Proposed Growth Moratorium Sets Up Clash in Montgomery

In the past three years, the Central Union Mission has spent more than $200,000 trying to navigate Montgomery County's labyrinth of land-use policies to sell 80 acres of farmland in Olney. The mission, which runs a homeless shelter in the District and a summer camp in the suburbs for at-risk children, is counting on millions from the sale to sustain its programs.

Those plans would be put on hold if the County Council approves a proposal to temporarily freeze dozens of residential and commercial projects while it revisits Montgomery's approach to managing growth. Strengthening the county's checks on development is a top initiative for the new majority elected to the council in November.

On one side of the debate are developers and business representatives who say putting the brakes on such projects would cause financial uncertainty, unfairly change the rules for projects long in the works and send a hostile message to potential investors. They question the rationale for a moratorium when they say growth is relatively slow in Maryland's largest jurisdiction.

The moratorium would put the 120-year-old mission's plan in limbo and further strain its finances.

"We were sitting on the crux of approval, and now everything is in jeopardy," said the mission's executive director, David O. Treadwell. "Our assumption was that this was a two-year process, and now it's entering its fourth year."

Treadwell is among the development interests expected to weigh in at a public hearing tomorrow in opposition to a plan by council President Marilyn Praisner (D-Eastern County) that would delay 72 projects for eight months as the council considers rewriting Montgomery's growth policy.

On the other side are council members and civic activists who want to tighten Montgomery's land-use standards to do a better job evaluating the capacity of the county's roads and schools before signing off on new construction.

"I didn't get elected to continue this policy of piling kids into schools that have no room and cars on roads that have no capacity," said newly elected council member Marc Elrich (D-At Large), a co-sponsor of the initiative. "Why should we go another eight months with a policy that doesn't prevent that?"

The debate that will be on display tomorrow night was at the heart of the contest for county executive, in which Isiah Leggett (D) was elected in November, largely on his motto of slowing development to catch up on infrastructure.

Treadwell's case got a boost last week when the chairman of the county's Planning Board issued a stinging critique of the moratorium. Chairman Royce Hanson called it "extremely troubling" and "fundamentally a symbolic action" that would not affect the rate of construction in the county.

Hanson also said he didn't think it was worth the effort. "There is not an emergency," he said.

The five-member Planning Board, which regulates the development industry and advises the council, then took the unusual step of declining to take a definitive position on the proposal. Instead, the board intends to outline its concerns and suggest changes in a letter to the council.