Mayor and Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, Rockville. Today is 05/11/2026, and we will convene mayor and council meeting number 13 dash '26. Please join me as you are able in the pledge of allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice

the

to We are

Kear Newell. She goes to Bayard Reston Elementary School,

We and she is the winner of the If I Were Mayor contest that was done among all fourth graders throughout the entire city of Rockville, and we're so very proud of her. Can we give her a round of applause? She not only won at this level, and this is decided upon by a state level organization, but her essay was so good that she was one of 11 members who went to Annapolis to get a certificate, and it was 11 people statewide. We're not only proud of her work and her vision for Rockville, but the fact that she was recognized in the entire state is greatly appreciated. This is a contest that is led by the Maryland Municipal League and the idea is to encourage civic participation and to get folks thinking about what they would do if they were in charge.

She has many, many good ideas and we're going to hear from her today. But I want to thank her for her courage. She met with many officials in Annapolis toward the building. Delegate Spiegel was very kind enough to give her a personal tour, and she asked great questions. So with that, I'm going to ask mayor Kiera Newell, to please read her essay. Do you to it at the podium or here?

I can go on there.

Come on.

If I were mayor, I would make it my mission to ensure our community is a safe, healthy, and caring environment for all residents. First, I would focus on our schools. To ensure every student gets a world class education, every school needs the right tools. This means modern science labs, libraries filled with updated books, high speed Wi Fi for research and homework, healthy meals, and fun after school clubs. Second, I would transform our parks.

Playgrounds should be fun, but they must also be safe. I will replace hard, ground, prickly surfaces with extra soft, bouncy rubber tiles. This ensures that every child, including those with mobility challenges, could play comfortably and safely without a fear of a hard fall. Third, I would launch a biweekly newsletter titled From the Desk of the Mayor of Rockville. It would share both the highlights and lowlights of our city.

It is important to listen to residents, share honest updates, and address concerns so that everyone feels heard. Fourth, I would make it a priority to stop by community events to meet with residents face to face. Finally, I would bring us together through sports. Since pickleball is incredibly popular here, I would organize an annual wide city tournament. We already have amazing courts. A giant yearly tournament would be the perfect way for the community to compete, show off their skills, and celebrate together. Rockville is already a great place to live. But with the right leadership, it can be extraordinary. If I were mayor, I would empower every resident to help me build the best community Maryland.

Mayor Newell, thank you. I think you have fabulous ideas.

Thank you.

I think we could have used you during the budget process. So her charge was to not only think about where we've been. This has been a contest that's been going on for many years. Maryland Municipal League is 90 years old this year. And so I know we have a number of things we're celebrating, two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of our country, the ninetieth anniversary of the Maryland Municipal League, and she was to think about not only Rockville today but Rockville for the next ninety years. I think you have great ideas and I know all of my colleagues were taking notes. Now she's going to continue to lead us in a portion of our meeting.

City clerk, miss Sarah Taylor Farrow, are there any changes to this evening's agenda?

Madam mayor Noel, there are no changes on the agenda for this evening. Thank you.

You. City

manager, mister Jeff Mihilek, can you please present the city manager's report?

Mini mayor Newell, adult sized mayor Ashton, I guess. Members of city council, good evening. Mini mayor Newell, that's the best pronunciation, first five ever heard. So congratulations, and thank you on behalf of my whole family. I do have some fun things to report. Our Department of Public Works equipment show is this Tuesday, May 19 from 10:30 to 04:30PM at Maddie Stepanek Park. That is very exciting, and we have a lot of students show up and climb around in some excellent equipment. Hopefully, we can get a lot of participation. We also have a brand new playground equipment at Falls Grove Park, bright and shiny. So if anybody wants to check that out, it's outstanding.

Bike to work day is this Friday, May 15. All kinds of activities throughout the city. We'd encourage people to look on our website for locations that they can bike to on their way to work. And finally, something we always look forward to every year, the farmers market reopens this Saturday, May 16. That's all I have. Thank you.

Do you have any questions for him?

No. Okay.

I will also note the city has been working very hard on a number of events and with partners. I think there's also the community walk and roll event, May 14. I know some members of our pedestrian and bike community wanted us to raise that. There is a nonprofit symposium this Thursday. Please check that out. Glenview Mansion is celebrating one hundred years to have a major event, and we're gonna be continuing our efforts to do the neighborhood connects throughout the city, and our next one is in Rockshire. Please find out more of our events. Look at rockvillemd.gov, and you can also explore our partners at explorerockville. Mayor Newell, would you like to say anything else or do you have any other questions?

I have nothing.

Thank you. She has some homework and to prepare for school tomorrow, but you'll be seeing Mayor Newell around the city. She's going to be touring with our police. She's gonna be visiting our big truck show that's coming up next week on Tuesday, so please come and join her. And she's gonna participate in our Memorial Day ceremony if she's available. But please wish her well. I want to thank all of the fourth graders who took time to write an essay and to share their ideas. We're going to be announcing for the first time this year some additional finalists because we want to honor those at other schools who finalists as well. You Mayor Neul. We greatly appreciate all that you've done.

Thank you. You're welcome. I'll see you soon. Can someone help us with this chair? That's okay. Thank you. Okay. So we're gonna make one minor adjustment to the agenda. We wanna thank our district seventeen team. They're gonna be presenting this evening.

I know some have events prior to this. I wanna thank delegate Spiegel for being here. First of the crew to join us, we will move this presentation back until we see the rest of your colleagues join. Thank you. We're now going to proceed to community forum. We really value this time and want to hear from the community. All persons, address the mayor and council and speak in a professional, civil, and courteous manner, and please be respectful of each other. Each person should will be allowed three minutes, and we ask that you stick to the three minutes aloud. There is a time clock in front of you, and you will hear an audible beep at the end of your three minutes. Please state your name and if you live in Rockville for the record.

We'll take those who have signed up in advance. I also wanted to note that we have some public hearings this evening. We will have a separate call for those opportunities to speak as well. If you inadvertently signed up for community forum and you mean to sign up for public hearing, just raise your hand, and I will know to to move on. Okay. Welcome, Irina Lujan. Welcome.

Good evening. My name is Irina Luhan. I am executive director of Universal Aid for Children of Ukraine, and I am a Rotarian of Rockville Rotary Club, a director and representative to District 7620 to international committee Ukraine USA. I'm very happy that mayor Monique Ashton is an honorary member of our club, and it gives me more confidence to speak today with you. I want to say that, mayor Monique Ashton always takes it close to her heart about what's happening in Rockville, in The United States, and all over the world.

Rockville rotary has wonderful tradition to display flags in the memorial day, About 400 flags, each one represents a hero. Some are fallen heroes. Some are family members who are alive by people who want to honor them. And the memory about fallen heroes lives as long as we live and take with us this memory. Several years ago in this field, there were very special ally of flags which were erected to honor members of Universal Aid for Children of Ukraine, the organization which I have the honor to represent.

These are people who are alive. Thank God they are all alive now. All the volunteers working without rest in Ukraine, in Odessa, providing help to orphans, children, emergency doctor, coordinators, everybody. It warmed my heart to see little Kira today. She she's a wonderful wonderful young girl.

And when I looked at her, I was proud to see her as a mini mayor. And, also, I feel that hundreds of children in Odessa, Ukraine, the same age she was probably nine, 10, 11, something like that. So the children who lost their parents, who escaped through the minefields and found refuge in Ukraine and Odessa, and they depend on the help from universal aid for children. And I am here today. Rockville is a city known for compassion, diversity, global awareness.

We are seeking now to connect with leaders who care about children, justice, and community, and help ensure that vulnerable Ukrainian children are not forgotten.

Thank you so much. We appreciate your testimony. Welcome, Lakissa Carter. Actually went to sign

up for the public

hearing. Perfect. Thank Kathleen Kleinman. We are working to get ADA accessible community forum, and we will be better.

I'm really excited about that. My name is Kathleen Kleinman, and I am a city resident here in Rockville. And I just want to encourage all of you to to participate in all of the community to participate in the Rockville pedestrian advocacy committee meeting today this week, which is actually a spring rock and roll event on May 14, which is Thursday at 6PM. The walk and roll will begin at Burgundy Shopping Center at the intersection of 1st Street and Baltimore Road. And we walk through the neighborhood.

We walk along the sidewalks. We identify issues, and we get to know our neighbors, and we get to have a nice conversation with not only the the mayor and council, but we but many of the members of the Public Works Department. Everyone is who is interested is welcome, and we would especially like to invite our city manager, Jeff Mihilek, personally. We we have a good dialogue. We usually walk for about a an hour, and hope we all hope for good weather.

If you need more information, the the committee contact information is on the Rockville website, And Barnett Woods is the staff person who facilitates our activities, and he has the most information. So we invite you to come. Thank you.

