Howard County Blog

A Blog on what is going on in Howard County

Saturday, March 15, 2008

Land Use Summit Meeting, Part 3

As promised, here is additional information in reference to the items discussed at the First Annual Land Use Summit. I will present the items in the same format as I received them.

Remedy to allow citizen standing in legal matters.

Halt using problematic development/building methods until permanently solved (Group Septic plans, immediately)

Abolish Planning Board.

Separate Zoning Board from Council.

Developers follow same laws as other businesses (signage)

Persistent rezoning under citizen opposition curtailed.

Overhaul Comprehensive rezoning process.

Stop changes to zoning regulations that modify countywide zoning.

Stop economic eminent domain.

Any change in zoning to be transparent, visable to residents.

Low income density transfer not allowed.

Zoning changes subject to referendum

Enforce Charter Section 202.g

Any County representative with zoning power takes zero developer/ builder

funds. Applicable for campaigns and any other money or land or asset transaction.

Developer attorneys not allowed to represent other county agencies - eliminate
conflict of interest.

Revise current methods to include mix of affordable housing within other
types of housing.

Enforce laws to prevent developers from polluting waterways, charge for immediate cleanup of resulting pollution.

Stop changes in forest conservation location.

Fix problems with conservation where in trees are planted and die.

Howard Community College should implement covenants.

County to comply with their own regulations. They own 1/3 of County.

Enforce existing laws/regulations, regarding development (N.Laurel situation)

Adequate infrastructure in place or fully funded prior to development initiation.

New County position for paid resident representative on land use matters.

County to enforce regulations against developer with equal vigor as that against citizens.

Our group insists on full participation in the 2010 General Plan.

Over 55 housing no longer requires credits - remove county incentives.

Abolish Council manic districts.

Revise current Planning Board members and functions to redirect toward
citizens by district and add at large member.

Rotate Director of Planing and Zoning.

ZR95 withdrawn in the current form which includes ability to transfer adequate
infrastructure and transfer of sensible development constraints to other areas.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thanks for such detail, Jim. The discussed changes listed are a good start.

Compared to the voluminous amount of regulations, general plans, and design manual details currently in effect, the items mentioned here only scratch the surface for the many ways in which land use should be improved. For the purpose of this summit, it would be great if the entirety of the County Code and DPZ regulations, etc. were posted online in a form that allowed posting suggestions/comments within, allowing time- and place-shifting of the overall discussion.

"New County position for paid resident representative on land use matters."

Perhaps the DPZ ombudsman position that was added last year? and seems to be more dept. PR than objectively detached oversight ombudsman could instead be better defined to serve this role, thereby avoiding adding another FTE.

Likewise, how much overhead did the BoE just propose for a somewhat similar PR position? Up to $196k + benefits? Anybody else feel like a piggybank being shook upsidedown?

12:05 PM  

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