The Montgomery County, Maryland, council put off a straw vote on a long-range planning document, instead calling for further analysis of the Thrive Montgomery 2050 plan.
During Tuesday’s discussion, Montgomery County Planning Board Chair Casey Anderson defended the plan, telling the council members, “I want to make sure that everybody understands that racial justice and social equity are not just a core theme of the plan, but they are discussed in quite a lot of detail in every single chapter in every single part of the plan. Thrive makes 72 recommendations that are directly or indirectly related to those topics.”
Gwen Wright, director of the Montgomery County Planning Department, told the council that the plan lays out goals for the future in broad strokes.
Thrive, Wright said, “Is a plan for planning. And it is not intended to answer every question; it is intended to lay out the parameters of what we should be talking about in the future. It is a dynamic instrument rather than a finished product.”
Anderson and Wright were responding to a report from the Office of Legislative Oversight that recommended additional community input, particularly from communities of color and low-income residents.
“It is, I think, an amazing thing that the council, that the planning board have decided to prioritize racial equity and social justice in the development of the county’s comprehensive plan,” Elaine Bonner-Tompkins, senior legislative analyst with OLO, said.
But, she said more work on the plan is needed to make sure that groups who were put at a disadvantage due to land policies of the past are not subject to further harm. “You just have to understand that this is just a part of doing the work,” Bonner-Tomkins said.
Anderson pointed out that Thrive addresses policies surrounding housing, transportation and economic development, all with an eye on ways that would benefit communities that the county’s current racial equity and social justice policies seek to address.
Anderson also warned against delaying decisions on the issue for much longer. “I’m not trying to tell you what to do. But I think it’s important to be aware that there is a deadline and that we’ve been at this for years.”
A number of civic groups also sent a letter of support to the county council, urging action on the Thrive Montgomery 2050 plan. Groups including The Coalition for Smarter Growth, Montgomery for All, Audubon Naturalist Society, Montgomery Housing Alliance and the Washington Area Bicyclists Association signed off on the letter, “We urge the Council to quickly plan work sessions to incorporate amendments and pass Thrive,” the groups said.
Pam Dunn, a senior legislative analyst for the county, said that because the plan doesn’t deal with specific zoning decisions, it is not subject to a deadline by October of this year, and that a future council, one made up of members in office after the upcoming county elections, could consider the plan.
Council President Gabe Albornoz made clear he didn’t want extensive delays, but asked for comment from his colleagues.
Council member Tom Hucker said that his constituents in Silver Spring and eastern portions of the county had been negatively affected by past land use decisions, and that he’s very supportive of the concerns laid out in the OLO report. But, “I just don’t want to wait too long to do that,” he said.
Council member Nancy Navarro told her colleagues that she sees the need for further “authentic” community input, saying the demographics of the county have changed and that it’s time to “flip the script” to make sure that people who will be affected by land use decisions have more chances to weigh in.
The planning document, said Council member Evan Glass, “is our Rorschach test, and it has different meanings to different people, and they’re seeing what they want to see in it.”
Council member Sidney Katz said he favored more analysis, while recognizing the extensive work that already went into the Thrive 2050 plan.
“I think that this is sort of like Goldilocks; we can’t go too fast. We can’t go too slow. We need to do this just right,” Katz said.
At the close of the discussion, Albornoz called for council staff to recommend future steps for more analysis in a work session at a future date.
