Politics & News & Planning Board Issues08 Dec 2005 08:04 am
Some County Officials Say Duncan Seeks Undue Credit
by Angry White LiberalA day after Montgomery County Executive Douglas M. Duncan called for a hard look at the management of the county’s planning department and ordered work halted on another project, some county officials said his remarks did little to resolve the controversy over construction irregularities in northern Montgomery.
Some council members, as well as planning staff, said that in his state of the county address, Duncan tried to take undue credit for attempts to resolve problems at Clarksburg Town Center. Others said he was using his speech to boost his political fortunes.
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December 10th, 2005 at 8:32 pm
For Immediate Release Thursday, December 08, 2005 Contact: Joseph P. Horgan, 301.385.0546
josephhorgan@verizon.net
Mary Reardon, 240.525.5300
mareardon@yahoo.com
Citizens Call For An Accountable Land-Use Planning Process in Montgomery County
Clarksburg Debacle Exposes a Broken System
Following the Clarksburg Town Center debacle, citizens from all walks of life across Montgomery County convened this past Summer and Fall to come up with a way to fix the broken system by which land-use planning decisions are made. Together, they developed the Call For Accountability. (see attached)
The Call For Accountability, a statement signed by 16 civic groups and 104 individual citizens, lays out seven essential components of public accountability. It calls upon the County’s elected and appointed leaders and their staffs to adopt and follow these seven principles: Consistency & Predictability; Transparency; Fairness; Due Process (including documented community support); Citizen Participation; Meaningful Tough & Swift Enforcement; and Acknowledgement & Correction of mistakes and systemic failures.
“Fixing this broken system requires restoration of accountability to the relationship between ‘we, the people’ and our government,” said Amy Presley, co-chair of the Clarksburg Town Center Advisory Committee (CTCAC). “Our elected leaders must focus on serving the public rather than private development interests.” CTCAC was responsible for uncovering hundreds of Clarksburg site plan violations over the past 18 months.
The Call For Accountability notes that people are drawn to Montgomery for the same qualities of life that longtime residents love: diverse, friendly, leafy neighborhoods; protected farms and forested parklands; high-quality schools; and walkable, historic town centers.
“To preserve our County’s desirability, and to restore our faith in the integrity of our government, it is essential that our land use planning, preservation and development processes be fully accountable to all stakeholders,” said Cary Lamari, immediate past-president of the Montgomery County Civic Federation (MCCF). The MCCF endorses the Call For Accountability.
“We want to see our elected and appointed decisionmakers uphold the law: environmental and historic preservation laws and regulations as well as zoning, subdivision and site planning codes and procedures,” ,” said Jim Fary of the Sierra Club, Montgomery County Group. The Sierra Club, Montgomery County Group endorses the Call For Accountability.
Montgomery citizens demand that their officials and staff abide by the seven accountability principles. Citizens are encouraged to contact Joseph Horgan to add their name to the Call for Accountability.
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December 2005
The system by which land planning decisions are made in Montgomery County is broken. The threads of accountability have been severed across the board, in virtually every segment of the development, preservation, and planning system. Fixing this broken system, even as the rapid pace of growth continues countywide, will mean restoring accountability to the relationship between our local government and its citizens. This will be a difficult but not impossible process. It will require the long-term commitment of all parties to acknowledge problems and be open to crafting new solutions. It will also require the continued vigilance and involvement of citizens from around the county to ensure that needed changes are made.
In July 2005, 65 citizens –many representing their civic associations and organizations—concerned with the land planning, preservation, and development process met in the Red Brick Courthouse in Rockville. In the wake of the Clarksburg Town Center debacle, in which hundreds of Site Plan violations were uncovered by members of the Clarksburg Town Center Advisory Committee (but ignored for months by County officials), citizens from around the county came together to support the CTCAC and to share their own experiences with the Planning Board and other County agencies. In August, the Montgomery County Civic Federation published a report describing other County locations where violations of tree conservation, affordable housing, and building height requirements had occurred.