Thank you. Welcome Lily Borkle. For zoning, this is not the zoning just yet. So we'll come back. Thank you. I'll make a note. Okay. I see a couple others that say zoning. So Adrian Gardner, is that you wanna wait for the zone for the public hearing? We will do that. Yes, your honor. Thank you for your patience. Welcome former councilor Mark Bischela.

Thank you, madam mayor, mayor and members of the council. I'm speaking about voting and, following up on the last time you took this. I can only conclude that there's too much to do and too little time to do it and a lot of work needs to be done. So I would encourage this body to do only what you really need to do for 2027 because the clock's always already running and defer the rest and leave that to the next mayor and council who that can then do it, take care of it in their first year. I wanna speak a little bit about the ranked choice voting, and my good friend Vincent Russo said there had never been three candidates for mayor but in 2007 there was.

Susan Hoffman, Drew Powell, myself all ran for mayor in the same time. Susan won decisively. But in general, the ranked choice voting voting could really have an impact on the council races, especially for the last couple slots, which traditionally are separated sometimes by a handful of votes. And, you know, so that that can make a difference in those races. The fact that ranked choice voting may take several different forms, it's not a negative, it's a positive.

It means you can choose the form that best fits the city. And finally, I wanna agree with council member Valeri on, what she said about campaigning citywide. If you're a new candidate and you're not wealthy and you're not connected, it's very, very difficult in this city to run a citywide race. And it's more difficult than it was when I first ran in 2007. The city is actually far bigger.

Many more townhomes, for example, to knock on doors, that kind of thing, and mailing costs have just shot through the roof. So, I I just had to agree with that bit of it, you know. So and I am in favor of of having a few of the seats be by district, maybe three district related seats. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Welcome, J. D. Kumar.

City of Rockland, Maryland government council and mayor Ashton, thank you for this opportunity, this open democracy forum. My name is James Dhruva Kumar, JD Kumar, Democrat candidate for United States Congress, House of Representatives for this Maryland District 8. My web website is votejdk.com. I'm EIC, explainer in chief, not humble on this. Website is votejdk.com. Now I pledge allegiance to the flag of British America, Continental America, which is an East India company, EIC inspired USA independence flag. I pledge allegiance to USA America everywhere. Rule of law. Rule of law. Firstly, this is from Montgomery County, Maryland government.

None of them are at my level. I'm almost 56. I started work at the age of 10. Highly accomplished, multibillions dollar IPO sector model company in the nineteen nineties, in my twenties, and also an example for global telecoms and tech. You, especially many of you women, have not valued my new male role as a caregiver for my elder mom this past decade plus.

Montgomery County, Maryland government, you haven't valued this. I'm older than most local government leaders by average of eight to ten years or more, including all of you. A lot of experience. Most of Montgomery County, Maryland government in diapers, sucking then, sucking now when I was listening to and supporting some of your, we got our own thing now and don't new need you, dibbly dibbly doo, your version of doo doo brown civil rights leaders. Montgomery County, Maryland Government, this is terrible.

And so Montgomery County, Maryland Government, please note again that I'm the only long history of humanity, the twenty first century leader here in the world. No joke. Very unique inputs, exposure, generationally and current merit merit earned. Honorables mayor Ashton and counsel, City Of Rockland, Maryland government on the JEDI. Congratulations on establishing the JEDI initiative. Absolutely necessary if we still have discrimination. However, please balance all of your whereas whereas as discussed. Ciudad whereas Ciudad whereas Ciudad Ciudad whereas. There's a place across from the city in this in a Southwest city called El Paso. Whereas whereas Ciudad whereas Ciudad whereas.

Just a little bit more distance from another city in the Southwest called Lubbock. Whereas, whereas, Ciudad, whereas, Ciudad, Thank you. This RAN corporation wealth issue, like many issue, has multiplicities. Not we have unprecedented, illiterate migrant entry. Not an invasion at all if you've been used for your work. Remember, your humanitarian humanitarian value should not be based just on traditional work. Very relevant in this EIMC community, part of our USA America. But these narratives require an AIC explainer in chief. There are two extremes in the wealth gap. The illiterate class versus the genius class, this new twenty first century genius class.

Let's get our game right on this. Let's understand this when we talk about wealth gap. Whereas, whereas, Sida, whereas.

Thank you. That exhausts the list of those who have signed up advance for community forum. Is there anyone else who would like to speak? Welcome, mister Becker.

I have no problem with starting.

Please proceed.

Good evening. My name is John Becker. I live in Americana Center, which is across the street from the Rockville Metro Station. Couple of quick points here. I understand there's some pothole repairs taking place throughout the city starting last month, and I do want you to note that there are a number of them in town center that need to be addressed. Some of them have been there since the middle of the last decade. Street repaving. I've seen the list of streets that are being repaved. Monroe Street is not on the list even though a portion of it was paved a couple of years ago. I think that needs to be looked at, especially where it's in front of where it meets, Monroe Place.

I heard at today's leadership planning meeting mention of a DAR event at the Glenview Mansion. And I I support that event and that taking place, but there were some mention as far as some things in the past. And keep in mind that the Daughters of the American Revolution did not allow Marian Anderson to perform at their Constitution Hall in 1939. And there was a lot of brouhaha over that, and rightfully so. So again, everybody has a past.

And I just if you're going to mention one thing, you should probably mention that. Finally, briefly, on the election code and the rewrite and everything, I think it just took too long. And we are here at a point now in May, June, and this point should have been in January. So there is a reason for that, and we need to bring that up to the public so they understand. And following back on count former council member comments, we can only do so much.

I'm looking forward to attending the BSE meeting later this week, and hopefully, they can get some things through there. And I wish to wish good luck to our city clerk and our city attorney as well as the BSE Board of Supervisors of Elections, on their efforts they're gonna be doing. Thank you very much for your time.

Thank you for your testimony. Is there anyone else who would like to speak? Okay. Alright. I have noted the names who have signed up here for the public hearing. We will call you when it's that time. We'll

now

proceed to our agenda item nine, which is the consent agenda. We have a number of items on this list. 9A is the authorization for the City Manager to execute the Malawi price dwelling unit home ownership program agreements and approval of an authorization for the City Manager to execute declaration of restrictive covenants for Potomac Woods Phase 2 development between the Mayor and Council of Rockville and EYA Development LLC, subject to approval as to the legal form by the City Attorney. This project will bring new housing to the City of Rockville. B, to ratify the execution of that certain separation and release agreement dated 04/28/2026, as well as their approval of minutes.

Is there anyone who has questions about any of these consent items, or can we take them as a whole? If not, do we have a motion to approve? Councilmember Jackson.

Thank you, Mayor. I move to approve items A, B, and C.

Do we have a second? Councilmember Shaw seconds. All those in favor, please raise your hand and say aye. Aye. Excellent. Thank you very much. We'll now move on to the public hearing. Public hearing on zoning text amendment TXT twenty twenty six-two 71, the draft zoning ordinance, mayor and council as applicants. I want to welcome Holly Simmons, Deputy Zoning Manager, as well as Evan Johnson, Director of Community Planning and Development Services, and Jim Wasilek, Chief of Zoning. Welcome.

Thank you so much, madam mayor, and good evening, members of the council. So as mentioned, we will be having our third and final public hearing, one each for the zoning ordinance rewrite and the comprehensive map amendment. In just a moment, I think we'll see a presentation before us, and we'll go over the timeline for the project. But as you all will recall, we have had a number of meetings with planning commission leading up to our work, work sessions and public hearings with the mayor and council. And we are now here for there we go.

Thank you. And just to note, there are two public hearings, and we will explain the difference between the two.

Yes, of course. So as as you all are aware, we've had a number of meetings prior to this one, two with mayor and council, including public hearings and work sessions that was following planning commission's recommendation back on February 25. So we have, two more or a work session this evening and another coming up next week. But the public hearing that we are, approaching at this time is related to the zoning text amendment. And that for that public hearing, anyone who would like to provide testimony on the text of the zoning ordinance, any of the regulations contained therein now would be the time to do so.

And it's back to you, madam mayor. Thank you.

I wanna thank everyone who has sent in written comments. There are many, and my colleagues and I have had a chance to review the ones that were sent in. There were several that also came in this afternoon. I know we have tracked them for the record, but I want to note that my colleagues and I will be able to look at those as well. I'm going to start with those who have signed up in advance, then I'll take the folks from the room who have signed up after that. Welcome Lily Berkel.

Good evening, madam mayor, members of the council. Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. My name is Lily Berkley. I'm a local mortician and the cofounder of Willow Green Funerals, a local funeral startup working to bring more green funeral options to families in the area. We are on the hunt for property right now, and while we continue our property search in both Montgomery County and the city of Rockville for our future funeral home, our startup is currently using office office space through our sustainable business incubator, Bethesda Green, which is in Downtown Bethesda.

