Montgomery County Growth Policy

The County Council is now considering the new draft Growth Policy developed by the County Planning Board and is expected to adopt the final Growth Policy by the end of July. While some of the Board's proposals are good, some are troubling including a transportation test that seems to allow developers to pour even more traffic onto our road system without adequately considering its impacts. The Policy's non-test would make it virtually impossible for proposed new growth to fail no matter how congested our roads are or would be. Also, the Board proposes to allow developers to pay a fee and buy their way into areas where the schools are already over-crowded.

The draft Policy does discuss sustainability, but only in very general terms and provides very few specifics about how to define, measure and achieve economic, environmental and social sustainability in the County. We need to improve the Policy or we will suffer the consequences for years to come.

Now is the time to get involved. The County Council will hear public testimony on the evening of Tuesday, June 26. The Council's Planning, Housing and Economic Development Committee will then draft recommendations from June 27 through July 9, and the full Council plans to adopt the final Growth Policy by going on August recess.

Here are Three Actions You Can Take to Improve the County's Growth Policy:

1. Call and write your County council member and the four at-large members. Urge them to develop stringent, clear, meaningful standards and to close loopholes that allow developers to buy their way out of those standards.

2. Forward this alert to friends and neighbors, encourage them to engage.

3. Help develop community comments on the Growth Policy and help Progressive Neighbors and Sustainable Montgomery develop an agenda for sustainability in Montgomery County. To learn or to volunteer, write or email: sustainablemontgomery@igc.org


To learn more about the Growth Policy process or to download a copy of the draft Growth Policy, visit www.mc-mncppc.org/development/agp/agp_study.shtm.