Prince George’s County planners are encouraging local legislators to consider streamlining development approvals and increasing by-right residential densities in certain areas, among other regulatory tweaks, to incentivize growth in locations county lawmakers have designated as walkable, mixed-use centers, especially around transit stations inside the Capital Beltway.
These and other potential changes were discussed at the County Council’s Planning, Housing and Economic Development (PHED) committee meeting on Thursday. They’re part of an ongoing effort by the county’s quasi-independent land use planning agency to refine and implement regulations to advance the county General Plan’s goals — namely, as Thursday’s staff presentation put it, a “fundamental shift in the County’s development pattern away from auto-dependent suburban sprawl and toward pedestrian and transit friendly mixed-use centers.”
No definite times have yet been set for the county council to vote formally on these and other potential changes, but discussions between the planning agency and local lawmakers will continue throughout the year.
At Thursday’s meeting, planning staff asked county lawmakers to consider allowing, for projects in identified growth centers, preliminary plans and site plans to be processed simultaneously. Preliminary and site plans are successive steps in the series of regulatory approvals developers must obtain before they can begin construction. Staff said they believe this parallel processing could halve project approval times from around 200 days to 100 days.
