By Kendrick Brown
Affordable housing development has been a continuous concern for lower-income communities around the Purple Line since the suburban Washington, D.C., light rail line’s conception — but it is becoming more necessary by the day.
“The Purple Line has already increased single-family housing and multifamily rent prices near expected stations, and it hasn’t even opened yet,” said David Bowers, vice president and market leader for the Enterprise Faith-Based Development Initiative at Enterprise Community Partners.
New housing will be needed to accommodate the many people who will now want to live in the area due to the improved transportation access between Prince George’s County and Montgomery County.
But property values are rising for the people who already live there.
The average asking rent price for a two-bed apartment in Montgomery County rose to $2,098 in 2022, according to an overview of rental housing presentation by the county’s planning committee.
That’s a trend that aligns with the rise in property values in similar suburban areas with accessible Metro lines, such as the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor in Arlington, Virginia.
A 2022 study by the University of Maryland’s School of Public Health said that 50 years after its construction, many low-income families can’t even access the rail line, as it’s now surrounded by million-dollar homes.
The same thing could happen in the Purple Line corridor. According to the 2023-2027 Housing Action Plan created by the Purple Line Corridor Coalition, one-quarter of homeowners living in the area already struggle with the cost of homeownership, struggling to pay for mortgage payments, utilities and property taxes.
The coalition also outlines in the action plan that homeowners of color — Black, Hispanic and Asian — struggle even more under these conditions. They pay a higher share of their income to afford their homes compared to other homeowners in the corridor.
“I think there’s a real likelihood of building housing that does not fit the needs of middle-income, working-class and lower-income households and therefore prices people out rather than retaining residents across those three groupings,” said Steve Brigham, engagement consultant for the Purple Line Corridor Coalition.
To combat these growing issues of housing affordability, various organizations have been created and work together to make plans that will benefit the communities along the light rail line.
Formed in 2013, the Purple Line Corridor Coalition is administered by the University of Maryland’s National Center for Smart Growth. The group partners with community organizations, state and local governments, nonprofits, philanthropies and businesses to help members of the community.
The coalition outlines seven core actions in its 2023-2027 housing action plan.
The first action is to accelerate the creation and preservation of affordable homes. The goal is to preserve and improve at least 17,000 homes for households earning up to $72,000 annually, with 10,100 affordable homes completed or in the pipeline as of 2023.
The second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth actions all focus on funding resources and community building to help residents keep their homes, including financial support and education on homebuying.
Action five in the plan also focuses on how to tailor this education, alongside assistance programs and mortgage products, toward minorities.
The final action item focuses on increasing the amount of affordable housing available through land use and zoning changes.
The reason for this approach, according to Nicholas James Finio, is that many areas around the Purple Line “have mostly single-family zoning on relatively large lots, meaning only one house can be built on the lot.”
Finio, associate director for the National Center of Smart Growth, said many of these areas are under zoning codes dating back to the early 1900s — long before the development of the Purple Line. Changing the zoning around these areas to allow more housing, especially mixed housing such as duplexes and triplexes, could help, he added.
All of these solutions face one major issue: funding.
Meeting the coalition’s goal of 17,000 affordable homes requires an investment of $740 million, according to Enterprise Community Partners.
The reason for an investment of that size is that developers need subsidies to make it profitable to build affordable housing.
Subsidies can often be expensive. A Bethesda Magazine article explains the case of Montgomery County, where the high median income means many low-income residents wouldn’t be able to obtain affordable housing without extra funding and consideration.
Prince George’s and Montgomery counties both have right-of-refusal policies that allow them to purchase a property before it is sold to anyone else, which can help protect certain properties for affordable development, but that can only go so far.
“These policies all rely on matching market-rate prices (which may not be possible in every instance and may become more challenging as properties appreciate due to the new transit access created by the Purple Line),” said Laura Searfoss, programs associate director for Enterprise Community Partners.
Still, those policies are important.
“Maryland is at a critical moment as the Purple Line nears its opening date of late 2027, and leaders and developers in the state need to double down on producing and preserving homes in Purple Line communities,” Bowers said.
Featured Image: Campus Drive-UMD Westbound Purple Line Stop on Dec. 7, 2025. Photo by Kendrick Brown.