Maryland planning chief asks committee to align code with ‘sustainable growth’ principles
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Summary
The Department of Planning told the Senate committee SB197 would reorganize comprehensive plan requirements around eight sustainable growth principles, expand data access for localities, and aim for a unified approach across all 24 jurisdictions while avoiding prescriptive mandates.
ANNAPOLIS — Rebecca Flora, Maryland’s secretary of planning, urged the Senate Education, Energy and the Environment Committee to advance Senate Bill 197, a code modernization that she said will align comprehensive-plan statutes with newly codified sustainable growth principles and simplify how localities access state data.
Flora said the measure reorganizes plan elements rather than imposing prescriptive new rules, and it would apply uniformly across charter and non‑charter jurisdictions so that all 24 local governments work from the same framework. "Today and with this bill, we are now looking toward in very simple terms creating alignment between that and the comprehensive plan elements," Flora told the committee.
Testimony described three near-term changes: recasting existing plan elements around eight principles that became law last year, improving state data access so communities can better assess trends and conditions, and preparing an implementation guide slated for release after enactment. Flora said the department will issue training materials and case studies and that the full modernization will proceed in steps so local governments can adapt.
Senators raised concerns about capacity and timing. Vice Chair Cheryl Kagan and others asked who decides what counts as a "streamlined" permitting process under the plan; assistant secretary Chuck Boyd said the bill moves language rather than creating new mandates and emphasized that technical revisions were intended to reduce variability among jurisdictions. Flora said the permitting council the governor established is looking first at state permitting processes and that local permitting rules are not changed by this bill.
Committee members also asked whether the department would produce a new statewide development plan. Flora said the department has held off updating the state plan until the new statutory frame is in place so the eventual plan can use the sustainable-growth principles and current data.
No votes were recorded during the hearing. Flora and staff said they continue stakeholder outreach with municipalities, builders and preservation groups and expect follow-up conversations and possible narrow amendments ahead of future sessions.