As Maryland’s General Assembly session approaches, here are three bills to watch

We’re one month away from the start of Maryland’s General Assembly session, during which state senators and delegates will meet in Annapolis for three months to write and pass new laws. Until then, legislators from each county and Baltimore City are working on local bills that would only affect that jurisdiction. Right now, we’re tracking three bills that impact Montgomery and Prince George’s counties, including one about parking requirements and two that could dramatically change both counties’ planning departments.

One bill would remove parking requirements near transit

Bill MC/PG 106-23, sponsored by delegates David Moon, Marc Korman, and Vaughn Stewart, would allow developers to build homes with no parking spaces, as long as they’re within a quarter-mile of Montgomery County’s Red and future Purple Line stations. Today, the county mandates at least one parking space for a new home in the downtowns of Bethesda, Silver Spring, and Wheaton, and as many as two spaces per home in other parts of the county. A last-minute addition to the bill would require developers to sell or rent parking spaces separately from each unit, instead of “bundling” the cost in the price.

We wrote a letter in support of the bill, which you can read here. Like its sponsors, we acknowledge that parking is expensive to build, and that removing parking requirements would lower housing costs and encourage housing construction near transit, making it easier for people to drive less or not at all. We also note that Maryland has a long history of state intervention in planning, and during a hearing with Montgomery County’s delegates and senators last week, Delegate Korman noted that the state tells counties how to provide other local services, like education or law enforcement.

Still, county councilmembers weren’t convinced that the state should tell them how to do parking, and on Monday voted to take no opinion on the bill. Several did express support for the idea of reducing or eliminating parking requirements near transit. New councilmember Kristin Mink suggested that if this bill didn’t go forward, that the council introduce its own bill.

Two other bills would give the County Executive more control over planning

Senator Ben Kramer has introduced two bills that could restructure how planning is done in Montgomery County and give the County Executive more control over the Planning Board. Today, the parks and planning departments in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties are part of a state agency, the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission, founded in the 1920s to ensure both counties would grow in a coordinated fashion. In Montgomery County, the council appoints Planning Board members, and also has the final say over planning and zoning laws.

Kramer’s first bill, MC-PG 104-23, would create a task force to investigate making the parks and planning departments county agencies instead, basically splitting up the commission and leaving Prince George’s County by itself. The task force would have 18 members, whose makeup would be largely shaped by the county executive. The second, MC-PG 105-23 or The Montgomery County Planning Trust and Transparency Act of 2023, would let the executive appoint the Planning Board chair and make it harder for the County Council to appoint or remove Planning Board members.The bill would also require a public hearing for Planning Board appointments, something other county positions do not have.

Kramer argues that his bills are a way to clean house after the entire Planning Board resigned this fall following a series of scandals. But after a tense discussion Monday during which Kramer berated councilmembers at length, the County Council voted 10-1 to oppose them. Councilmembers said that the bills would further disrupt the Planning Department’s work, and that giving one person more power over the Planning Board could make it less representative of the county.

Councilmember Natali Fani-Gonzalez, a former Planning Board member, noted that County Executive Marc Elrich opposed her appointment in 2014, claiming she was unqualified. “If it was up to him, no Latinos would have been on the Park and Planning Commission. I was the only one so far,” she said.

We agree with the council’s opposition, and you can read our testimony here. As I wrote, “The eleven people on the County Council appoint the board and the chair, and in turn, the board provides advice to the council, which cannot pass any land-use legislation without a majority vote–in other words, a consensus that reflects the electorate’s wants and needs. As the council turns over incrementally, this approach also provides the stability that the board, the professional staff, and county residents need to ensure that we follow through on the plans we make.”

Planning for everyone, or for one person’s whims?

This would be true for any county executive, but these bills are especially concerning with our current executive, a staunch opponent of new housing who once literally accused the Planning Board of war crimes. In his testimony supporting the bills, Elrich claimed the Planning Board “can sometimes disregard or undervalue the importance of working collaboratively, efficiently, and effectively with the County Executive,” implying that this is really about his disagreement with the board’s work.

It’s hard to ignore the timing of these bills, less than two months after Elrich unsuccessfully tried to block Thrive, Montgomery County’s plan for the next 30 years that recommends making it easier to build more, and more affordable homes. At an almost five-hour public hearing last night, most of the bills’ supporters were old-school civic associations or wealthy neighborhoods who also opposed Thrive, like the Montgomery County Civic Federation and the Citizens Coordinating Committee on Friendship Heights.

It seems like Elrich wants more control over the Planning Board so he can undo, or at least weaken, the county’s recent planning work—even though voters broadly support both Thrive and more housing. After all, all five of the incumbent councilmembers who voted for Thrive were comfortably reelected, despite the perception that the plan was too hot to touch.

Now what?

Next up, Montgomery County’s 26 state delegates and senators will review these three bills and recommend whether the bill should go to committee during the General Assembly session this winter. To learn more or to send your comments to the delegation, visit their website.