Howard County Executive Ken Ulman's idea to push environmentally friendly development with a package of new laws is drawing universal praise. But there are objections to the details.
Several western county landowners and builders complained at a County Council hearing Monday night that Ulman's plan to speed approvals of "green" residential developments by taking 100 housing allocations away from their area would unfairly delay their projects. They also said that a long list of green standards needed for new homes to qualify under the law is faulty.
Business leaders also want changes in proposals for green commercial buildings, and some want more incentives for retrofitting existing buildings.
"It is unfair to me to take allocations from the rural west and have them available to the whole county. The Nixon family desperately needs those allocations," said Mildred Nixon, who with her family plans to develop new homes at Nixon's Farm in West Friendship, where they've lived for a half-century.
Howard County doles out building permits for new homes by a system that allows 250 units per year, of a total 1,850, to rural areas.
Others, including two council members, said it is unfair to change the development rules on people who are following them and are depending on the predictability of the county's complex system of development regulations.
"By playing ball with the county, we were chumps," Mildred Nixon's son Randall said, adding that otherwise, he believes the concept of green buildings is "wonderful."
But many among the three dozen who signed up to speak Monday night praised the bills, as did council Chairman Calvin Ball after the hearing.
"I think the executive came up with unique, bold ideas," he said. "It's a large step in the right direction."
The bills set up a combination of property tax cuts and mandatory controls to push developers into building more environmentally friendly commercial and residential buildings. The incentive for green residential projects is quicker county approvals achieved by taking 40 percent of the western county's housing allocations and making them available to builders throughout the county. Marsha S. McLaughlin, the county planning director, said she has received applications from five builders for green projects in Ellicott City and Elkridge.
Ulman said yesterday that he wants to move quickly on the legislation.
"Approving of the concept is not enough. We've got to take action. We need to move on this now," Ulman said, adding that he is already preparing amendments to address several problems raised at the marathon hearing that stretched to 12:40 a.m. yesterday.
"We're really willing to be flexible and work through issues council members have - within reason," he added.
The council will hold two work sessions next week on the package of three bills. Final votes are scheduled for 4:30 p.m. July 30.
The hearing also included testimony on several other bills. One is a living-wage bill, which would require contractors with at least five employees doing at least $100,000 of work for the county to pay their employees at least $12.41 an hour. Another bill would create a system of binding arbitration for county police and firefighters.
The environmental bills took most of the testimony, however, and virtually every speaker, even those critical of specific provisions, praised Ulman's purpose.
"We're all on the side of green legislation," Republican Councilman Greg Fox said after the hearing, although he wants the entire package tabled to give the council more time.
Fox grilled Joshua Feldmark, executive director of the Commission on Environment and Sustainability, on why the administration did not include more business leaders, developers and landowners in the early deliberations on the legislation.
"I'm curious why you guys didn't take a consensus-based approach," Fox said.
"We wanted to create a program to challenge the Howard County community," Feldmark replied. "I think we have a very strong proposal here."
Courtney Watson, an Ellicott City Democrat, added her own qualified praise: "I commend the administration for bringing forward green legislation, however imperfect."
Del. Elizabeth Bobo, a Democrat and former county executive and council member who works on environmental bills in the General Assembly, said the issue is an urgent one.
"This is such a fundamentally bedrock important issue to our county and the planet," she said. No one is questioning global warming anymore, she said, and "we are in as good a position as any county to address this issue."
She, too, noted specific issues raised by the Chamber of Commerce and others.
The chamber does not want a government-required minimum green standard for new buildings. Chamber members also said the minimum size for a regulated commercial building should be 50,000 square feet instead of 20,000 - something Ulman said he would change - and they prefer fines for noncompliance to requiring developers to be bonded.
Despite those objections, builder Jared Spahn favored the bills, saying he has built several new green buildings in the county, including his own 6,000-square-foot headquarters in Dorsey's Search, which he said was not expensive to get certified by the group Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.
larry.carson@baltsun.com