From Friends of Harford:
Legislative Bill 14-21 [UNTITLED] (As Introduced) was introduced in County Council session on May 6.
Public testimony is scheduled for
Date/Time: Tuesday, June 3, 2014 at 6:30 pm
Location: Council Chambers, 212 S. Bond St, Bel Air
Friends of Harford Position:
Friends of Harford strongly opposes Bill 14-21 [Untitled], the Harford County Charter Amendment that would eliminate both the County Council serving as the Board of Appeals and the Board of Appeals itself. Under this bill, appeals of Zoning decisions made by the Hearing Examiner could only be made directly to the Maryland Circuit Court, making Harford County the only county in Maryland without a Board of Appeals.
From the Harford County website: “The Board of Appeals is the Harford County Council who have delegated their authority to a Hearing Examiner. The Hearing Examiner’s decision is final unless appealed. The duties of the Board of Appeals is to hear rezoning cases, Special Exceptions and designated Special Development cases, appeals of decisions by the Zoning Administrator, expansion of nonconforming uses and variances from requirements of the Zoning Code.”
Under the current county charter, the Council sets the zoning law and oversees all changes that occur through time, including Comprehensive Rezoning and piecemeal rezoning requests. Now our elected officials want to pull back from any individual situation where they might have to make a real case decision and have to apply the zoning laws they enacted. We, the citizens, would be left without an elected representative to affect these decisions.
And the change is worse than that. The Council as Board of Appeals has the right not only to accept or reject the decision of the Hearing Examiner, but also to modify the conditions set by the Hearing Examiner. The Circuit Court may only rule on whether the case was properly handled. It has no authority legally to find the best result for the County as a whole.
Further, the money it would take to use the Court system to solve a zoning problem is prohibitive for the average person. In the present system, the applicant seeking a variance, special exception, etc. from the Hearing Examiner or Board of Appeals pays the expenses of the case. For an appeal to the Circuit Court, the person filing the appeal pays. Few residents, farmers or small businesses can afford to pay for $400/hour lawyers, expert witnesses and other court expenses to appeal no matter how negatively they may be affected by the decision.
The Hearing Examiner operates differently from the Circuit Court. After listening to all sides, he is empowered to make a clear decision for or against or, like the Council, he can impose conditions that may make the issue workable. However commendable the decisions of the present Hearing Examiner may be, asking him to handle all land use issues arising from the Council-approved Zoning Code, Master Plan, and Land Use Element Plan is far too much authority for one unelected person without the recourse of appeal to the Council acting as Board of Appeals. It makes that single unelected person the ultimate authority over the meaning and application of all land use rules in Harford and the arbiter of differences of opinion between the Executive and Legislative Branches of local government. Why then is the Council abdicating its responsibility and duty to serve the interests of the voters who elected them?
Some members of the Council still appear to believe they are restricted from talking to constituents on matters that might go to the Hearing Examiner. This is not true. In Bill 12-33, the Council members expanded their ability to talk to constituents on any zoning issue. The bill clarified that anyone may discuss any development or neighborhood issue up until the time an actual zoning case is filed, removing this issue as an excuse for passing Bill 14-21. Furthermore, this clarification amendment was approved by the voters in 2012 and is part of the Harford County Charter.
Certainly developers let our elected representatives know what they have in mind both before and after zoning laws or issues arise. We should be afforded the same courtesy. More points of view and information can only help in the final decision. The process has worked successfully ever since Harford’s charter government began in 1973.
If this Charter amendment takes effect, Harford will become the only county in Maryland without a Board of Appeals to protect its citizens’ interests. Our elected representatives must not abrogate their responsibility to be involved in these very important decisions. They have been elected to make decisions, not avoid them.
Under the Charter and the zoning code, the zoning Hearing Examiner serves effectively as an agent of the Council. Giving ultimate authority for zoning decisions to an appointed Hearing Examiner who may have NO zoning background, knowledge or experience AND who is not elected or responsible to the public at large, is completely irresponsible. The whole purpose of a zoning code is to protect the public. It is the Council who is accountable to the public — which is why they were given the power in the Charter to review the decisions of the Hearing Examiner.
If the Council will not take responsibility for reviewing zoning decisions by the Hearing Examiner, then they should not have any zoning authority at all – i.e., no authority to do comprehensive rezoning and no authority to appoint a Hearing Examiner. It makes no sense for them to be able to pass laws assigning a zoning category to any and all property in the county and then not have have the authority to review a zoning decision related to a particular property that they assigned a zoning category to in the first place.
