draft, which the packet calls County Executive Marc Elrich’s recommended priorities,Continue Reading