The ongoing Clarksburg scandal is occurring in a high-stakes atmosphere of rapid growth, diminishing open space; loss of historic sites; and erosion of neighborhood character. According to the Planning Board’s own figures, County population, at 936,000 in 2004, will continue to increase by an average of 11,000 persons each year for the next seven years, reaching over one million by 2011. Household growth throughout the next seven years is now projected to range between 4,000 to 5,000 units each year; current projections estimate 376,000 households by the year 2011.
Newcomers to Montgomery County are drawn to the same qualities of life that longtime residents cherish – diverse, friendly, leafy neighborhoods; protected farms and forested parklands; clean streams and safe drinking water; high-quality schools and walkable, historic town centers. In order to preserve these qualities that make Montgomery a desirable place to live, and to restore public faith in the integrity of our local government, it is crucial that the County’s land use planning, preservation, and development process be fully accountable to all stakeholders, and that elected and appointed decisionmakers uphold the law: environmental and historic preservation laws and regulations; and zoning, subdivision, and site planning codes and procedures.
Given this background and this common vision, an Interim Steering Group was nominated at the July 2005 meeting, and charged with formulating a vision and mission statement and with recommending further actions. Below we present our statement in the form of a Call to Accountability containing seven essential elements viewed as crucial throughout our local government’s land development and preservation decisionmaking process. This is followed by the names of the civic leaders and activists who support and uphold this Call, and a compilation of specific reform proposals.
We, the undersigned citizens of Montgomery County, Maryland, seek full accountability by our elected and appointed officials and staff within the Executive Branch; County Council; Planning Board; and Maryland National Capital Park and Planning Commission to all citizens of the County, in establishing and enforcing legislation and implementing transparent procedures to ensure responsible, lawful land use planning, preservation and development.
We require the following seven essential components of accountability in the decisions made and proposals offered by our elected and appointed officials and their staffs; we call on them to make changes to the entire land planning process to fully incorporate and embody these components and principles:
1) Consistency and Predictability – the same or similar proposals, projects, and requests are addressed consistently and objectively, and regardless of the official, staff person or organization involved.
2) Transparency – All rules, procedures, policies, and principles are written and firmly established, and the visible documentation of compliance with them on the part of government officials, staff, and private representatives, should always be readily accessible to the public. All government officials need to disclose in a timely manner potential conflicts of interest, including but not limited to campaign contributions and other types of financial influence from interested parties.
3) Fairness – All rules, procedures and policies are uniformly and impartially applied to all businesses, citizens and organizations. Staff and decisionmakers are as accessible to, and open to proposals by, citizen and civic groups, as they are to private development firms and corporations.
4) Due Process – All land use proposals and complaints are subject to an established, logical, principled, objectively reviewable, documented in detail and publicly-observable process and criteria. All decisions on project proposals are based on and subject to, a set of established, objective, lawful decision criteria to include:
a. degree of documented community support and public participation;
b. clarity with regards to relevant Master and Sector Plans with unambiguous definitions of the key terms in the plans;
c. compliance with and furtherance of environmental law, regulation and policy; and
d. Compliance with and furtherance of open space, farmland, parkland and historic preservation law, regulation and policy.
5) Citizen Participation – The land use planning, preservation and development system is changed to include all stakeholders as full players from the very beginning of any proposal. The current interlocking power structure of developer and planner too often leaves citizens out in the cold. Full citizen participation from a proposal’s inception, and throughout the enhanced process, will engender greater public trust in the planning system and in the officials and staff who govern it.
6) Tough, Swift Enforcement –Wherever there are cases of clear violation by developers and builders of enforceable permits, agreements and site plans, enforcement actions include an immediate suspension of relevant permits until compliance and corrections are verified. Penalties are be stiff enough to spur the development community to improve its compliance record. Grandfathering of any plan, permit, or construction to allow any non-conformance to plan or specification is forbidden.
