Ad Valorem Tax

Summary

Montgomery County Parking Lot Districts (PLDs) operates more than 20,000 public parking spaces. This represents half of the publicly available parking in three of the largest central business districts - Bethesda, Silver Spring and Wheaton - as well as the Montgomery Hills community. These public inventories provide a shared pool of parking resources for the benefit of all area businesses, patrons and commuters. They also provide a viable alternate to on-site parking requirements in return for payment of an annual Ad Valorem tax that provides significant program funding underwriting PLD costs.

In each of the four PLDs (Bethesda, Silver Spring, Wheaton and Montgomery Hills) minimum parking requirements do not need to be met on site. Instead, a property owner may choose to provide fewer than the required number of parking spaces and pay a County-accessed property-value (Ad Valorem) tax. This revenue is directed towards the PLD program for the purpose of providing shared, public parking. Land owners who provide the minimum requirement as defined by Article 59-6 of the County Zoning Code can apply for exemption from paying this tax.

The NEW County Zoning Code (Article 59-6) and County Code (Chapter 60) are available on the American Legal Publishing website. To access earlier version of the Zoning Code, click here.

Click here to access PLD Maps.

Exemption Application

Any property owner or lessee in any Parking Lot District may apply for an exemption from the Ad Valorem tax as described in Chapter 60 of the Montgomery County Code. All exemption request applications must be submitted on or before April 1 on the application year.

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