Prince George's County, Maryland's County Council voted 9-2 in April 2026 to impose a $5,000 annual use and occupancy permit fee on self-storage facilities operating in the county. The fee applies to gun stores, liquor retailers, and tobacco shops as well. Council Chair Krystal Oriadha sponsored the legislation. The fee increases annually.
The bill passed over significant opposition. Lobbyist Bruce Bereano attended the council session on behalf of the self-storage industry and called the legislation "outrageous" and "slanderous" during public testimony. He indicated the measure would be challenged in court. Two council members, Sydney Harrison and Jolene Ivey, voted against it on grounds of legal concern. The county's own office of law had reviewed and endorsed the legislation as legally sound.
The explicit grouping of self-storage with firearms dealers, liquor stores, and tobacco retailers is not a technicality. It is a policy statement about how the county views the industry's social value relative to its land use footprint. It is also not an isolated position. It is the sharpest version of a stance that dozens of municipalities have taken through zoning amendments, development moratoriums, and permitting constraints over the past four years.
What Is the Scope of Municipal Self-Storage Restrictions?
The city-by-city pattern of self-storage restrictions has reached a threshold that developers and operators can no longer treat as background noise. Moratoriums and outright bans have been enacted across cities in at least 15 U.S. states. Approximately 80% of self-storage development projects now require a conditional use permit rather than proceeding by right, adding months of public hearings, design review, and political uncertainty before a shovel enters the ground.
The listed examples are representative, not exhaustive. Denver has banned new self-storage development within a quarter-mile of light-rail stations. Sacramento has excluded the use from key commercial corridors in the name of walkability. Atlanta's City Council committee is actively considering an expansion of existing self-storage development restrictions along the Beltline overlay district. Loveland, Colorado banned self-storage development from city-owned land entirely.
In early 2026 alone, Cashmere, Washington enacted an emergency moratorium on mini-storage in its downtown core after the city council voted on February 23 to pause development while planners review whether storage belongs in areas designated for higher-intensity commercial and housing uses. Prattville, Alabama has had a temporary moratorium in place on mini-warehouses and self-storage facilities through at least June 16, 2026. Carmel, New York is advancing a zoning change that would permit only facilities already existing or approved before March 1, 2025, effectively closing the market to new entrants.
What Is the Official Reasoning?
The arguments municipalities use to justify restrictions fall into three categories: job intensity, tax revenue, and urban vitality.
Self-storage generates minimal permanent employment per square foot compared to retail, light industrial, or office uses. A 100,000-square-foot facility may employ two to four full-time staff. A comparable footprint of manufacturing, distribution, or commercial retail generates significantly more employment and sales-tax revenue. Local governments with constrained land and housing pressure consistently rate self-storage as a low-priority use for commercially zoned parcels.
New York City formalized this reasoning through its self-storage text amendment, which requires a special permit from the City Planning Commission for any new self-storage development within designated areas in Manufacturing districts, which largely coincide with Industrial Business Zones. The stated objective is to prevent self-storage from displacing more job-intensive industrial businesses. The NYC Department of City Planning framed the restriction as protecting industrial job creation potential, not penalizing self-storage operators.
Thousand Oaks, California's City Council voted unanimously in October 2022 to restrict new self-storage to M-1 industrial park and M-2 manufacturing zones, with additional distance requirements of at least 1,000 feet from a freeway and 500 feet from arterial streets. That restriction has been in place for over three years and remains the operating framework for new development there. Projects outside those zones require a special-use permit and the political exposure that entails.
It seems that every municipality has tried to control the development of self-storage in recent years by creating burdensome special conditions, new zoning laws and even moratoriums on the use.
- Inside Self-Storage, Analysis of Municipal Zoning Trends
How Does the Prince George's County Fee Change the Calculus?
The Prince George's County ordinance introduces a cost structure that no other major county has applied to operating self-storage businesses, as distinct from development activity. Prior municipal actions have mostly restricted where new facilities can be built. This measure charges existing facilities for the right to remain open.
At $5,000 annually, with scheduled annual increases, the fee is not large enough to threaten viability for a typical multi-thousand-unit facility generating several million dollars in annual revenue. The operational impact is modest. The legal and reputational precedent is more significant.
The practical concern is what the grouping signals about how self-storage is being perceived by elected officials. A county categorizing storage facilities alongside businesses subject to stricter social-harm oversight is making a judgment that the industry is, in some regulatory sense, analogous to vice commerce. That framing, if adopted in other jurisdictions, has the potential to expand from permit fees into more restrictive licensing requirements, operating-hour limitations, or tenant-protection mandates beyond what state law already requires.
