Six candidates for vacancies on the Montgomery County Planning Board agree on issues ranging from the need for more affordable housing to the importance of building residences near Metro stations, but diverge on one of the most heated topics in the county: when to place a moratorium on building.
At a public forum Monday night hosted by the LGBTQ Democrats of Montgomery County, the candidates met for the first time, days before the County Council is set to begin interviews. About 150 people attended the forum at the Silver Spring Civic Center and listened to the candidates answer questions about land use, development and environmental issues.
Twenty-four people had applied for the two open seats on the five-person panel that meets weekly and oversees sector plans, development projects and manages the planning department’s $20 million budget. The candidate pool was narrowed by county staff last month.
Candidates are: Brandy Brooks, Julian Haffner, Charles Kauffman, William Kirwan, Partap Verma and Jennifer Russel, who was not present.
Three of the new candidates and incumbent Planning Board chairman Casey Anderson agreed moratorium – a freeze on residential building when nearby schools are too crowded — is “a good idea in theory,” but the policy needs revision to better serve Montgomery County residents.
None offered suggestions for changes.
The two other candidates, Brooks and Kauffman, were on opposite sides, with Brooks saying she fully supports the moratorium policy as it exists, and Kauffman calling it “dumb and self-defeating.”
Brooks, a community activist from Wheaton and the lone applicant who has indicated she intends to challenge Anderson for the board’s chair position, said the county needs to ensure there is adequate infrastructure, like schools and roads, before building more houses, and the moratorium policy is a good guide to ensure that is happening.
“Part of planning and executing good planning is doing things that make our communities livable. We can’t continue to ask the community to bear the burdens of school overcrowding when we’re giving away profits to developers who don’t have to stay here and live with those conditions,” Brooks said. “If moratoriums are the thing we need to put sufficient pressure on public officials to make different decisions, we need to keep it.”
On the other end of the spectrum, Kauffman, a Bethesda attorney, was blunt in his opposition to residential building freezes, set to be enacted in six school areas next month.
“This policy has got to be changed,” Kauffman said. “To restrict building houses and enhancing neighborhoods for a singular purpose is wrong. It’s just dumb.”
Kirwan, son of former University System of Maryland chancellor William “Brit” Kirwan and a local architect, said Montgomery County is not getting enough financial support from the state government to ensure schools have enough space for local children.
Similarly, Haffner, Anderson and Partap said finding the balance between ensuring adequate housing is available in various neighborhoods and stifling increasing school crowding issues is difficult, but agreed stifling development is “not the answer.”
Caitlynn Peetz can be reached at caitlynn.peetz@moco360.media