Conclusion:
Friends of Harford believes it is essential for there to be a Board of Appeals to protect the public.
We strongly oppose this proposed Charter amendment (Bill 14-21) and urge you to speak at the public hearing on June 3 at 6:30pm in the County Council Chambers. Remember to arrive before that, to sign up to speak. You’ll have 3 minutes as an individual, 5 minutes if representing a group. You may also email the Council with your concerns in addition to or in lieu of testimony.
I don’t blame the council one bit for going this way. This is what we get when a bunch of whiney citizens don’t get their way in keeping the county with that 1800’s feel.The council makes the laws and changes the laws, leave it up to the courts to enforce them. The citizens of Harford county are getting what they deserve for acting like spoiled children.
Deal with it.
It is the responsibility of the council as citizens and representing citizens to faithfully support and uphold existing zoning ordinances and staying true to the intent of the master plan. The citizens are unhappy when government and our council is manipulated by developers who clearly have “gotten” to some in positions of authority. Is it appropropriate for developers to lobby and influence wherever they can and to help establish self-serving beneficial rule making? Perhaps…and certainly legal just as the very same efforts to influence may come from those opposed. That obvious concept seems to flumux this dufus…BillH.
The responsibility of the council is not to the citizens, Your constant trying to govern with emotion just isn’t going to work and you may consider a different tack.
Somebody missed their civics class. Pray tell you might explain your belief that an elected representative of a US city, county, state or federal government has no responsibility to the citizens whom elected them? Try not to hurt yourself in the contortion it might take to make that very dumb statement actually seem factual.
The council has a responsibility to the county, that’s why it;s called the “county council”, sorry you missed that.
So if your concept of the “county” excludes all humans it means the county council has responsiblity for the buildings but not the people in them, the roads but not the people that drive upon them…if that’s the case then why bother with doors or traffic lights? You are serious…are you off your meds?
Seriously when you have been publicly embarrassed this bad what could you possibly say anyway….
Though you show chronic signs of cluelessness Lets try one more time. The council represents every one and thing in the county not just the people who vote for them. You see when 57,000 people voted for Boniface and he won, that doesn’t mean he does not represent the other 195,000 county residents that didn’t vote for him. Which is why the council has proposed what they did. They are sick and tired of 200 people all up in arms about the legal development of a CCRC or 150 people losing their minds over a Walmart or the Pons not wanting their horse sex farm disturbed by a legal development across the street from them. You see a few petulant spoiled brats that can’t get the council to bend to their every wish now face having to take the battle to the courts and open their pocketbooks along with their mouths.
In a nut shell Money Tree it’s people like you who are the real problem in this county and the rest of us wouldn’t miss you if you complained somewhere else.
I was getting ready to respond and it dawned on me what a ridiculous waste of time. Already spent 10 minutes that I’ll never get back trying to reason with a troll.
Conceptually, once elected the members of the county council as a entire body should represent all of the citizens in the county. That is not how it really works. It’s also why all of the council members do not run as “at large” candidates. They run from specific districts within the county. To think that a council member is not going to respond in a different manner to those in his/her district is defying the law of politics.
Bill go back to Baltimore City you loser
BillH doesn’t quite understand how Harford works. Yes, the legislature (County Council) does make (and change) laws: Council decides how Harford is developed (the Master Plan). Council decides which individual properties get what zoning (Comprehensive Zoning). Council decides what is allowed with that zoning (Zoning Code). All these are legislation (laws).
So why does Council now — for the first time — want to avoid their responsibility to help citizens who appeal property-specific zoning decisions? If they know enough to assign zoning in the first place they should know enough to decide whether THEIR zoning laws are being properly applied to a specific property.
Maybe they just don’t want to be held responsible for their bad decisions.
You may want to go back and reread the article.
Just sayin,
Abdicating the responsibility to a government entity that has almost no responsiveness to the community is not the right solution. But I don’t think keeping the council members as the board is the right way to go either.
I think we should keep the zoning appeals board, and it should be run like jury duty, where citizens make up the board by random assignment and are assisted by county attorneys as advisors on zoning issues.
BillH, middle aged white male? How close am I?
