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Planning Board approves residential updates to CMDP; glossary removed, parking multiplier unchanged
Summary
The Board approved revisions to the residential section of the Comprehensive Master/Design Plan (CMDP) March 5, including removing an outdated glossary, keeping the existing 15% visitor/overflow parking multiplier for 'type one' residential developments, and correcting a garage-width percentage from 50% to 45%.
The Baltimore County Planning Board on March 5 approved updates to the residential section of the County’s Comprehensive Master/Design Plan (CMDP). Planner Jen Nent summarized the staff response to comments received from the Maryland Homebuilders and local engineers and described several technical and editorial changes the department recommended.
Nent told the Board the update is intended as a modernization effort rather than a vehicle for new legislation: "we didn't plan to impose any new legislation, but just to give the document a more modern refresh, scrub the material for outdated terminologies, and to enhance concepts and definitions where we thought they would be applicable," she said. Staff proposed removing the CMDP glossary entirely because it contains inconsistent and outdated terms and is seldom used; the Board accepted staff’s explanation and the glossary removal as part of the package.
On parking standards, staff had briefly proposed raising a "type one" visitor/overflow parking multiplier in the illustrative tables; following comment and discussion, Nent said the proposal to raise that multiplier from 15% to 30% was withdrawn and staff recommended retaining the existing 15% multiplier. Nent also identified a technical correction on page 11: a garage-width percentage in the updated document was listed as 50% but should read 45% consistent with BCZR Section 260, and the staff draft was corrected accordingly.
After brief questions and no substantive objections, the Board moved to adopt the residential updates. Members praised Nent and planning staff for work modernizing the document and discussed next steps where recommendations would require zoning or legislative changes; staff said such items would be coordinated with the zoning office and, when appropriate, with County Council.
Next steps: staff will finalize the updated residential CMDP text (including corrected numeric values) and post materials from public review; items that require legislative changes will require separate action by the zoning office or County Council.
