The Montgomery County Department of Transportation is restructuring in an effort to expedite the review process for new development.
Al Roshdieh, acting director of the transportation department, announced the changes Monday, saying they should “greatly improve the efficiency of our operations and enhance MCDOT’s service to the public.”
Any development project proposed in front of the county’s Planning Board must get the input of various state and county agencies—including the county transportation department’s Development Review Team.
The team is a group of staffers who examine the traffic capacity of roads surrounding a project site and a host of other transportation-related issues, including where loading docks should go and where median breaks are located.
The team’s suggestions often must be incorporated into a developer’s project before it moves on to the next stage of the Planning Board’s approval process.
Until now, the Development Review Team has been headquartered in Gaithersburg within the Division of Traffic Engineering. That group of staffers will move to the Executive Office Building in Rockville starting today and be directly supervised by the transportation director’s office.
Emil Wolanin, acting deputy director of the department, said the move will cut out a number of steps in the process and should result in faster review times.
“As soon as an issue is taken to a supervisor, it’s almost the highest level of supervision,” Wolanin said. “We’ll be able to sort through any issues much quicker and with much more authority. They have a higher profile now within the department.”
County Executive Ike Leggett kicked off his third term in December by promising a streamlined development review process.
Leggett said he was "ready to commit in this coming year to a timeline that guarantees that if you come to us with a project that is ready, we will turn your plan around in 30 days."
Last year, a study by the County Council's Office of Legislative Oversight found that for major projects that require all three levels of review, it could take three years to get from initial proposal to final approval.
Other changes coming to the county’s transportation department include moving the Commuter Services and Taxi Cab Unit, until now in the Division of Transit Services, to the director’s office in Rockville.
Wolanin said those moves will allow Transit Services to focus more heavily on operating Ride On, the county’s bus service, instead of other duties such as regulating taxi cab companies that operate in the county.
“The emphasis and focus on transit in this county needs to be one of providing Ride On service first and foremost,” Wolanin said.
