Stricter Policy On Growth Approved in Montgomery

The Montgomery County Council approved a growth policy yesterday that increases taxes on builders to help pay for roads and schools and encourages denser development near public transit to try to absorb an expected influx of newcomers.

The policy also requires developers to do more to limit the impact their projects will have on county services and promotes the use of more environmentally friendly design.

Council President Marilyn Praisner (D-Eastern County), who shepherded the policy through 11 months of often rancorous debate, said it "tightened standards on developers."

The plan "has real fees and real tests," said council member Marc Elrich (D-At Large), another supporter.

Council member Nancy Floreen (D-At Large), the only dissenter in the final 7 to 1 vote, described the new rules as "over the top." She said the policy "crosses the line between sound policy and political polemic dressed up as regulation" and does nothing to address a need for affordable housing.

Yesterday's vote came after the council, the Planning Board and County Executive Isiah Leggett (D) spent hundreds of hours trying to hash out their differences. Last month, Leggett asked the council to delay its transportation management proposals and to make the tax package less burdensome. Both requests, in the end, were ignored by the council.

Leggett said yesterday that he didn't want to rehash the disputes. "It's time to move on. I am happy we have a policy," he said.

Montgomery's growth policy, reviewed every two years by the council, is supposed to make newcomers and new development pay for their impact and to slow the pace of construction when services are overburdened.

Several council members and Leggett campaigned last year on a pledge to change the growth policy to allow the county's services to catch up, saying efforts were needed to better manage traffic, school crowding and the pace of development.

The tax increases on new construction -- approved unanimously yesterday and set to take effect Dec. 1 -- will compel builders to cover 90 percent of the cost of providing school and transportation improvements needed to support their developments. The Planning Board had suggested covering 100 percent of the cost; Leggett asked for a smaller increase.

So-called impact taxes for schools go up as much as 125 percent and for transportation as much as 70 percent. The taxes a builder would pay on a new single-family house, for example, increase from $9,111 to $20,456 for schools and from $6,264 to $10,649 for transportation.

Other than to account for inflation, those taxes had not been increased for several years.