My business partner who's here tonight, Adrian Adrian Gardner, We were part of the very small grassroots team that helped enact the Green Death Care Options Act almost exactly two years ago to this day. While the state law has passed and regulations to govern the new law are nearly in place, whether or not we could invest in Rockville property remains unclear without making adjustments in the current zoning ordinance. The Green Death Care Options Act could not have passed without overwhelming support, very enthusiastic support from senator Cheryl Kagan as well as senator Jeff Wallstreicher and delegate Anne Kaiser. The city of Rockville has the opportunity right now to clearly support families looking for greener death options. Surveys from the National Funeral Directors Association show that nearly 70% of Americans are interested in green death care options.

They also show that if there are no other options on the table, that in the next twenty years, 80% of Americans will choose traditional fire cremation. For each one of those fire cremations, we know that over 500 pounds of carbon dioxide are released into our air. It does not have to be that way. We know Rockville residents, much like the rest of, Montgomery County and the state of Maryland, take great effort in helping to protect the environment, whether it's by recycling or composting food, using solar energy, driving an electric vehicle. And we know that many of these same residents are interested in honoring the earth, honoring the environment in their death as well.

So I'd like to spend just a a couple minutes introducing what the new options are. The first is called water cremation, also known as alkaline hydrolysis. It's often called aquamation. It's legal in 28 states. It's been around for thirty years, and this process gently breaks down the body using 95% water, heat, and an alkali.

Water cremation returns your loved ones cremated remains, what people commonly call ashes, back to to your family in an urn but without any emissions. So there's no emissions at all, and it uses 90% less energy. This was the same death care option that archbishop Desmond Tutu he chose for himself when he died in 2021. It is gaining popularity, and our hope is that Rockville residents will also be able to access this. In addition to water cremation, the new state law legalized something called natural organic reduction.

This is a soil transformation process. Sometimes it's called teramation or even human composting. This natural process takes advantage of our body's own gut microbes, and it it kind of controls but speeds up the natural decomposition process. Teramation takes place inside a completely sealed vessel. It's inside a building.

These vessels are monitored for oxygen and moisture levels. Your body is laid on a bed of plant material placed inside that vessel, and then the natural decomposition process begins. The end of the process your family is given soil which can be used in your own garden. The natural process it heats up naturally. It kills pathogens.

It breaks down pharmaceuticals that are in the body. It's really, you know, it is really a beautiful process. Maryland was the seventh state to allow for natural organic reduction, in 2024, and just two years later, there's already another seven states. We're at 14 states right now that have enacted this. Our hope is that local zoning can keep up with the demand for these greener death care options so that Rockville families will not have to go elsewhere to obtain them. And we believe that with just a few adjustments to the current zoning that this can become a reality for Rockville. So my business partner, Adrian, is going to dive in specifically on the proposed amendments as well as the community impacts. And I'm very glad to answer questions, and I thank you.

Thank you. Welcome, Adrian Gardner.

So thank you, madam mayor and members of the council, and thanks to my business partner, Lily Berkeley. I I have to confess because this is actually my fourth zoning ordinance rewrite. I spent time for twenty years working with the Maryland National Capital Park and Planning Commission, and we worked through two iterations of the Prince George's ordinance, one with the Montgomery County ordinance. Anyway, I also wanna thank your staff because your staff has been phenomenal through throughout all of this as we've had an opportunity to talk about it. But I kinda if we did hand out a deck, and if you look at page eight, kinda wanna focus on community impact.

And the good news is that there's really just a couple of tweaks that we think that would make this a reality because the question for the city of Rockville is whether the zoning ordinance should reflect new opportunities or not. And so we've tried to come up with a way to make some minor adjustments to the, rewrite that would simply make this a possibility. And in that regard, turning to page nine, we kinda wanted to focus on the community impact, and this is like the this is the 30,000 foot level. Because if you consider what the community impact is for a funeral home with alkaline hydrolysis, funeral home without it, funeral home with natural organic reduction, funeral home without it, there really isn't any reason that it would have any different community impact. And so you already have in your zoning ordinance places where funeral homes are accepted.

And we're not asking you to really change much of that, but it's the point is that the it will not have impact. So turning to page 10, if you look at the definition of cremation or crematorium in your current zoning ordinance, the state law made it clear that cremation really is incineration. And so this is a very simple adjustment that will make it clear that water cremation is not included. And this is, like, the most straightforward lowest hanging fruit, we think, to simply make it clear that water cremation, even though that's a colloquial term, it's not alkaline hydrolysis, is not included so that it would not be prevented under the zoning ordinance. Turning to page 11, we think that you should allow those uses explicitly in the definition of a funeral home so that it would allow alkaline hydrolysis and, natural organic reduction, which are defined terms in the state law, and we think it should allow that.

Turning to page 12. If you wanted to have conditional use standards before you would allow it, we think that it should be based on trips and truck traffic into the facility. And finally, on page 13

Thank you very much. We will look at this and appreciate your commentary. Okay. We'll also discuss with staff.

Thank you very much, and, we appreciate it.

Thank you. Welcome Park Nicholson.

Hi there. Good evening.

Good evening.

I'd like to discuss, the deer, fencing and deer mesh issue under Article eight, as a gardener and a homeowner in Rockville with a corner property with deer mesh both inside and front yards. I have some experience with the issue. I'd like to support a standard that is a little bit closer to the option three, that you have before you on the article eight, which is closer to the county standard, without unnecessary conditions. I appreciate the counsel and the mayor's discussion of this issue and the analysis that mesh is not the same as the permanent deer structure. And so, I think we don't need to overcomplicate the issue so much.

But using mesh, particularly in front and deer yards, Rockville can adopt the county standards, which really would allow for a height even up to extending eight feet, with the appropriate materials. Adding more conditions on to things like that, like a setback requirement, would really kind of make it more like a fence, like a permanent structure, and also adding a requirement for homeowner homeowners to install an expensive fence that's permanent in the front yard before installing mesh just seems unfair. And so under ideal circumstances, we wouldn't be talking about this at all. We'd have a deer management plan for the city. But for now, I hope, you could support an amendment closer to option three.

That's the county standard without additional, requirements on top of that.

So thank you.

Thank you. Welcome Kate Berman. And for those who came in the room, we welcome you. We all have a time clock in front of you. Do we have Kate Berman here? Okay. I will come back to that name. I know we're a little bit early. James Nation. Welcome.

Thank you very much.

Good evening. My name is James Nations. I'm a ten year resident of Rockville and I serve as president of the board of directors of the Newmark Commons Homeowners Association. We know that you're facing a difficult, challenging task as you consider how to rezone the 9.75 acre Tower Dawson parcel that adjoins our neighborhood in Planning Area 12. How can you provide new homes, generate tax revenues to service those homes, and simultaneously protect Rockville citizens and environment?

The best way we can help you in this decision is to be clear about what we are seeking and why. Our primary concerns focus on human safety, neighborhood compatibility, and the environment. Our communities have a half dozen school bus stops that drop off students who walk to their homes in Newmark Commons and beyond. We wanna keep them safe as well as the runners, the dog walkers, and the people on bicycles and electric scooters who move up and down our streets. We ask you to restrict access to and from any new housing built on the parcel to the streets to the south and not through the residential streets of Newmark Commons and Markwood.

We recognize the need for emergency access to the side, and we need to monitor the wetland mitigation areas that cover half of the parcel in question. Minimizing daily traffic in our neighborhood is an important safety issue for our families. We welcome the less dense zoning options that the mayor and council are considering instead of R M D 25. We're asking you to rezone the area as residential medium density 10 with a height limit of 40 feet. RMD 10 would provide scores of new homes, but still maintain a density compatible with our neighborhoods.

A higher density such as RMD 25 would threaten our neighborhood safety, its historical integrity, and our environment. And turning to the environment, the Towered Dawson Parcel is key natural habitat for our city and one of the reasons Rockville is nationally recognized as a city of trees and is one of the most livable mid sized cities in The United States. The forest on the Tower Dawson Parcel helps dampen the noise of traffic on I 270, and it protects the habitat of the foxes, deer, birds, and box turtles that live with us in Rockville. In a nutshell, and in conclusion, we welcome bicyclists and hikers to our neighborhoods, but we ask you to restrict vehicle access through our neighborhoods to keep our families safe. We ask you to designate the parcel as RMD 10 with a height of 40 feet to maintain compatibility with our adjoining neighborhoods.

And we ask you to conserve the maximum amount of natural habitat to protect Rockville's forest, wildlife, and citizens' health. We know that the final decision rests with you, our mayor and council, and we thank you for listening to us, for visiting the site with us, and for working with us to protect our neighborhoods and our families. Many plans and discussions still lie ahead before any homes are constructed on the site, but we look forward to working with you and the developer during the coming years. And we look forward to someday welcoming our new neighbors to Rockville, the finest city in Maryland. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Now welcome Anna Astrid Molina.

Good evening, mayor and council. My name is Anna Astrid Molina. I lived in Barwood for thirty years. I thank you for the opportunity to speak in this democracy. I am here to urge you to reject the r m d twenty five rezoning of Parcel SOR

ID 17. Can you please put the sign down? You can put it near her, but we have to be careful about approaching the match. Thank you.

