Moore signs housing law that could spur Prince George's County transit development

Prince George’s County could see some of the first real changes from Wes Moore’s new housing law at places like Metro’s Capitol Heights station, where the state is trying to make station-area projects easier to finance and faster to approve. The new package is aimed at more than 300 acres of state-owned land near transit stations and could produce at least 7,000 new homes statewide, with Prince George’s, Montgomery County, Baltimore City and Baltimore County expected to feel the biggest effect.

Moore signed the Transit and Housing Opportunity Act and the Maryland Housing Certainty Act on May 27, pairing housing production with child care affordability in one move. The governor has said Maryland owns a large amount of underused land, and the new law is meant to put that land to work. For Prince George’s County, where rail corridors already support demand for apartments and townhomes, the change could matter most on transit-oriented sites that have been stalled by high costs, shifting local rules and the risk that projects lose their financing before they break ground.

The Housing Certainty Act changes the ground rules for developers who already have projects in the pipeline. Under the law, approved or denied housing-development applications will be judged by the laws and regulations in effect when a complete application was submitted. Approved projects also gain vested rights for the longer of five years or a local period set by the jurisdiction or the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission. The bill further bars certain development excise taxes and development impact fees from being collected before a housing project is completed, a change that could improve the math on denser projects near stations where land and construction costs are already high.

The state’s housing shortage has been estimated at 275,000 units, and Moore previewed the transit-and-housing push at Capitol Heights on January 6, 2026, saying Maryland had more than 300 acres of state-owned land near transit sitting dormant. The child care side of the package was meant to reinforce the same affordability message. The Maryland State Department of Education said the Child Care Scholarship Program stopped issuing new scholarships on May 1, 2025, after enrollment grew from about 21,000 children in January 2023 to more than 45,000. Together, the housing and child care changes are designed to help families live closer to work and lower the pressure that keeps rents and home prices climbing across Prince George’s County.