County Council Leadership

The powers of a legislator are to propose bills, amend bills, vote on bills and amendments, and if they can rally the support of their colleagues pass bills.

Thus one important way a legislator can show leadership, particularly if they were not the original drafter of the legislation, if the bill that is before them has problems is to amend that bill.

Tonight we saw the County Council show this type of leadership. They took County Bill 29 (CB-29) that came to them without a comprehensive community driven master planning process and they amended it to create a comprehensive community driven master planning process that each of Columbia's villages can undertake.

You can find the bill language and amendments here at the bottom of the page.

The following amendments passed:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 14(in revised form), 15, 16, and 18

Amendment 14 passed, but the amendment itself was amended to add "and not overwhelm" so that the version of 14 that passed read: "If appropriate, secondary residential uses to support and enhance and not overwhelm other uses in the village center."

The following amendments failed:
12 and 13

The following amendment was withdrawn:
17

Sometimes the community requests lots of changes and it takes lots of amendments to get the bill to reflect what the community has been asking for. As I have told a number of people more amendments can be very good, if the amendments are enacting the changes county residents are asking for and if it improves the bill.

County Council members Jen Terrasa, Mary Kay Sigaty, and Calvin Ball listened to there constituents and made sure that there was a comprehensive master planning process in this bill. This is the legislative process working as it should.

Soon we will have the Downtown Rezoning Bill to deal with. It is very important that we keep clearly communicating with our elected officials what we want. In the case of CB-29, the testimony of Kings Contrivance, which proposed specific amendments to the bill proved very effective and nearly all of the changes they requested were incorporated into the bill. I strongly suggest that the testimony on all bills focuses in on specific amendments.

County Council Work Session

How did the County Council Work Session this afternoon go? Share your thoughts.

And please remember that in order to have a productive conversation it is important to use usernames. Posting as Anonymous means you do not want to have a constructive dialog on the important issues facing our county.

This is Leadership

Tonight County Councilwomen Jen Terrasa (D-3) and Mary Kay Sigaty (D-4) hosted a brainstorming session tonight with Village Board and Columbia Council members to brainstorm how a Master Planning process would work as part of village center redevelopment. After hearing two nights of testimony that included a lot of interest in the inclusion of a Master Plan, these two councilwomen took the lead to continue the discussion and to search for a solution on how the community imput they were recieving could be implemented. I have been very impressed by this constructive leadership and I look forward to seeing how the discussion continues and what actions they take to address the desire for a Master Plan process.

Here are so pictures of tonights meeting:


I spoke with Councilman Ball (D-2) earlier in the week and he is very engaged on this issue as well. It would have caused problems with the Open Meeting Act if three council people had attended this meeting, so his staff member attended.

Every village other than River Hill had representatives at the meeting and it was a very collaborative conversation.

CB-29 Testimony

Testimony for CB-29 continues this evening at 6pm. There were a lot of people interested in testifying.

I have submitted the following testimony in writing:

Amendments to CB-29:

1) Add the mins and maxes proposed by CA
2) Removed the Minor Redevelopment process
3) Page 2 lines 19-22 amend to allow Village Associations be able to petition for to change PDPs, CSPs, FDPs, and SDPs
4) Page 3 lines 1-3 add comply with open space zoning requirements
5) Page 3 lines 19-21 make notifications to ALL villages and CA
6) Page 4 line 11 make DPZ staff report address the village community response statement
7) Page 5 paragraph (4) add lighting
8) Page 5 section A add “including its relationship with other village centers”
9) Page 5 line 26 take out word “center”
10) Page 5 section B add at end “and surrounding community”
11) Page 6 section E add “that will be open to public use” (I would like stronger language “open to public use, community events, free speech, and political discourse”)
12) Page 6 add section I “How redevelopment complies with definition of village center in Section 103, Part 168
13) Page 6 add section J “How redevelopment complies with Village Master Plan”
14) Page 7 section D part 1 change “approve the” to “Adopt a set of”
15) Page 8 section F line 1 add “including Concept Plan”
16) Page 8 section F at end add “and all property owners within the Village Center and the Community Association the Village Center is within”
17) Support OB testimony paragraph 2 (voting rights in CA/Village Elections) and amend to address those concerns

And I will happily talk about CB-29 with any Council member. The above is a rough sketch of how I think CB-29 can be revised to achieve a process that encourages Master Planning that takes a comprehensive look at redevelopment rather than piecemeal development that violates the very concept of Columbia as a Planned Community.

Planning Board Chair David Grabowski Let's County Council Know How He Would Have Voted on ZRA 102

As you may recall the Planning Board split 2-2 on ZRA 102 (Village Center Revitalization Process Zoning Amendment that is now County Bill 29). Planning Board Chair David Grabowski was the fifth vote and was available to vote by phone at the time of the vote, but wasn't called. Until now I had not heard how he would have voted to break the 2-2 split. I am watching the County Council hearing at home, before going over to testify later this evening (I am towards the end of those signed up to testify) and David is up for reappointment to the Planning Board. When he was testifying on his reappointment, Courtney Watson (D-1) ask him how he would have voted. David said he would have voted with Tammy CitraManis and Linda Dombrowski.

County Council Meets Today to Hear Testimony on Village Center Revitalization Rezoning

The County Council will hear testimony on CB-29 the County Bill that changes the zoning processes on Village Center Revitalization today at 7:30 at the Board of Education building’s Board Room, 10910 Route 108, Ellicott City, MD 21042.

You can sign up to testify on the County Council website.

CB-29

Kings Contrivance Village Board yesterday discussed CB 29 (the village center zoning bill) and will meet again next week to discuss it more. Kimco representatives came to the meeting, but the real highlight of the meeting was County Councilwoman Jen Terrasa. Though Councilwoman Terrasa is a very frequent attendee of Kings Contrivance Village Board meeting and I have seen her passion for finding the right outcome for her constituents and our county many times before, I have rarely seen the level of engagement from an elected official as I saw from Councilwoman Terrasa on Wednesday night. She is being extremely thorough in examining the bill and how the process it creates would function in practice.

Village Center Zoning Reaches Its Final Step Before Approval

Zoning Regulation Amendment 102 (ZRA 102) that will change the process of approving changes to Columbia's Village Centers was filed with the County Council and becomes County Bill 29 (CB 29). The County Council will hear testimony on CB 29 on Monday, June 15th at 7:30pm and then will amend it (if they want to) and then vote on it. Go take a look and also review the Planning Boards report on ZRA 102. You may remember that the Planning Board ended up voting 2-2 on ZRA 102 and their report is a pretty interesting read.

So if you are interested in the process by which changes will be made to the Village Centers come out and testify on June 15th. The County Council is currently holding their hearings at the Board of Education in the Board Room at 10910 Route 108, Ellicott City, MD 21042.

One of the key questions is should Village Centers have Master Plans that guide the development of Village Centers? And without a Village Center Master Plan how do you move forward as a community that is planned as Columbia prides itself on being?