We appreciate and support the suggestion made by the Major and Counsel for the lower density designation of RMD 10. Still a six level up and 222% increase in density from our current R90 zoning. We especially support the split zoning approach that maintains lower heights as a buffer towards Markwood and Newmar Commons. Furthermore, we insist with your suggestion and confirm with Mr. Commoners that vehicular access must be through the contiguous Toward Oaks development, restricting Don Mills Court to emergency vehicles only.

I want to thank the staff especially for meeting with Markwood residents last Friday. However, after reviewing the examples and knowing the slopes on the plot, we realized that any building higher than the nursing home will create a significant noise pollution. Because of the topography, there is no natural barrier to stop the sound. My home is only 20 feet tall. Even a 40 foot building will loom over this.

Adding 100 units at RMD 10 will still create acoustic impact that will negatively affect our quality of life. There is also a profound moral reason to limit density here. Research published in 2025 by Julian Magnin confirms that this plot was part of the eighteen twenty five addition to the poor farm. While the almshouse was demolished in 1948, burials of the county's most vulnerable residents continue until 1983. Historical records are sparse, but the estimates are staggering.

Funeral director George Snowden estimated 500 burials, but county planners recently estimated the number could exceed 1,000. After the county jail was built, these individuals, the poor, the elderly, and the mentally ill, were buried by prisoners in unmarked graves. They were treated as if their life has little value. I hope the city will commit to identify this remain and treat them with the dignity that they were denied in life. I respect that it was tragically missing when a 100 remains were previously, relocated.

The reference used and some pictures are on the back of this testimony. I ask you to honor the dignity of those buried there and the safety of those living here today. Please prioritize our shared history and our quality of life.

You very much.

Welcome

Julia Binder.

Good evening, madam mayor and members of the council. My name is Julia Binder. I live in Newmark Commons, and I'm a member of the HOA board. Thank you for this opportunity to speak with you again. Last week, mister Wassalak and miss Simmons attended the Newmark Commons board meeting to review plans and answer questions.

We appreciate them coming then as well as last September. I will point out that had meetings like these occurred when the change in zoning designation for ZORID 17 was first being contemplated years ago, you and we might have avoided over the last six or seven months sitting through hours of testimony and work sessions. Even though we are a neighborhood contiguous to ZORID 17, Newmark Commons was not contacted until 2025 about increasing the density from r 90 to r m d 25, an increase of more than 500%. The proposed change sticks out like a sore thumb when you look at the interactive zoning map posted on Engage Rockville. Why put 10 acres of high density zoning in an area surrounded by R 90, R 60, and planned development like Newmark Commons and villages at Tower Oaks?

We've not been able to identify any other examples in Rockville of a proposed zoning change of this magnitude next to a residential area such as Newmark and Markwood. If the zoning designation needs to be changed at all, Newmark Commons is agreeable to RMD 10 with a height cap of 40 feet in effect more than doubling the number of units that can currently be built on ZORID 17. This can be considered compatible with the surrounding neighborhoods of Newmark Commons and Markwood. This in conjunction with prohibiting access or egress from the parcel via Newmark Commons and Markwood protects the safety of the many school children, pedestrians, and cyclists who traverse our neighborhoods. Its tree canopy and wetlands protects the health of all who live in the area from air and noise pollution, and it maintains at least some habitat for the deer, turkeys, hawks, foxes, turtles, and other wildlife that live there.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. Welcome, Kristen Rosnison.

Good evening, madam mayor and council members. It's nice to see you again. My name is Kristen, and I've lived in Newmark Commons for almost three years. I wish to express my concern along with my neighbors with the process followed as part of the comprehensive map amendment application being considered tonight. The lack of transparency and the surrounding the process as well as the lack of time that the community has had to engage with the city has been disheartening to say the least.

I'm also concerned that the mayor and city council have not carefully considered the implications of rezoning the parcel for high density development. In recent years, Rockville has been increasingly affected by flooding. This is one reason why the city council developed its climate action plan in 2022. And as you know, the Rockville city action plan makes specific references to protecting its tree canopy, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and taking steps to mitigate flooding, and this these are ways to do that, to maintain these resources. To propose the high density zoning, which would verify therefore, open the door to high density development potentially on land contains an area that serves to mitigate flooding is to go against the city's own environmental action plan.

As my neighbors have considered, I'm also very concerned about the transportation that might move through if the if the road is allowed to cut through, to the north into Newmark Commons, would have a huge impact on the traffic going through the area, which is already quite extensive. And if the road were proposed, the result would be more cars on the safe streets, what are now the safe streets of Newmar Commons. These roads include children like my young son who travel on their bicycles and as well as children going from the, from the high school and the middle school to other neighbors. So it's not just, within Newmar Commons area. My neighbors and I have outlined many reasons to remove, the rezoning from the parcel from consideration the high density rezoning and consider a lower density.

In the case of this parcel, high density development would have overwhelmingly negative consequences for surrounding residents and even the wider city of Rockville. Thank you very much for your time.

Thank you. Do we have Margaret Chao? Welcome.

Madam Mayor and City Council members, good evening. My name is Margaret Chow, and I've been a resident of Newmark Commons for more than forty years. I've also served on the Newmark Commons HOA board as a board member and as the president for more than ten years. I'm here tonight to thank all of you for your unanimous decision to disallow any roads in Newmark Commons to be opened for access due to new development on the parcel adjacent to Newmark. Prohibiting the opening of roads maintains the safety, character, and integrity of not only the Newmark Commons community, but also the safety, integrity, and character of the nearby Markwood community, the homes along Potomac Valley, and the safety of all the bikers and pedestrians who walked through Newmark to get to Julius Horse Middle School, Richard Montgomery High School, or the Potomac Valley Nursing Home.

Opening any roads in Newmark would give all drivers in the area, not just those in the new development, the ability to cut through Newmark to get to I-two 70. This would seriously erode Newmark's roads and create a heavy flow of traffic throughout the day. I ask that this prohibition be codified and applied to all communities where traffic from new developments would severely compromise the safety, character, and integrity of the existing communities. This codification would also prevent this issue from reappearing every twenty or thirty years. I'm also concerned, though, as to how emergency vehicles would access the new development.

I don't know if that's been thought through. Finally, I am here to urge you to approve the RMD 10 zoning for this parcel. While development of this land next to Newmark seems inevitable, the RMD 10 designation with a cap on a height not to exceed 40 feet seems to be the most compatible with the existing neighborhoods. RMD's lower density as compared to RMD 15 should result in fewer cars on the newly developed property, thus minimizing any chance of overflow parking in Newmark Commons parking lots. Any developer must work with the property it has and should not be able to modify existing communities to accommodate its new development.

While keeping the existing zone RMD 90 would be ideal, the only other viable option is RMD 20, which would be more in keeping with the nature and compatibility of the surrounding communities than the RMD 15 designation. I urge you to adopt RMD 10 for this parcel unanimously. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Right on time. Welcome Pat Reber. After Pat, we'll have Martin Rice.

Thank you. Good evening.

Good to see you again. And thanks for listening. I'm Pat Reber. We moved to Newark Commons in 1985. First, I keep hearing from staff and some council members that there is a considerable testimony that supports RMD 25 for the plot next to us and objects to consideration of lower density.

Some of it was said to be flooding in before last week's hearing. We are puzzled by this as over the past nine months, the only oral testimony we have heard on behalf of a 500% increase in density on this property has come from the landowner itself. In the hundreds of written testimonies documented recently on the engager Rockville website, we spotted only five or so emails supporting R M D 25 on this plot. Second, we welcome the unanimity behind closing residential access through Don Mills Court. We do not, however, regard this as a get that requires us to accept R M D 15 as a give.

This get is a safety issue. It serves the safety of our two neighborhoods plus all the student and adult walkers and vehicles that pass through this dangerous Falls Road interchange every day. Third, this map shows the 9.75 acre plot in question plus another five acres, of woodland to the north, and please use your imagination with the plain brown paper, the 20 acres of woodland to the south. We understand the owners' need for economic feasibility, but please consider this. About half of the plot in question appears to be unbuildable due to wetlands, wetlands mitigation, a stream, and the stormwater filtration plant.

Until a natural resources survey is done, it's not clear if any of it is flood plain, which could be subtracted from the buildable acreage. An RMD 10 zone would effectively double the number of homes on buildable area. That is instead of 10 homes per acre over the entire 9.75 acres, there would be 20 homes per acre on the buildable five or so acres, just short of the original 25 units per acre envisioned in 2021. In fact, RMD 10 offers more than twice the current zoned density. According to the topographical map, the highest point of the buildable acreage is right behind the Potomac Valley nursing home.

For noise abatement reasons, that's why we were asking for the height limit of 40 feet. And again, thank you for listening to us over and over and over again. And And

this is the area sorry right here, that is the most is the highest. Time.

Thank you very much. I think we are at time, and I just wanna be mindful of the sign that's in front of our state leaders. So I just if you could maybe move it to the side if that's possible.