7) Acknowledgement and Correction – Rapid identification and acknowledgement of government officials’ and staffs’ mistakes and of systemic problems is made, and clear procedures for anyone to report these breaches and for officials’ response to such reports, are instituted. New procedures are instituted to ensure that reports of violations receive a full investigation and a rapid response in a defined time frame, from the appropriate officials.
Signatories to the Call for Accountability
Organizations
1. Anacostia Watershed Society
2. Coalition on Sensible Transportation
3. Deerfield – Weathered Oak Citizens Association
4. Dickerson Community Association
5. Eyes of Pa int Branch
6. Friends of Northwest Branch
7. Gunpowder Golf Club Payers, Ltd
8. Montgomery County Civic Federation
9. Montgomery Countryside Alliance
10. Norbeck Meadows Civic Association
11. Riverhill Homeowners Association
12. Sierra Club, Montgomery County Group
13. Silver Spring Historical Society
14. Sustainable Montgomery
15. West Bradley Citizens’ Association
16. West Montgomery County Citizens Association
Individuals
1. Anne Ambler
2. Andrea Arnold
3. Gabriel Anwar
4. Rudy Arredondo
5. Nathan Bahn
6. Bruce Baker
7. Ginny Barnes
8. Charlie Bea
9. Keith Berner
10. Nadine Bloch
11. Eve Burton
12. Diane Cameron
13. Beatrice Chester
14. Tim DeArros
15. Peggy Dennis
16. Christine Dibble
17. Sharon Kay Dooley
18. Cyril Draffin
19. Marc Elrich
20. Blair Ewing
21. Jim Fary
22. Robert Ferraro
23. James R. Fletcher
24. Kathleen Carey-Fletcher
25. George French
26. Beth Gatti
27. Jon Gatti
28. Sally Gagne
29. T. J. “Jack” Gleason
30. Robert Goldberg
31. Joni Goodman
32. Arnold Gordon
33. Linda Guest
34. Judy Hanks-Henn
35. Carl Henn
36. Joseph P. Horgan
37. William F. Howard
38. Chuck Harker
39. Betsy Johnson
40. Lori Keesey
41. Judith M. Koenick
42. Dan Kulpinski
43. Ron LaCoss
44. Cary Lamari
45. Elaine Lamirande
46. Chuck Lapinski
47. Mirabella Leuvelink
48. Caren Madsen
49. Paul Majewski
50. Alan Mattlage
51. Jerry A. McCoy
52. Roger Metcalf
53. Kathy Michels
54. Christine Morgan
55. Ed Murtagh
56. Linn Nguyen
57. Carol Oberdorfer
58. Alyce Ortuzar
59. Jane Osburn
60. John Parrish
61. Sam Pizzigati
62. Brenda Platt
63. Neal Potter
64. Amy Presley
65. Roseanne Price
66. Charles G. Pritchard
67. Barbara Raimondo
68. Jamin Raskin
69. Mary Reardon
70. Dan Robinson
71. Mary Rooker
72. George Sauer
73. Amy Sechler
74. Bonnie Schrack
75. Virginia Sheard
76. Patrick A. Sidwell
77. Marcus Sims
78. Carol Leigh Smith
79. Greg Smith
80. Ronald H. Smith
81. William Smith
82. Lucette Smoes
83. Jim Snee
84. Eric Starin
85. Aleen Starkweather
86. RG Steinman
87. Marcie Stickle
88. Nancy Stoner
89. Ellen Taylor
90. George Taylor
91. FranTeplitz
92. Arlene Thorne
93. Dale Tibbitts
94. John Tiernan
95. Joe Uehlein
96. Sandy Vogelgesang
97. Nancy Wallace
98. Tim Willard
99. Tamara A. Williams
100. Shelley Winkler
101. Geoffrey Wolfe
102. Norman Woo
103. Kevin Zeese
104. Mike Zielinski