Growing Montgomery

The central theme of Montgomery County Planning Board's 2007 growth policy recommendations to the County Council is that development should be managed in ways that contribute to the sustainability of our facilities, communities and resources, not merely to assure provision of adequate facilities for each increment of growth.

Historically, Montgomery County growth policy was focused on the prevention of premature development. It was concerned almost exclusively with administration of the Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance, which requires the Planning Board to deny subdivisions if public facilities in the area, primarily roads, are not adequate to serve them.

Relatively little development activity is converting open fields into subdivisions. Growth policy must now manage the transformation of older suburban centers into vital and varied urban places, conservation of neighborhoods and conversion of a mobility system centered on cars into one that favors public transportation, biking and walking.

It is now possible to make sustainability the goal of growth policy because of the experience the county has gained in managing its growth, along with advances in technology and skills in state-of-the-art modeling and analysis. It is necessary because of the convergence of great natural, economic and social forces, each of which has profound implications for where and how we grow and develop. These forces include global climate change and the impact of urbanization on energy consumption, carbon sequestration, and fragile landscapes and watersheds.

Demographic shifts, combined with the information revolution, have changed housing preferences and the nature of work. The impact of these forces means that it is not enough to focus growth policy only on staging private growth and setting priorities for capital improvements. The pattern of growth and the design of communities are equally important so that we do not compromise the county's ability to meet future needs. In this sense, growth policy represents an ethical choice about our stewardship of the county, recognition that choices we make today have consequences that endure for generations.

We have recommended a two-step system for measuring the adequacy of transportation facilities. First, we must examine the experience of the traveler living in each of the county's policy areas, including the times it takes to travel driving or using public transportation. If either of those times is within the bounds set by national standards developed by the Transportation Research Board of the National Research Council, the first part of the adequacy test will have been met.

The second part of the transportation test deals with congestion at intersections. If traffic generated will exceed available capacity, the applicant must reduce auto trips or make roadway or transit improvements to proceed.

We have recommended substantial increases in development impact taxes and fees for transportation and schools. The tax is based on the cost of the portion of planned transportation and school infrastructure required to serve each new unit. All projects would pay the impact taxes. In addition, special impact measures are proposed if projects fail the policy area mobility test. If any level of the school system is operating at more than 110 percent of programmed capacity, a project must pay a fee based on the cost of producing the added space for each student it generates. A project must wait for facilities to be expanded if schools are operating at 135 percent of capacity.

Requiring new projects to pay the marginal cost of the facilities needed to support them is critical to helping the county remain fiscally sustainable. There may be policy reasons for reducing fees and taxes for some development, such as affordable housing, but we should know what the cost of development is before deciding who should bear the burden, the new project or all taxpayers.

This commentary is excerpted from an entry in a new blog by Royce Hanson, chairman of the Montgomery County Planning Board (http://mncppc.typepad.com/chairman). Hanson served as director of George Washington University's Center for Washington Area Studies before his appointment as chairman of the planning board in 2006. He previously served on the planning board from 1972 to 1981, during which the county adopted public facilities policies to guide growth and established an 93,000-acre agricultural preserve.