Good evening.

Thank you.

My name is Marty Reese. I live at 9 Don Mills Court. And for over fifty three years, I've looked out my window and seen the former poor farm site, a tranquil and forested 10 acres. Recognizing the city's desire to add housing, my community has not opposed the rezoning of the R 90 site. However, since we did not know who will own this site or what will be proposed to be developed there a decade from now, we have chosen to take a conservative position and recommend an RMD 10 density with a height from 35 to 40 feet.

I have identified two items that I noted during this zoning process that needs to be addressed. First, our homeowners association was never notified of the potential zoning change because it was in a different planning area. This should never happen again, and a written directive to the planning department is suggested. Second, and Pat got into this a bit, the zoning is designated for the entire site acreage. In reality, thus, a potential designation of RMD 15 would permit a 150 housing units over the 10 acres.

In reality, though, there are only five buildable acres. A 150 units on five acres permits 30 housing units per acre. Obviously, this was not desired. The planning process should document that only the buildable acreage at the time of the construction should be considered for the desired zoning. Finally, I want to thank you for your time. It's your most rare commodity. Listening to our concerns and visiting the site to visualize the physical environment is sincerely appreciated by our entire community. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Welcome Dick Stoner, followed by Mark Bischela.

Hello, folks. I'm Dick Stoner, a forty year city resident, and I'm not here about Newmark. I'm here on behalf of the Greater Capital Area Association of Realtors to share some thoughts and some actual research on the proposed zoning ordinance. Affordability in all acts aspects of life is the main issue in 2026, and housing affordability is obviously near the top. It's vital that I don't need to tell you, but it's vital that our municipalities tackle these issues.

And it's with this in mind that we wanna offer GCAR support to the city in Rockville, in the efforts to rock the code. Last year, staff from the city's community planning and development services reached out to GCAR to discuss the zoning re rewrite with the goal of delivering the missing middle component. GCAR and community development staff met several times to discuss the work GCAR has done on zoning and housing legislation proposed at the county level. GCAR offered to produce and present a report on the expected impact of this of the proposed zoning rewrite. Unfortunately, conversations with the department fell away, and we never, got back and forth on that.

But despite that, GCAR's public policy committee has moved ahead with the project, so we're here to present some specific findings. The review was built on market conditions and the development standards outlined in the zoning rewrite. It modeled townhouses, cottage courts as separate topologies in addition to apartments, condos, and teardowns. And three main points came from the research. Number one is that the zoning re rewrite is not expected to negatively impact existing home prices.

Number two, the unit conversions would predominantly be for sale, not for rent. And third, most probably most importantly, 21 net housing units are projected by this study over ten years. Now that's because 467 properties are identified as being affected by it. So it's depending on your outlook, it's it's a relatively modest impact, but g g car believes that the thriving economy is important and that attainable housing is also, important across the spectrum. So the Rockville, 2040 comprehensive plan will lay the groundwork for the next few decades.

We urge you to maximize the impact of this zoning rewrite on the, and lay the groundwork for for a prosperous housing future and a bustling local economy. We look forward to sharing the full the full report with you, and, please do not hesitate to reach out to GCAR, for any further information. Thanks.

Thank you very much.

Good evening again, madam mayor, council. I'm speaking on my own behalf this time. But first, I do have a few things from the College Garden Civic Association. Thank you, madam mayor, for having the CGCA handout copied and distributed to all the council. The last meeting I noticed and we appreciate being heard.

For College Gardens specifically, we asked for two changes, one on a purpose statement and one on prohibiting access from MXCD to small streets as per the current zoning ordinance. On tonight's agenda, the staff write up on the uses section of the zoning rewrite is not sufficient. I gave a model and you saw it last week and I'll show it again. This was not followed. There are potentially large changes for the single family zones and none of the staff materials address these.

Further, there's nothing in the staff materials that enables any neighborhood association to really know the difference between the old and the new zoning. Now speaking solely for myself, it's time for the adequate public facilities ordinance APFO to go. It does not ensure adequate public facilities and in fact, it is anti housing, anti prosperity, anti child and anti young adult. I will review the four items. First, water and sewer.

Other statutes ensure adequate water and sewer. Here, the APFO is redundant. Traffic. This city fought a more than three year battle to stop the widening of I 270. If you really wanna screw up traffic in Rockville, continue to inhibit development here, send it to the north, then watch the pressure build up to widen I 270.

A widen I 270 will impact city streets up to Highway 355 and Wooten Parkway. And then fourth, schools. Here, the APFO puts key development decisions in the hands of the Board of Education and the County Council. Consider the tragic decision to relocate the Wooten cluster to Crown High. If this goes through, this decision could impact housing development and the Richard Montgomery cluster, including Town Center.

It all depends on where boundary lines are drawn. The only reason we can have development now in the RM cluster is that the Crown High was supposed to relieve the RM overcrowding. Now related to the APFO, there are the standards. It takes now a super majority to change any of the adequate public public facility standards. I don't know when this change went into effect, but in 2011, the approval of the Silverwood annexation next to Shavey Grove Metro, you know this better as the Bainbridge and now the Reed, was approved on several three to two votes, including a three to two vote to change part of the APFS.

Had there been a supermajority rule at that time, the Reed would still be a parking lot today. It houses 417 families, including some three bedroom apartments, only an eight minute walk to the metro platform deck. Please eliminate the super majority requirement.

Thank you. Welcome, Lakisa Carter.

Good evening, madam mayor and and council members. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. My name is Lakisha Carter. I've lived in Rockville in this, neighborhood of Twinbrook for fifteen years. My daughter graduated from Rockville High School in 2014. Today, my daughter still lives with me, not because she wants to, but because she cannot afford to purchase a home in the city where she grew up, and she really wants to build a life. I consider myself extremely fortunate. I'm an Air Force veteran. I had the opportunity to use my VA loan to purchase my home, which still was a little difficult because I had to withdraw from my TSP retirement account to do that. Today I can't afford my house.

Housing prices are significantly higher as we know, property taxes are going up, interest rates are no longer at historic lows. I currently work as a full time realtor. I am a member of G Carr and like many working families my income does fluctuate. Home ownership in Rockville would likely be a dream for me today if I hadn't bought years ago. I have a grandson now and I really want him to grow up in Rockville. I've lived all over the world. Rockville is actually my favorite city. I'm not going anywhere. I want him to have affordable opportunities in 2044 when he will be an adult. The city will have created hopefully a landscape that allows him to have that opportunity.

I really want to support meaningful reform, meaningful zoning reform, and expand opportunities for affordable housing for all. It's really important to me as a realtor. I've worked with homeless veterans. I don't want to see anyone homeless. The city's own vision speaks about ensuring that current and future residents have a diverse array of quality housing choices that are affordable and livable for all socioeconomic levels, I believe we must commit to that vision.

The research that GCAR has presented regarding the proposed zoning changes show that modest increases in housing opportunities are not expected to negatively impact existing home values and would only affect a small percentage of existing single family housing stock. That should give us confidence to really think bigger and act more boldly. As a homeowner, I would also welcome affordable pathways for residents like myself to create multi generational or small scale multi unit housing opportunities for our own properties. Many homeowners have the space, I have the space, to contribute to housing solutions, but the cost and zoning barriers are prohibitive and remain too high. A modest approach may not produce the meaningful affordability outcomes our community truly needs.

I encourage the city to reimagine the zoning ordinance with robust, practical, and really forward thinking housing solutions that create opportunities for my grandson, future residents, which I'm trying to bring everybody to Rockville, and I really thank you for your time this evening.

Thank you.

Did Kate Berman join us? Okay. Alright. I want to acknowledge received a great number of written comments. Okay. Berman, welcome.

Yeah. Hi. How are you? Hello, everybody. Good to meet you. Again, I remember you coming to my house. I remember meeting you. Okay. So I live in the Hungerford neighborhood. Does anybody live there? No. Okay. Neither does any of the planning commission. I would love for any or all of you to come visit us. We sent you an email inviting you. We haven't had a response yet, but I'm not giving up. We have the best neighborhood in Rockville by far. I've lived in it for thirty years. I wouldn't want to live anywhere else either. Absolutely.

Yes. I'm passionate about it. People call me the mayor of Hungerford because I love my neighbors so much. Now since we lived here, things have changed, much for the better, obviously, due to public servants like you. Thank you. I know you're paid so much to be here. Thank you. When we moved here, there were no deer in the neighborhood at all. Zero. I had a professional come in and plan my yard, planted a lot of hosta and all kinds of wonderful things.

And then Tower Oaks was developed. And then all the deer just crossed over Wooten Parkway and got stuck right in our neighborhood, Hungerford and Newmark Commons. So we have two seventy here. We have three fifty five here, Falls Road, and Woodmont. So they just got crunched. There was no plan for what to do with them or where they would go. I mean, we didn't think about it. And in that time, I tried to adjust. I planted different plants. I sprayed different things.

