A recently introduced Maryland bill would weigh removing Montgomery County from the bicounty agency that oversees its land-use and planning functions — such a change would significantly alter the way the county has long approached development.
Maryland State Senator Ben Kramer, D-District 19, earlier this month put forward MC/PG 104-23, a bill which, if advanced by suburban Maryland’s legislative delegations, would establish the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission Restructuring Task Force. The state chartered M-NCPPC, a quasi-independent agency, nearly a century ago to manage Montgomery and Prince George’s counties’ planning and parks departments.
The commission comprises separate governing bodies of political appointees called planning boards, one for each county, plus shared central administrative services and management of employee retirement benefits. Kramer’s task force, if approved, would weigh the potential of transferring the Montgomery County Planning Board’s functions instead to the local elected government’s immediate purview — likely the county executive’s, in particular.
