County Planning Board’s Proposed 2009 Growth Policy Lowers Standards

By Carole Barth and Jim Zepp

The County has two primary tools for guiding future development: Master Plans and the Growth Policy. Master Plans set forth the type of development that is allowed and its location. Under County law, the Growth Policy is used to implement the Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance by pacing the rate of growth to allow proposed development to proceed only in areas where supportive infrastructure can accommodate it. The Growth Policy sets standards for determining if public facilities (roads, mass transit, water supply, sewers, schools, police stations, firehouses, and health clinics) can support increased development.

Over the years, the County has seesawed between policies that require developers to pay upfront for the impacts of their new projects and relaxing these restraints in the belief that the resulting economic growth will eventually offset the increased demand on public facilities and services such as schools and transportation. In 2003, the Growth Policy lowered these standards, allowing development to outstrip infrastructure. We are still suffering from this imbalance, and, with the ongoing fiscal crisis, the infrastructure backlog is likely to persist for years to come. So you might expect that the Planning Board’s proposed policy would tighten the standards, more closely linking growth to the availability of infrastructure. In short, you might expect a more sustainable approach to growth. Unfortunately, you would be wrong.

The policy’s title, “Reducing Our [Carbon] Footprint” certainly sounds sustainable and progressive. But, in reality, the Planning Board proposal would further lower standards for new development that would result in increased levels of traffic congestion. For example, in areas considered to have above-average transit services, much greater road congestion would be allowed.

So, under this proposal, a developer building in Silver Spring/Takoma Park would not have to do any traffic mitigation, because the current level of congestion would be defined as acceptable. So more cars would be added to our existing gridlock.

As County Executive Leggett said in his comments on the policy, “It is well established that increased congestion directly results in increased emission rates for NOx and VOCs which negatively affects air quality in the region.” So, in fact, this policy would lead to slower road speeds and actually result in an increased carbon footprint. (This is the epitome of the term “greenwashing.”)

Why would the Planning Board do this? Supposedly, allowing more traffic congestion will force more people to switch to mass transit. If that were true, wouldn’t L.A. and Atlanta have the highest mass transit ridership rates? This is not planning, it’s wishful thinking. Worse, it’s irresponsible in areas like ours where the transit services don’t meet the existing demand.

Moreover, the Montgomery County Civic Federation (MCCF) has recommended separating the current mobility test into two stand‑alone tests: a roads test and a transit test. The MCCF position paper states: “The current test balances adequacy of roads level of service against adequacy of transit level of service within each County policy area. This implies that the adequacy of one of these public facilities somehow substitutes for the inadequacy of the other. The Federation does not believe it is any more appropriate to assert that it is acceptable for an area to have inadequate roads level of service if it has more than adequate transit facilities than it would be to assert that an area could have inadequate sewerage facilities so long as it has more than adequate water service.”

There are also concerns about how traffic and transit conditions are measured for determining the need for action. For example, levels of traffic congestion are based solely on weekday evening rush hour measurements, even though the 2008 Highway Mobility Report stated that 46 percent of the 81 failing County intersections were unacceptable in the morning peak hours only, which means that these intersections are not even included in the analysis determining whether parts of the County are traffic congested or not.

Another Planning Board proposal would allow developers to buy and sell a finding of adequate public facility (APF). So a developer whose project has an APF could sell that APF to a different developer. It makes no sense, however, to transfer an APF that’s based on the analysis of specific intersections to a project located elsewhere. After all, you can’t move the uncongested intersections to the site of the other project!

Two important points were missed in the proposed Growth Policy. First is the need to establish ceilings for the capacity of our communities to absorb more demands for public services without damaging our quality of life and economic attractiveness. What businesses would want to locate in an area where the schools cannot adequately serve their students and transportation — both roads and public transit — are failing? Infrastructure such as this cannot be turned on and off like a faucet. It often requires 10 or more years to just plan and implement such facilities.

Secondly, where will the necessary funding come from? Considering the massive deferred maintenance backlogs that every government agency and public utility is currently facing, substantially multiplying the population in our most congested areas without providing a source of adequate infrastructure funding is fiscally irresponsible and recklessly gambling with our communities’ future.

This article gives you just a flavor of the issues involved in the 2009 Growth Policy. [Note: “Growth Policy” is now known as “Subdivision Staging Policy.”] There are many more. To read the entire proposed policy, go to www.montgomeryplanning. org/research/growth_policy/growth_policy09/agp_growing_smarter.shtm. To read the County Executive’s memo on the draft policy, go to [Email redacted. Note: The URL printed in the newsletter, http://montgomerycountymd.gov/content/exec/pdf/ growth_policy_2009.pdf, has changed. The document can no longer be found on the Montgomery County government website.] To read the MCCF position paper, go to www.montgomerycivic.org.

The County Council will act on the proposed policy sometime this Fall. When they do, hopefully they will take to heart this quote from the MCCF position paper: “We believe these tools — Master Plans and the Growth Policy — should be used to facilitate growth only when and if it is in the public interest and will not harm residents’ quality of life or the natural environment of the county.”

Not only is the County Council expected to consider adoption of this radically new Growth Policy in the next few months, but they are also scheduled to review four Master Plans and a substantial revision to the County Zoning Code that may reduce the number of zoning categories from 168 to 4. This will all be done while simultaneously grappling with an expected $350 million budget shortfall. Consequently, there is the concern about how much consideration can be meaningfully given to all of these policy issues when they are all being rushed through in a very short time.

If future growth, community quality of life, and taxes concern you, please express your views about these proposed policy changes to the County Council (www.montgomerycountymd.gov/council/members/index.html). [Note: This URL has changed since it was printed in the newsletter.] Messages sent to the Council President, who is currently Phil Andrews, will be automatically shared with the other members. Or you can direct your comments specifically to Nancy Navarro, the Council District 4 Member, and At-Large Council Members Marc Elrich, Nancy Floreen, George Leventhal, and Duchy Trachtenberg.

Appreciation is given to Jim Humphreys and Cari LaMari of the Montgomery County Civic Federation for their help in understanding the complexities and background on the Growth Policy proposals. ■