I did all the things that everyone does. Anyway, point being, then I caught Lyme disease from my own front yard. Lyme is just not a disease, of course, that can be killed with antibiotics. Sometimes you have co infections. It's very complicated.

Anyway, $10,000 out of my pocket. Later, I'm cured. I built deer mesh. Deer mesh, if anybody knows what residential deer mesh looks like, I just want you all to see my house with deer mesh around the entire property, eight feet You can't see it. I Have neighbors who have done the same thing without fencing in the front just the deer mesh It's not attached to a fence.

This is what it looks like You can't see it Again, this is not a corner property This is right in the middle They just can't even see the flowers here this people stop and take pictures and pose in front of this house Only because she's got this.

Thank you very much

Option three is what we want. Thank you very much

Thank you to all who have testified. We have several written comments. We also have an additional public hearing that will be coming up. I'm going to pause momentarily because we have our D17 state leaders here today who are going be sharing special presentation for us. Just wanna make sure we're having the staff change out and the presentation to move forward, and we welcome you. So welcome senator Kagan, delegate Ryan Spiegel, delegate Julie Palakovic Carr, and I know delegate Vogel would like to be here but has a family commitment.

Right. You're going first. Delegate Spiegel is gonna kick us off, and, unfortunately, delegate Vogel sends his very much love and best regards. He is out of town and then out of the country, but we'll talk a little bit about some of what he did. Delegate Spiegel, kick us off.

Thank you, senator. Thank you all mayor and council again for the record, delegate Ryan Spiegel. It's always a pleasure to be before you, especially as a former municipal official. Although, I must say that while we deal with so many difficult and complicated issues at the state level, I don't miss zoning text amendments. But I must say I am so impressed by the engagement and the comments and the civility of the members of the public who have come here to share their thoughts with you as at tonight's hearings, and so that's been really nice to see.

And I'm also particularly happy to be here on a night when we were able to see our mini mayor earlier, as, mayor Ashton mentioned, the mini mayor when she was visiting Annapolis with her family some weeks ago, and mayor Ashton was there as well as part of the Maryland Municipal League, event, to recognize all of the winners of the fourth grader if I were mayor essay contest. It was a great opportunity for me to meet the mini mayor and show her around Annapolis a little bit, and that was a really special treat. And she did a great job earlier this evening, running the beginning of the meeting. I wanna start by just, mentioning that all of the members of our fantastic and unified district seventeen state legislative team put out an annual end of session letter. I have brought several hard copies of my letter tonight.

I know senator Kagan has as well. I don't know. Well, you can always get delegate Blakovich Carr and delegate Vogel's letters as well. And these are filled to the brim with information and analysis about the details of the policies and legislation that we undertook in Annapolis this year, and so I would encourage you and members of the public, to reach out to us or to find a copy here at City Hall because we have left a number of those. As the mayor and council know and as some members of the public know, in December, we swore in a brand new speaker of the house of delegates in Maryland, Jocelyn Pena Melnick.

And she has been a dynamic leader since day one. And in recognition of the challenges with the costs of living that so many Rockville families and families across Maryland are dealing with, as well as the challenges of dealing with a federal administration, that is, to put it mildly, at odds with us in terms of civil rights and protecting vulnerable communities. The speaker put forth an agenda that focused on three priorities, affordability, accountability, and opportunity. And everything we did on the house side, and I believe pretty much everything that was done on the senate side as well, was keyed towards these priorities to try and make life better for working Marylanders dealing with all of these challenges. And my colleagues are gonna talk about some of our significant accomplishments as a legislative body on other issues like energy and childcare and elections, and other priorities, but I am the member of our district delegation, who serves on a budget committee.

So I just wanna talk a little bit about, the state budget. As you know from last year, we were facing a massive $3,500,000,000 structural shortfall that we managed to close at the end of the twenty twenty five legislative session. And over the summer, we felt pretty good about where we were despite all the challenges going on in the world and in our state. But unfortunately, the federal government then, in its infinite wisdom, chose to pass something they called the one big beautiful bill act, h r one, which we call the big ugly bill. And the ripple effects and ramifications of that bill are very serious and significant for the state of Maryland.

It brings huge potential cuts and actual cuts to Medicaid funding for our state, huge cuts to SNAP funding for food security programs, and significant ramifications for our tax policy because people don't always know this, but some state tax formulas are tied to federal tax formulas. And that means that we end up generating less revenue as a result of that. And so we faced a huge new challenge over the summer and fall, and it, amounted based on our, independent analyses to about a $1,500,000,000 new projected shortfall in our state budget going into the 2026 legislative session. And we work together, as a as a an appropriations committee where I serve and in the senate side, the senate budget and taxation committee, and really as an entire legislative body to address this challenge. And I will say, because we do see in the news media sometimes coverage of this idea that Maryland has deficits, which I will put in air quotes, we never actually have real deficits on a year to year basis.

We always balance our budget in Maryland because under our state constitution, we are required to do so, and we do. When we talk about deficits in Maryland, really, we're talking about projected future shortfalls based on what we estimate will be our revenue and what we estimate will be our typical set of expenses that we estimate we will need to make in order to meet the values and the priorities that we care about here in Maryland. But we don't ever actually have real deficits. So we got together. We worked very hard.

We made some difficult cuts. But in the end, we were able to balance our budget, close that $1,500,000,000 gap, and continue to invest in the priorities and values that we believe in as Marylanders with a balanced budget that does not raise any tax increases or fee increases at the state level. I wanna say that again and make sure that the public hears it. No tax or fee increases this year at the state level. In fact oh, wow. Applause. Okay. I haven't seen that before. I appreciate it. In fact, we project that we are going to end the fiscal year with about $200,000,000 in cash reserves.

That's a surplus. And we have a $2,000,000,000 plus rainy day fund for future emergencies. So we're very, very proud of that, and we're still able to invest a record $10,000,000,000 in k through 12 public education, $2,000,000,000 in public higher education, over $400,000,000 in rental aid relief and homeless services programs, 1,500,000,000 for food security programs, $14,000,000,000 for Medicaid and children's health insurance programs. And so we have really, really tried to make sure that we are reflecting our values of helping those in need, affordability, accountability, and opportunity. I wanna talk separately about the capital budget, which is separate from our our operating budget, and working together with this incredible team that I feel really honored to work with, senator Kagan, delegate Polakovich Carr, delegate Vogel, who as the senator mentioned sends his regrets, we were able to deliver in a tough budget year and a tough fiscal situation.

Really what I I feel very good about saying is an impressive list of capital investments for local projects to benefit the residents and businesses here in Rockville. And that includes $9,700,000 to complete the new library at the Rockville campus of Montgomery College and to renovate the theater building in Montgomery College at the Rockville campus. $7,700,000 for critical water and sewer projects here in Rockville. And then $325,000 for much needed improvements to the old aging pedestrian bridges at Twin Book Twinbrook Park and Dogwood Park. Another $950,000 in renovations for the Ringhouse Senior Living Center.

Something we're particularly proud of, $1,500,000 for a new youth performing arts rehearsal facility in Rockville for an amazing nonprofit called Young Artists of America that really gives wonderful opportunities for our our regional and local youth to experience the performing arts. Another $100,000 to develop a plan for the economic revitalization of Rockville's North Stone Street corridor, a $150,000 for playground upgrades at Bell Elementary School, 350,000 for the Montgomery History Center building in Downtown Rockville, 200,000 to restore and preserve the historic Lincoln High School building in Lincoln Park, which I know we've all been working on together, and an additional $350,000 that was actually a resurrected amount of money from an expired fund for the Twinbrook Recreation Center. So this is really an incredible laundry list of investments that we are going to be making as a state in the city of Rockville and its partners. And this does not even include police aid, highway user revenues, which is of course the state formula for transportation assistance to the city of Rockville, and many other buckets of money that are generated, by funding formulas elsewhere in the budget, including $54,000,000 in capital investments for construction projects at public schools throughout Montgomery County.

So we're very, proud of those accomplishments, and I couldn't have done it. We couldn't have done it, without your help, without the incredible partnership that we have, not only with the mayor and council, but with your staff, with the volunteers and advocates in the city of Rockville, all of our stakeholders and partners who showed up and advocated for these important projects and allowed us to deliver, these funds. I wanna also talk about, immigration because we are proud that Rockville is one of the most diverse cities, not only in the state of Maryland, but in all of America. And as we are dealing with the fallout from, ICE and DHS and the Trump administration's policies, it is absolutely critical and incumbent upon us as local and state leaders to protect and support our wonderful immigrant community. And I'm proud of the fact that together, our team and our legislative, body in Annapolis was able to pass another laundry list of protections and progressive policies, to show that we are supporting and protecting our immigrant communities.