An effective compromise would be to keep the county council as the appeals board but modify it so that the district council person in the affected district where the zoning change is contemplated, would be disqualified from voting on the appeal. To make the voting decisive, there would have to be five voting members of the council on the appeal board, so another member of the council would not vote by design. The district council person could then speak either for or against the zoning change and would be free to interact with his or her constituents, and could even argue in favor of or against the decision during the appeal. He would just not be allowed to speak about the matter to the voting members of the appeal board except during the formal appeal. . There is nothing more baffling or stifling for constituents to not have anyone to talk about what they consider an important matter if all seven members of the council are recused from any interaction with the citizens. At the same time it is important to try to keep these matters out of the court system as much as possible because it can easily be prohibitively expensive for citizens to hire lawyers to represent them in circuit court. If a matter fails then in this modified appeal board with just five voting members, then it can be taken to the next level. .
What’s with the “Friends of ….” slogans?
Fart.
This bill is about abdication of responsibility. It’s about representatives not being responsive to voters. There’s already a freshly minted bill from 2012 that permits our Council members to speak to their constituents on zoning issues. Recent outcry over irresponsible zoning decisions on Walmart and Eva Mar have brought heavy pressure to bear. Sending issues to the Circuit Court further distances voters from the ability to influence public policy decisions through their elected representatives. There was an article in the Economist that said the following, “Government of the people by the people for the people was Abraham Lincoln’s famous mantra. But which people? Do governments respond to the concerns of the average voter or do they merely cater to the privileged elite?” A recent detailed statistical analysis of close to 2000 American opinion poll surveys by Princeton University and Northwestern University concluded that “not only do ordinary citizens not have uniquely substantial power over policy decisions; they have little or no influence at all”. We have to prove them wrong… Let freedom ring. Let’s make Harford County, a county where Lincoln would be proud of his Republican Party or any party. We have to help reshape the political process to assure responsiveness to all.
Just because the county council doesn’t agree with you and a couple of your neighbors doesn’t mean there is some big conspiracy. It’s a county of 250000 residents and a lot of business’s both big and small you are what… 150 sniveling children complaining about a perfectly legal process.
If you are so sure of the underhanded dealings of the council put your money where your mouth is and file a suit, expose the ugly truth you alleged because you come off as nothing more than an ankle biting dog no one really pays any attention too.
Sack up and fight the system or hide under your moms skirt, your choice. I’m guessing you’ll stay under the skirt.
A citizens recourse is to file suit exclusively? Why do we have 3 branches of government? The fact is the council is too afraid to get involved in one of the most important parts of the local charter. Planning and zoning is at the heart of self-determination for a local government along side with education, safety and public service. The council can’t have it both ways, be able to vote on laws and advocate their responsibility to decide on matter which the law hasn’t covered, changes to zoning ordinances or amending the code through the legislative process when unintended consequences bring about development issues which weren’t thought of or in play at the time of the initial bill. It is not the council’s only job to rubber stamp the CE on every decision and make small time changes from here and then. The council has the responsibility to respond to public requests and at least pretend that they care about the fate of their county. Their silence speaks volumes to the fact that they only answer to special groups and developers. Their job is to legislate and be an active part of the planning process.
That sounds well and good, but the truth is that most of the time the parties involved are not stupid enough to do anything “illegal.”
But there at least a half a dozen situations in the last 2 or 3 years where you can draw fairly direct lines between zoning/county code changes either introduced by a council member or the CE and a project that happens to be impacted by that change being made public within 3 months to a year.
I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t put much stock in the “conspiracy theory” talk myself, until I started seeing all these articles and researching the bills and finding these connections myself.
There’s no smoking gun, but it’s awfully convenient timing. And it keeps happening. The bottom line is the developers know who to talk to, and their lawyers know what needs to happen, and there are people in county government who can be very responsive to those needs.
Add two cups of public apathy and ignorance and you get what we have.
I recently wrote a commentary on this issue that appeared in the Dagger and was critical of Councilman’s Slutzky’s position on this issue in the Eva Mar case. Despite that criticism, I strongly disagree with the Council’s proposed solution to this dilemma as it is overreaching and will create far more problems than it solves. As with most actions by this council, this bill has little if any thought behind it. It is simply a knee jerk reaction to the criticism of the council’s poorly thought out and inconsistent positions on recent development projects. Basically, they can’t take the heat so they are getting out of the fire.
