Public's Say in Planning Widens

Montgomery Vote Tightens Approval Process at Agency

The Montgomery County Council voted yesterday to give the public greater access to the planning process and strip mid-level planners of their power to make changes to construction projects that had been previously approved by the Planning Board.

The vote reflected an effort to restore the reputation of the planning agency -- formally called the Department of Park and Planning -- which the council controls, after the discovery of serious building violations at the 1,300-home Clarksburg Town Center in northern Montgomery.

But the council delayed action on a major proposed reform that would have shifted some of the planning agency's building inspection authority to the Department of Permitting Services, which County Executive Douglas M. Duncan (D) controls.

Instead of voting on the matter, the council instructed the leaders of the planning and permitting agencies to come to their own agreement about how best to inspect new development projects.

"I think our goal has been very simple: to identify the systemic problems and fix them, and to restore confidence in our land-use planning and enforcement," said council member Steven A. Silverman (D-At Large), who chairs the council's land-use committee. "We must make sure there are no more Clarksburgs."

The changes mean residents will get a chance to review developers' plans even before the Planning Board begins deciding whether to approve a new project. And once a project is approved, the Planning Board -- not its staff -- will have to sign off on any changes, even for such minor things as adding a row of benches or flowers to a pocket of green space.

The leaders of the county planning agency supported most of the council's reforms. But they warned that the development approval process could slow to a crawl because all changes must now go before the Planning Board, whose decisions can be appealed by the public.

"It will take longer. It will stop the process," said Faroll Hamer, the acting planning director.

But civic activists say the council's decision is a major step toward restoring public confidence in the county's development review policies.

"Now the public can be more confident that projects will be built as approved by the Planning Board," said Jim Humphrey, chairman of the Montgomery County Civic Federation's land-use committee.

At Clarksburg Town Center, a group of residents discovered last year that hundreds of homes were built too tall and close to the street and that promised amenities never appeared. The residents, as well as county and outside investigators, said that the county's development review system was broken.

The planning agency had allowed mid-level staffers to make changes to approved Clarksburg plans without input from the public.