We passed a bill to ban so called two eighty seven g agreements, which ICE uses to essentially deputize local law enforcement. That can't happen in Maryland anymore. We passed an anti masking law. We passed an expansion of the Maryland Values Act, which expands the type of places that are considered sensitive protected places, that it's more difficult for ICE to just kind of barge into. We passed protections on personal data that is collected and maintained by state and local governments so that it can't be shared with the federal government under, inappropriate circumstances.

And we passed, actually, at the last moment at the end of our ninety day legislative session, we passed the Community Trust Act, which also makes sure that we cannot, misuse, our corrections system and our corrections officers, in a way that would violate civil rights. So we really tried to do a lot in terms of making sure that we are sending a signal to the public and to the immigrant community that we are protecting them. I just wanna mention I know I'm getting the elbow from senator Kagan because you you guys didn't give me the three minute clock, which is why I was surprised when you came up here with me and had to stand next to me as I spoke. But I I just wanna mention a couple of bills that I was a lead or co lead sponsor on. We passed the Vulnerable Adult Banking Protection Act because of the incredible increase in, consumer financial fraud that is happening, particularly targeting seniors.

Delegate Pam Queen from Montgomery County and I teamed up on that. The governor is signing that bill into law tomorrow. So we're very proud of that, and, residents of Rock will be will Rockville will be able to benefit from that as well. With that, I'm gonna turn it over to my wonderful colleague, delegate Palakovich Carr, to talk about other priorities. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Good evening, madam mayor, council members. It's great to see you all, We'll just start with a thank you. Thank you all so much for the great advocacy and partnership throughout the session and really throughout the year, and same city staff as well. We really love working with the city of Rockville and the city of Gaithersburg too. It really is a great partnership with our whole delegation.

So as my district mate mentioned, affordability really was a big major issue for this session, and there's a lot we could highlight on that front, but I do want to just take the bulk of my time to walk through a few areas where we really were mindful and passed meaningful legislation this session because we know many families are struggling right now, whether they are displaced federal, former federal workers or contractors, or simply just struggling with skyrocketing energy bills and many other day to day costs. So starting with energy, and I apologize Senator Kagan if this was gonna be something in your presentation. Okay. We passed a very comprehensive piece of legislation to deal with rising electricity rates. We know families across the state, across across Rockville really are feeling that impact.

This legislation does a whole lot of things, but the bottom line is that households are gonna see at least $150 a year savings. Many households will see higher savings than that. I think the bottom line on the energy front for folks to realize is that as more data centers are being built, not just here in Maryland, but especially in Virginia and other states in our region, it really is having a large impact on our electricity grid, and that is a big reason for the escalating energy costs. But we took a number of actions on that front, which I won't take the time to unpack, but it was probably one of the longest bills that we passed this session. Let me move on to childcare.

I think you know that for the last three years, I chaired the Early Childhood Subcommittee in the House. And under our new speaker, Jocelyn Peyton Mnemonic, I have a new subcommittee assignment. I now chair the Revenue Subcommittee, but remain very active on childcare. Childcare continues to be an area where many families are struggling as well. For folks who don't have little kids at home anymore, I think many people are surprised to know that the cost of having an infant or toddler in childcare is more than sending a child to University of Maryland College Park.

Of course, you have no time to save for that, right, when you have a baby or a toddler. We have a great program in Maryland, the Child Care Scholarship Program, that helps working middle income and low income families to get their children and infants into high quality childcare. That program has received a record amount of funding last year, and thanks again this year to the work of the legislature and governor Moore, that is true. But unfortunately, there doesn't quite meet the demand, or the demand, exceeds the funding in the program. And so we've had a partial freeze in enrollment in that program since last summer, and there are more than 5,000 children who are otherwise eligible to receive a child care scholarship, but who are waiting on this wait list sometimes for months at a time.

So we took pretty substantive action this session on that front. Inside of it being a very difficult budget year, we did identify and allocate an additional 20,000,000 for this program to bring, about a thousand children off of the wait list. And then we also passed, a pair of bills, one of which I was the sponsor of, to make some structural changes to that program to really ensure its longer term financial viability. So the net result of that is is about 3,700 kids are gonna be able to come off the wait list in the coming months and really is gonna be very meaningful for those families. Let me also touch on another point on affordability in education space, but at the higher ed side of things.

Many Maryland borrowers who have student loans from college are struggling in the midst of some changes at the federal level. And without going into kind of the the technical details on all of that, I'll just say we have a great tax credit here in Maryland. The student loan debt relief tax credit, that's an existing program and it's out there right now. If you have, unpaid, college loans that you need some help with, you may be eligible for this tax credit. We made some meaningful changes to that program this session so that borrowers who are caught up in kind of the federal mess can continue to take advantage of that tax credit and have a little more flexibility. Moving

on to

the housing front, I wanna very much thank the mayor and council, thank the city for your continued partnership on the legislation I've sponsored now for two years, along with delegate Von Stewart from our neighboring district, to prohibit landlords from using very sophisticated software to basically illegally collude to set occupancy rates, to set rents. Unfortunately, that bill did not move again this session. Some of the changes that happened, with new leadership in the House is that legislation now is in a different committee. I think we had a very good educational hearing on that front this year, and we have a commitment from House leadership to continue to work on that issue over the interim. So I'm hoping to see some progress so that next session we really are in a good position to move forward.

I'll also give a shout out for a piece of legislation that delegate Vogel sponsored this session to protect renters from junk fees. His legislation did pass the house and really would have meant, you know, some meaningful transparency for renters before they're signing their leases and then not caught off guard, with fees for trash or pets or for whatever else. That legislation didn't make it through the senate, this year, but we were pleased to pass that out of the house, and I think he'll be coming back with that, hopefully. And then the last piece of legislation I'll just end with, again, always appreciate the partnership from the city on roadway safety. Very pleased that our local legislation to allow Rockville and Gaithersburg to potentially use stop sign cameras is gonna be signed into law tomorrow by the governor.

So appreciate your advocacy on that front for the public. This is just the beginning of the process. This is just an authorization that would allow the municipality to put automated cameras in school zones for safety reasons at intersections that have a stop sign. Hopeful that you all will, you know, as you go through the public process on that, that that'll come up to a favorable outcome, but always, of course, happy to work with you on that. And now, we'll turn it over to senator Kagan.

Thank you.

Thank you. Good evening. Cheryl Kagan, very proud to be the senator for Rockville and Gaithersburg, and great to see all of you here in person. Before I start, I just wanna thank my staff. My chief of staff, Abriel Hunter, is here and Amy Garmer, who was unfortunately for her, but luckily for us, laid off by the Elon Musk craziness.

And so she worked on my team this session, and we just had we got a lot done, and they're both here tonight. And Amy is a Rockville resident. So grateful to them both. I also wanna give a shout out in case she's watching to former council member, Beryl Feinberg, because we know that she's facing some health challenges and I'm gonna miss her thoughtful questions after our, presentation. I also wanna thank Christine Cron is here, Jeff Mihalik, Linda, Sarah, and everyone else who partners with us in addition to you all.

And just to make sure I don't forget stuff and because it's a little fun, quick PowerPoint running through some of what we did. You all have seen in the press a lot about redistricting. We did not choose to do it in the senate. Is someone else doing this? Because I'm doing this. Okay. Okay. This is very sensitive. I'm on it. Okay. The house chose to do redistricting. The senate did not. It continues to be a point of contention. We'll see what happens. Both my colleagues have referenced a new speaker.

She's fantastic and it's a whole new energy and partnership now. My committee, I'm vice chair. There are only four committees in the senate. That's four chairs and four vice chairs. I'm very lucky to work with Brian Feldman as my chair, and we have more bills in our committee than any others in the entire general assembly. So we are always very busy, and you'll see EEE up there. That's my committee. Energy, education, energy, and the environment, and I always say and elections. Sarah always appreciates that. Working across the aisle isn't always possible in a Trump administration, but when possible, and this is a wonderful Republican colleague that I will miss a lot who's retiring.

A lot of what, delegate Spiegel talked about with ICE and other, challenges. We passed an emergency bill dealing with education, with elections. The Trump administration is talking about not letting people's ballots be counted, and if you're in the military and you're serving overseas, Maryland is one of 15 states that says, as long as it's postmarked by election day, we are gonna count your ballot. So we affirmed that, strengthened that, and that is being signed into law tomorrow. We also you may notice sergeant Aquilino Gonell and Harry Dunn, two of the January 6 heroes from the insurrection.

They came and joined me to testify. I believe in every Democratic senator cosponsored. I believe that anyone who was convicted of a crime related to the January should not get the privilege of serving on a gubernatorial appointed state commission, board, work group, task force, anything. And, yes, I know most folks were pardoned. They were still convicted and, so we'll see if that happens down the road, but it was a great educational opportunity for people.

Public safety is always a big thing and, I will give a shout out to delegate Joe Vogel who worked with me on my nine one bill, nine one one bill. You all know that I've been working on nine one one for twelve years now, working, in Carl Hen's memory. Rockville's a wonderful leader and former council candidate, and, we have passed a lot of legislation, and this year, we are looking to increase the retirement benefits for our nine one one specialists, the the dedicated, courageous women and men under the headset. The budget delegate I don't know that this is is someone else Yeah. Doing Okay.