If the council really took the time to think about the source of their problems, they might find that the solution is quite simple. Their own lack of critical thinking about the positions they are taking is the root of the problem. Let’s take the Eva Mar case as an example. There are absolutely no issues that could ever come before the Board of Appeals on Eva Mar. Despite this fact, Richard Slutzky took the ultra conservative and preposterous position that he cannot talk to us at all about anything Eva Mar related. This was something of his own making that he is now taking considerable heat for in an election year. So what would we have asked him to help us with? For one, the biggest issue is the traffic on Route 543. This is an issue that has absolutely nothing to do with the Board of Appeals. In fact, Route 543 is a state road and a state issue. We need him to lean on SHA to require the appropriate road improvements to alleviate congestion caused by not only Eva Mar but the many other developments under way near by. How does this impact in any way a Board of Appeals case? It doesn’t and yet Slutzky’s solution is to remain silent behind a fabricated conflict of interest. My point is that his hard line position on the issue is ill-conceived and unnecessary. So why do we now need to blow up an otherwise functioning system because of one council person’s lack of critical thinking and inability to find a solution?
Let’s assume for a minute that there might actually be a board of appeals case on Eva Mar. Had the council not have changed the zoning code as it related to CCRC building height just prior to the plans going public (that “back-door variance” is another story to itself), the developers would have had to request a variance for their proposed 60 foot building. That is clearly an issue that would have come before the Board of Appeals. But it is a very very narrow issue – Can a 60 foot tall building be built on this location when the cap is 50 feet? Richard Slutzky could have said, “I can talk to you about traffic on Route 543 but I cannot talk to you about the building height issue” And if that were the case, I think we would have understood. Why? Because we have a forum before the Board of Appeal to express our concerns about the building height issue. We don’t need his immediate help there because he will ultimately hear the facts when the issue comes before the board of appeals. We will have our day in court on that limited issue. Traffic on Route 543, on the other hand, is not and never will be an issue to come before the Board of Appeals. INSTEAD, Slutzky tells us he cannot help us at all on anything Eva Mar related. This is a problem that HE created by not having the creativity to come up with a more practical solution and taking a hard line stance. A blanket statement that he cannot help us at all is not in the spirit of the current county charter. The was never to limit a council member’s ability to help constituents to this degree. Thus, the problem in my mind is first and foremost one of interpretation. We need to change the interpretation NOT the system. Let’s all agree on how the law should be interpreted first. Slutzky and the supporters of this bill are just plain wrong on this hard line interpretation.
The other perplexing aspect of this issue is the acceptance of campaign contributions from developers. In Richard Slutzky’s case, he received $1,800 from interests related to Eva Mar in September 2013 (zoning bills introduced in October 2013; plans went public November 2013). That is a big issue when he tells us in December 2013 that he cannot speak to us. But then accepts campaign contributions from the very interests that might also be before on him on the board of appeals. Does that not constitute talking with developers? Does that not constitute an attempt to influence your decisions as a member of the board of appeals? Doesn’t your very silence on issues such as traffic assist the developers? You can’t have it both ways. And that is a major issue for the council. They do not want to give up their campaign contributions. Contributions from land use related interests make up nearly 60% of Slutzky’s total receipts. Others are in the 40% to 50% range as well. By turning the system over to the Circuit Court, the developers don’t really lose anything and in fact probably gain by being in an environment that is more expensive and cumbersome for the average person. At the same time, the council can now freely accept as much in campaign contributions as they want from developers for the performance of their other functions without fear of ethical issues. The only loser in the equation are the average citizens who don’t have the resources to fight the deep-pocketed, well-connected developers.
What are the solutions? One solution might be to adopt a system more like Baltimore County’s Board of Appeals where each council member appoints someone to the board of appeals for a three year term. Baltimore County’s board of appeals hears a wider range of issues and not just zoning issues which eliminates some of the developer influence (not all I am sure but some). That frees up the council members to talk to citizens if they are in fact really that scared about this issue. Another solution might be to have the council member in whose district the case arises recuse himself and have the council president sit out the board of appeals altogether leaving a five member board. How many council members does it really take to hear a zoning case?
As a relative newcomer to land use issues, I don’t know enough about all of the various nuances to this issue. But I do know this, in the Eva Mar case, the problem was one of interpretation and a councilman taking it to the absolute extremes. We can only speculate whether this position was motivated by $1,800 of campaign contributions he received. Regardless, the acceptance of those contributions is completely contradictory to his position taken on the matter. There is simply no need to do away with a system that has generally worked well for several decades because of one man’s incorrect and inconsistent interpretation of the law. Surely there are other solutions that are more tailored to solve the problem. But developing those solutions would require critical thinking, something this council has displayed little of since I have been watching.