From the Maryland Association of Counties’ blog, Conduit Street, by Les Knapp

County and municipal governments are working with the Maryland Department of Planning (MDP) to transition from a 6-year to a 10-year comprehensive planning and zoning cycle. HB 409  and SB 671 of 2013 moved to a 10-year cycle, and, to the extent practicable, makes the cycle coincide with the release of data from the United States decennial census. The legislation also required a “check-up” at the 5-year point of a comprehensive plan’s adoption and was amended to clarify that a local government that adopted a growth tier under the Sustainable Growth and Agricultural Preservation Act of 2012 must integrate the tiers into its comprehensive plan when the plan would be next reviewed under the jurisdiction’s current 6-year cycle. As the bills were part of MACo’s 2013 Legislative Initiative package, MACo supported the bills. Continue reading →