More than 90 people have signed up to
testify as the Montgomery County Council will hold a second public hearing on
proposed changes to the County's Zoning Law starting at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday,
Nov. 12, and continuing at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 14. The hearing will address
proposed changes to the law recommended by the County’s Planning Board and by the
Council's Planning, Housing and Economic Development (PHED) Committee. The
hearing will give residents a further opportunity to comment on Zoning Text
Amendment (ZTA) 13-04 and District Map Amendment (DMA) G-956.
The public
hearing will be held in the Third Floor Hearing Room of the Council Office
Building at 100 Maryland Ave. in Rockville. Each night of the hearing will be
televised live by County Cable Montgomery (CCM—Cable Channel 6 on Comcast and
RCN, Channel 30 on Verizon) and will be streamed through the County Web site at
www.montgomerycountymd.gov.
The PHED Committee, which is chaired by
Nancy Floreen and includes Councilmembers Marc Elrich and George Leventhal,
held worksessions every week in June and July, and on several occasions in
September, on the Planning Board’s recommended Zoning Law Rewrite. The
committee is expected to recommend amending many aspects of the text and map,
but until it completes its worksessions in December, its recommendations are
tentative.
The Council introduced the Planning
Board’s recommendations on May 2 following years of the Planning Board’s
extensive work and discussion with community groups and other stakeholders. The
Council heard from more than 50 speakers at a public hearing on the Planning
Board’s recommendations in January and has received extensive email and other
correspondence from County residents as the committee continues to do its work.
The Zoning Law has not been
comprehensively updated since 1977 and has grown to more than 1,200 pages over
the last 30 years. The goal of the Rewrite is to reorganize and simplify the
Zoning Code. Rewriting the code in plain language and reorganizing it into
rational sections will enable residents to more easily participate in key land
use decisions, and courts and agencies will have clearer rules to apply.
Although the County Charter calls for
only one public hearing, the Council decided to hold a second public hearing
because it recognizes the significance of the proposed text and map changes.
Few changes are proposed for single-family residential properties, but non-residentially
zoned properties and their neighbors could be affected. ZTA 13-04 would
implement the text changes to the Zoning Law, and DMA G-956 would update the
zoning for each property to apply a new zone. The proposed rezoning in DMA
G-956 is designed to mirror each property's current zoning as much as possible.
Residents can see the proposed Zoning
Rewrite, along with the tentative changes being considered by the PHED
committee, at www.zoningmontgomery.org.
On the Web site, residents also will find
an interactive map that enables users to determine the existing and proposed
zoning for every property in the County.
Clicking on a particular property will display the development standards
(density, height limits and setbacks) for the existing and proposed zone.
Written
testimony or comments about the proposed zoning changes can be mailed to County
Council / 100 Maryland Ave. / Rockville, Md. 20850 or emailed to all
Councilmembers at county.council@montgomerycountymd.gov
.
