My op-ed on the first of two ill-conceived bills now before the Baltimore County Council involving the use of land outside the county’s Urban Rural Demarcation Line (URDL) appeared last Thursday in The Brew. Councilman David Marks is the primary sponsor of both bills.

The first bill, 18-25, seeks to pull the rug out from under a landowner in the final stages of obtaining a permit to place a solar facility on a 22-acre parcel of land in the Kingsville area of the county, not far from Marks’ home.

The second bill, 19-25, would have a far greater impact on the county in general by effectively hardwiring the current URDL into the County Charter. About two-thirds of the county’s land mass and about 10% of its population are outside the URDL, the primary purpose of which is to prevent farmland from being lost to development.

Bill 19-25 is remarkable both in its bizarre substance and in the lack of any analysis of its effects preceding its introduction. It lends support to growing arguments that the state should withdraw some of the control that counties have over zoning and other land use matters.

Enshrining Councilmanic Courtesy

The bill, which will be reviewed this afternoon at the council’s work session, proposes a charter amendment that not only would require the affirmative vote of a super majority of council members to approve a change to the URDL, but also would require that the super majority include all members whose districts are affected by the change.

In other words, it would give individual council members veto power over any changes to the URDL in their districts, making it almost impossible to change the URDL.

It would be a veto power more absolute than the veto power over legislation given to the county executive because a veto by the county executive can be overturned.

Under Bill 19-25, a veto by a council member would not be subject to legislative, administrative or judicial review.

I know of no provision in the charter of any chartered county in Maryland that gives a single council member life or death power over a public local law. The unprecedented nature of the provision alone is an invitation to legal challenge or preemption by the General Assembly.

The Maryland Constitution requires that the “law-making power” of a charter county be vested in its county council. That includes the power delegated to the county by the General Assembly to enact public local laws implementing and amending planning and zoning controls on the use of land within the county.

The URDL is the single most important planning and zoning control in the county.

The effect of Bill 19-25, when it comes to amending the URDL, would be to take the lawmaking power away from the council acting as a legislative body and give it to the individual members whose districts are affected by a proposed amendment.

That is not an exercise of lawmaking power by the council as contemplated by the Maryland Constitution. It is an abrogation of it.

During an exchange at a work session on the bill between Marks and Councilman Pat Young, Young questioned whether giving a council member the power to veto a change to the URDL would allow one member to negate the judgment of the other members without compromising the purpose of the URDL.

Marks responded that “I wouldn’t look at it that way,” although that is exactly what it would do.

The veto provision is a dead giveaway that the primary purpose of Bill 19-25 is not preserving agricultural land, it is hardwiring into the charter the prerogative of a council member to exclude unwanted projects – or unwanted people – from his or her district.

Flying Blind

Not only is the veto provision in the bill unprecedented, so is the absence of any study and analysis of the effects of such a major land use bill before its introduction. The county Planning Board crafted the URDL almost 60 years ago and has overseen it ever since.

Among other options for such study and analysis, the Council could have asked the Planning Board for its “review and recommendation” on the proposed charter amendment. It chose not to do so.

In yet another unprecedented action, the current and two past chairpersons of the Planning Board sent a letter to the council cautioning it against making it all but impossible for future councils to change the URDL if necessary to adapt to changing economic and demographic circumstances. They urged the council, at the very least, to study the current and long-term effects of the bill before passing it.

Their final comment, which referred to widely shared concerns about the county’s stagnating economy, left no doubt about what they thought about the bill: “Making poor policy choices now threatens the county’s coveted AAA-bond rating and will only lead to higher taxes and reduced services in the future.”

By all accounts, the URDL has been a success.

Former Maryland Secretary of Planning Richard Hall agrees, but concurred in a Facebook post with the current and past chairpersons of the Planning Board that the first order of business should be to give the issues raised by Bill 19-24 a “hard look” consisting of sound data and analysis of multiple factors, including infill and redevelopment potential inside the URDL.

Hall noted that the possibility that there are carefully planned areas outside the existing URDL that should be made available for development cannot be ruled out until a thorough analysis is done.

Despite the sound advice, Marks and the four other sponsors of the bill want the council to fly by the seat of its pants, oblivious to the consequences of what it is doing. It wouldn’t be the first time.

The Racial Component 

The charter amendment proposed by the bill cannot go on the ballot for approval by the voters until November 2026, leaving plenty of time for study and analysis. So, why the rush?

According to a story in the Baltimore Banner, the timing may be related to the fact that the 2026 election will be the first one in which council representatives are elected from nine councilmanic districts, two districts having been added in an attempt to increase racial diversity on the Council.

An announced candidate for one of two new seats, Sharonda Huffman, who is Black, made comments indicating that the URDL may need to be changed to generate new housing development.

The Banner reported that it was comments like Huffman’s that helped persuade Councilman Marks, the bill’s primary sponsor, to introduce it. Marks stated at the work session that he feared that the demand for land for affordable housing would increase pressure to modify the URDL.

Although only a little over half of all county residents identify as white, about 90% of the residents living outside the URDL are white. The URDL plays a vitally important role in preserving farmland and protecting natural resources, but other factors play a part in the resistance to its modification.

One is that people who reside outside the URDL tend to become attached to their bucolic lifestyles. Racial prejudice also plays a part, just like it plays a part in the resistance to changes to county law intended to expand the supply of affordable housing inside the URDL.

The rush to get Bill 19-25 passed and the provision of the proposed charter amendment that would allow individual council members to block development in their districts invite suspicion that the motivation here is less about the future of agriculture than about mollifying residents live outside the URDL who are alarmed about perceived threats to their quality of life.

For these reasons, the bill should be withdrawn, and the future of the URDL carefully considered before any further action is taken. If the chaos arising in Washington over the actions by DOGE teaches us anything, it is that important decisions should be made in accordance with a fair and thoughtful process.

• David A. Plymyer retired as Anne Arundel County Attorney after 31 years in the county law office. He can be reached at dplymyer@comcast.net and Twitter @dplymyer.