We need an Office of the People's Counsel

3/7/2024

Update March 2024: This Bill passed overwhelming in the MoCo delegation though was far weakened by amendments. MoCo now does not have the comparable assistance with complicated land use issues enjoyed by our MNCPPC siblings in Prince Georges County. Thanks to all that took action.

Update: Amendments to the People's Counsel bill would dramatically weaken the office, making it a shadow of the good governance resource our PG neighbors and other counties have.
Amendments (detailed here) to HB 1364 would remove the requirement that the officer in this role be a land use attorney with extensive experience and bar the officer from providing testimony or participating in hearings. Land use decisions have dramatic economic, equity and climate impacts, as detailed in the letter from the Montgomery Climate Coalition urging the delegation to pass the bill without weakening amendments.

The perils of weakening the OPC are detailed in a memo from 2017 from then County Executive Ike Leggett to the Council which reads in part
"When I was on the Council, I initially proposed a fully functioning Office of People's Counsel. As originally drafted, the office was intended to function as a legal resource, employing an experienced attorney who would represent residents in land use proceedings to promote full and fair presentation of issues and to assure sound land use decisions"

OPC as Tool to Block Affordable Housing?
The Coalition for Smarter Growth (CSG) has sent an action alert alleging that "The People's Counsel was used in the past to obstruct affordable housing production" and thus should not be reinstated. The alert does not give examples, MCA has reached out to CSG to understand these claims, and we have not yet gotten a response. Our message:

Can you provide instances where the MC OPC was used to block affordable housing as is asserted?

Our perspective is strikingly different. In the absence of an OPC, MCA has been fielding requests, countywide, for assistance by communities. None of these requests have been aimed at blocking affordable housing. Some recent examples:

Communities seeking guidance to address airport expansion, significant deforestation, conditional use application for large scale commercial development in sensitive watershed in area of small affordable houses served by groundwater wells, county airport’s continued use of leaded fuels, a historic freeman community dealing with illegal operation of commercial business…

An OPC would be far better placed to provide the legal guidance in these instances.

And, to be clear, we cannot recall past instances where this resource was engaged to block affordable housing. So we seek your clarification regarding the assertions made in your action alert.

Background on the need for an Office of Peoples Counsel:
Land Use is complicated - while the county and developers have a a bevy of land use attorneys, the average resident may not even know what their zoning is. This imbalance becomes stark when residents have questions about planned developments or zoning changes in their neighborhood. Until 2010, re-balancing this equation was the job of the Office of the People's Counsel (OPC)- an agency that is authorized by the County Code to represent the public interest in the County’s land use regulatory process.

The OPC was quietly defunded in 2010. It's absence has left the door open to scores (over 100!) of zoning text amendments crafted by some County Council members. These land use changes (some sweeping) often bump up against current master plans and cause the most detriment to communities that don't have the resources or land use acumen to defend themselves.
Understanding and engaging in plans for development where you live should not be a privilege.

While the MoCo OPC was axed over a decade ago, our Prince George's neighbors- also under the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC) - continue to fund an active and functional People's Zoning Counsel that preforms the same functions of ensuring a complete hearing record and a fair process.

Enter Bill PG/MC 112-24 at the General Assembly introduced by Senator Ben Kramer that would correct this imbalance between M-NCPPC counties by providing for a fully funded and active OPC in Montgomery County mirroring the PG office. The Economic Development Committee will shortly consider the bill.

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