Council Backs Higher Growth Fees

In Test Votes, Montgomery Officials Cite Strain on Schools

The Montgomery County Council agreed in preliminary votes yesterday to increase a development fee for schools and began to tighten rules on school crowding but delayed major decisions on tax increases and measuring congestion.

In test votes on proposed revisions to the county's growth policy, designed to get a sense of the nine-member council, a majority supported increasing fees on new development to help cover the cost of more students and classrooms. For a public elementary school, for instance, the fee would increase from $12,500 to $19,514, far less than the $32,524 recommended by the Planning Board.

The debate is a pivotal one for Montgomery, which is on the cusp of changes that demographers say will bring more than 100,000 jobs and 35,000 housing units, already approved. At the same time, the county is becoming more diverse, and demands for moderately priced housing and more classrooms are rising.

The growth policy was a central issue in last year's elections. Its underlying concept is to promote ways to make newcomers and new development pay for their impact and slow down the pace when services are overburdened.

Planning Board Chairman Royce Hanson said that the council's views mirrored much of what his panel proposed and that he was optimistic that areas of disagreement could be smoothed over. "It is generally within the parameters of what we recommended," he said.

But Raquel Montenegro of the Maryland-National Capital Building Industry Association said the council's action yesterday "will make this county more expensive, more exclusive, and has failed to truly acknowledge that new development is only responsible for less than 15 percent of congestion."

The discussion was bogged down late yesterday over how the new rules would affect the county's stock of affordable housing, highlighting a divide on the council. Several members warned against setting a standard so tight that it would discourage building. They backed an amendment to exempt projects with a significant chunk of below-market units.

"Adding significant costs will have remarkable implications, if not death-toll implications, for affordable housing," said council member Nancy Floreen (D-At Large), who was joined by George L. Leventhal (D-At Large), Michael Knapp (D-Upcounty) and Valerie Ervin (D-Silver Spring).

Council member Marc Elrich (D-At Large) criticized some of his colleagues' focus on moderately priced housing. "To hang this process around affordable housing is a joke. What this county does is next to nothing," he said.

The amendment was rejected by Elrich, Phil Andrews (D-Gaithersburg-Rockville), Roger Berliner (D-Potomac-Bethesda), Marilyn Praisner (D-Eastern County) and Duchy Trachtenberg (D-At Large).

In a debate over what constitutes a too-crowded school, the panel took a somewhat harder line than the Planning Board but did not go as far as County Executive Isiah Leggett (D) had wanted. The discussion centered on the point at which developers might be asked to pay an extra fee for expanding school capacity.

The council put off until Tuesday debate and votes on a formula for measuring the effect of development on roads and mass transit and on proposals to increase taxes to pay for schools and transportation. It also delayed a decision on whether to tighten the test for determining when an intersection is too congested.