The industry's legal challenge threat is the appropriate response, and the outcome will matter. If the fee survives court review, it provides a replicable template. If it is struck down on constitutional or preemption grounds, it establishes a limit on what municipalities can do to operating businesses through permit fee structures.
What Does This Mean for Operators and Developers?
For operators, the immediate compliance question is simple: if your facilities are in Prince George's County, the $5,000 permit is not optional. Monitor the legal challenge status. Engage your state association to track whether similar measures are introduced in neighboring Maryland counties or other jurisdictions.
For developers, the conditional use permit burden is already the baseline assumption in most markets. Roughly 80% of projects now require it. Designing for zoning approval from the start, rather than seeking it as a secondary step, is no longer a best practice. It is a prerequisite. Municipalities that require masonry, stucco, architectural glass, facade modulation, varied rooflines, and landscape screening are not going away. The architectural cost premium for approval-ready self-storage design is now a standard line item in development pro formas.
The pipeline data and the municipal restriction data point in the same direction in oversupplied markets. Cities with heavy new self-storage construction are simultaneously the cities most likely to have enacted or be considering use restrictions. Phoenix, Austin, Atlanta, Charlotte, and similar Sun Belt markets where rates are under pressure are also the markets where city councils are most aware of self-storage's land use footprint. The two pressures are related: communities that feel over-served by self-storage are more likely to restrict new entrants.
In undersupplied coastal markets, the calculus is different. New York, Boston, and Seattle are structurally short on self-storage relative to demand, but their regulatory environments make new development costly and slow. The combination of zoning restrictions, permitting requirements, and land scarcity keeps those markets undersupplied. That is, at the moment, good for existing operators who hold positions there.
The Numbers Worth Writing Down
- Prince George's County, MD: $5,000 annual use and occupancy permit fee on self-storage, passed 9-2 in April 2026, fee increases annually
- Approximately 80% of self-storage development projects now require conditional use permits, up from a minority proceeding by right
- Moratoriums or outright development bans enacted in municipalities across at least 15 states
- Cashmere, WA: Emergency moratorium on mini-storage in downtown core enacted February 23, 2026
- Prattville, AL: Temporary moratorium on self-storage through June 16, 2026
- Carmel, NY: Advancing zoning change to bar new facilities not approved before March 1, 2025
- Denver: Banned self-storage within a quarter-mile of light-rail stations
- Thousand Oaks, CA: Restricted to M-1/M-2 industrial zones; 1,000 ft from freeway, 500 ft from arterials since October 2022
- NYC: Special permit required for new self-storage in designated Manufacturing district areas (Industrial Business Zones)
- Atlanta: Considering expansion of Beltline overlay district self-storage development restrictions
The Permit Is a Preview
The Prince George's County fee is not the end of the municipal self-storage crackdown. It is an escalation. The industry has spent a decade managing moratoriums and conditional use requirements. A recurring annual permit fee targeting operating businesses, not just new development, is a new instrument.
The legal challenge may succeed. But the political appetite behind this legislation, in Prince George's County and the dozens of municipalities running parallel processes, reflects a sustained shift in how local governments view self-storage as a neighbor. Operators who engage proactively with their local planning departments, demonstrate community value, and participate in zoning processes as stakeholders rather than applicants are in a better position than those who arrive at a council meeting to argue against a restriction that is already on the agenda.
The industry's regulatory environment in 2026 has two distinct tracks: state-level changes to lien law and pricing disclosure, which are well-documented and increasingly standardized, and municipal-level restrictions on development and operations, which are fragmented, locally driven, and escalating faster than the state track. The Prince George's County permit fee is the clearest indication yet that the second track is not slowing down.
Sources
- $5K Permit Fee Levied on Prince George, MD, Self-Storage, Inside Self-Storage
- Prince George's Co. Charges New Fees on Self-Storage, WTOP News
- Carmel NY and Cashmere WA Consider Self-Storage Moratoriums, Modern Storage Media
- Ordinance to Declare a Temporary Moratorium on Mini-Warehouses and Self-Storage Facilities, City of Prattville, AL
- New York City Measure Freezes Self-Storage Development Out of Industrial Business Zones, Inside Self-Storage
- Self-Storage Text Amendment, NYC Department of City Planning
- Thousand Oaks, CA, Officials Put Permanent Limits on Self-Storage Development, Inside Self-Storage
- City Restrictions Against Self-Storage Development Create New Barriers to Entry, Inside Self-Storage
- Self-Storage Development Feasibility in 2026, Loan Analytics