This week, Prince George’s County will hear from residents about whether it should ban new townhouses for the next two years. We think this is a bad idea, and we’re not alone. Here’s how you can get involved.
The County Council is looking at three bills, all related to townhouses. One bill, CB-52-2023, would block approvals for new townhouse developments except in a handful of areas. Two other bills, CB-50-2023 and CB-53-2023, are meant to block proposals to build townhouses in specific locations. Council Vice Chair Wala Blegay, who’s cosponsoring the three bills with Council Chair Tom Dernoga, says the three bills will prevent suburban sprawl and encourage development near the Blue Line instead.
Ahead of a public hearing tomorrow, Blegay distributed a list of places where the bill “will not affect townhome development.” The list includes all of the county’s Metro stations and a handful of commercial areas like the Gateway Arts District along Route 1, as well as places where townhomes are unlikely to be built, like the University of Maryland.
In their analysis of the bill, staff at the Prince George’s County Planning Department say that the way CB-52-2023 was written, it’s not clear where Dernoga and Blegay want to ban townhouses, because it uses words like “Townhouse-related residential use” that don’t mean anything, and references “Designated Transit-Oriented or Revitalization areas” that don’t describe a specific place. In turn, staff produced these maps attempting to interpret the bill, which shows areas where townhouses would still be allowed in white. It leaves most of the county–including communities inside the Capital Beltway that are decidedly not sprawl–off-limits to townhouses.