That's the chair of the budget and taxation committee. Delegate Spiegel carried that very well, so I'm not gonna spend more time on that. Just before session, we brought back a bunch of money for student mental health in Montgomery County. I'm gonna say 988 because no matter how often we talk about it, it's astonishing how many people don't know about it. Everyone has taught about nine one one from the youngest age.

988 is the suicide and mental health crisis lifeline. Please, if you are listening, if you are within the sound of my voice, if you're city staff and can help, continue to push this out. So many people are unaware, and people taking their own lives is just a tragedy, a horrible tragedy that we should work to avoid. After many years, the general assembly did pass a bill to lock up phones during the school day with some exceptions, for students who have needs for that, but that will be good for mental health as well. One of the, issues that didn't get a lot of, attention, and I talked about it in context of Wooten, actually.

Wooten needed capital improvements and didn't get them in time. And there are a lot of reasons, and I'm not gonna go down the rabbit hole. But Thursday night, before we adjourned on Monday at midnight, right before adjournment, there was a new program, a new proposal of $5,000,000 that came in as $40,000,000 It got trimmed down to $5,000,000 of funding for charter school improvement, capital improvement. And they don't have to wait in line the way traditional public schools had to, the way Wooten had to. They just get to have an access to $5,000,000.

And as you all know, in Montgomery County, there is or was one charter school. It opened this calendar year and is already closing. They could have been eligible for funding. So I was able to amend the bill, to make sure that there are some guardrails, some oversight, some accountability before they get the money, and I think it's just the beginning, but it was kind of a one person crusade and we got it passed, which is great. Nonprofits.

I'm often described as the senator for the nonprofit sector. I have four bills for the nonprofit sector this year. Another one of those is being signed tomorrow, and we continue to work for this too invisible sector. There are more than 41,000 nonprofits in Maryland. They make up about 12 to 15% of our workforce and our economy, and people say we've gotta help the small businesses, which is true, and I always say, and nonprofits.

One of the bills that we finally got through after passing this in the senate five times, we passed my green bill, and delegate Pawakovich Carr is dressed appropriately. There we go. And delegate Spiegel. Green is the green and renewable energy and efficiency for nonprofit organization. I've talked about it here for too many years.

It's a revolving loan fund for nonprofits to be able to show up with just 10% of the cost of solar panels or insulation improvement or something, and they will be interest free, creating those opportunities. It's, it's about time, and it is in the utility bill that delegate Spiegel already talked about. That delegate Polakovic Carr talked about. They both said so many important things. I had to put a picture up of our own beloved delegate Kumar Barve who is now, has been elevated by the governor to not just be on the Public Service Commission, but chair the Public Service Commission.

He still lives in Rockville Town Center, and, and he is immersed in all of these policies. Public safety has has been discussed a little. That's my former senate colleague who's now the chief of the Maryland State Police. Nine one one specialist, already referenced, and I'm looking forward to continuing to work on those. My top priority bill, and I'm really excited, is also being signed into law tomorrow.

One of my six bills is being signed tomorrow is creating a statewide 311 system using artificial intelligence to lighten the load on our nine one one centers. The Baltimore Sun discovered that more than 80% of the calls into Baltimore City's 911 centers were not for emergencies, and people learned that they should call 911 if they have a problem and they don't know where else to go. So, literally, when it's, what time is the library closer? Where can I get a flu shot? Or there's a loud party next door?

They don't know where to call. So Montgomery County is one of only six jurisdictions that has 311. We're gonna go statewide, and Maryland will be the very first state in the country with a statewide 311. So we're blazing a path, and I'm really proud of that. We're starting big.

Local leaders are key. That's the the, our county and municipal partners. You guys probably know Craig Maloney, a Rockville resident who came to me years ago with a complaint about architects, and this year, we finally came up with the right solution, and that consumer protection bill is being signed into law. Has already been signed into law. Was signed in and I couldn't be there.

Affordable housing has already been discussed, always something that we think about, part of economic development. Sarah, elections. We got a couple of, election bills passed including how often do you are you voting down the ticket and you get to the ballot measures and you have no idea what it's asking you to figure out. So we are requiring plain English, no jargon, no legalese, no double negatives, no passive voice, and we've been working on it for years. That is being signed into law tomorrow.

Faithless electors. So for members of the electoral college who are intimidated or change their mind or whatever, they will be fired and replaced. A third election bill that's also being signed tomorrow is about keeping our polling places safe, allowing better security, better oversight, and enforcement so that people feel secure when they go to vote. There's more too. Ranked choice voting, I will tell you, is, being added tomorrow in a bill, being added to our law books finally for the first time.

So we are making progress as Rockville, Gaithersburg, Greenbelt, Annapolis, Frederick, and many others are considering considering implementing ranked choice voting. The state will be ready for you. Transparency, I've been working for so many years with delegate Mark Corman. Each year, we, make good progress. Sadly, at midnight, the bill that I had in my hand died, but we'll bring it back.

We'll pass it early next year. So we think, government that operates in sunlight is the best kind of government. Health care, among the health care bills, was over the counter contraception for our college kids to make sure that we know what they need and and, how they're using it to make sure we're providing good choices and good health care. Nancy Pelosi spent the day in Annapolis, and, the women legislators just celebrated her, so I had to put her in this. And with the president of the senate, during women's history month, he really showcased all the amazing work that my colleagues and I are doing.

I was proud to be the senate sponsor of a bill strengthening our conversion therapy law in Maryland. We passed it in 2018, but in light of the supreme court decision, we came back with something really strong. We're gonna keep working on it. The speaker and the president are supportive, so hopefully next year, when we have more time, and it's not an election year, we think we can move that next year. Just a couple more things. Antisemitism is something that keeps showing up in Rockville and around the state. We've got to fight it. No kind of hate. Islamophobia, homophobia, we just have to do better. People with disabilities always are, are on our minds.

It was a hard year in the budget, but, but maybe when times are better, we'll be able to continue our support or expand our support. I am the one senator on the Maryland State Arts Council and had a bill protecting artists, and, we're going to keep working on that. We had the diplomats, the ambassadors from Romania and Taiwan among the leader, the leaders who came to visit us. Obviously, I had to put something up with our beloved Jamie Raskin who shows up and is partnering with us on so many issues. Young people, anyone watching, you know you can be a high school page.

We never get people from Rockville or Gaithersburg. So high school students, we'd love to have you come down and serve as a high school page in the senate, in the house. Marilyn Day with the senate president. We're almost done. Shadows, I've had some wonderful constituents and friends come down and follow me around, learn about what it's like. Council member Jackson came down and spent the day with me last year, and that was way fun. And, again, I had to put a picture with Joe Vogel even though delegate Vogel isn't here. The four of us are so lucky to be able to work together. And, this is Ryan already talked about Young Artists of America. Very excited.

This opportunity is on the rear side of Congressional Plaza. Great opportunity for high school students. The bridges that we got funding for, thank you for taking us on a site visit. We think those are meritorious, and there's so many things. Delegate Spiegel, read a bunch of member things on the list, and it's a long list, as you can see.

Look who's there. My podcast, Kivit Singh with Kagan. Brief conversations with people I find fascinating. Certainly, our mayor is fascinating. It's also nonprofit leaders and government leaders and and community folks, even Scrabble and music. So check that out. Hometown holidays and is coming up Memorial Day weekend. The parade is on Monday. I pledge not to break my elbow or fall on the stage this year. That's my big commitment.

Yeah. But I am having it cut open again, taking the medal out. Gaithersburg Book Festival this Saturday, so definitely check that out. That's always really fun. All four of us give out distribute senatorial and delegate, scholarships. I give away tens of thousands of dollars. My deadline is a week from today at 05:00. No late applications will be accepted. No artificial intelligence. Go online, cheryl kagan dot org.

Please spread the word. I want great applications. I have a volunteer senatorial scholarship selection committee who helps guide the the selections. They help us score and rank anonymously, so there's no bias in any of it, and then we give out a lot of money, and my colleagues also have. All over social media, you can check those out all over the place, and this is an election year.

And in mostly Democratic Montgomery County, the primary election day is the election, so waiting until November is not okay. In Maryland, we have what's called closed primaries. That means if you're not a Democrat or you're not a Republican, if you are unaffiliated as almost a million Marylanders are, you go to show up in the primary, and you are given a ballot for school board, and that's it. And school board's really important, but you also need to vote for attorney general and comptroller and senator and delegate and county executive. We're getting a new county executive, bunch of new county council members, including in our district here.

So please please please do your homework. Make sure you are registered and affiliated so you can cast a full ballot. And if you did not get the, the mailer by email, my eight page wrap up, my staff and I spent a lot of time folding them and getting them to you. The post office took their sweet time getting them to you. Literally, it took about two weeks to get them from Annapolis to Rockville and Gaithersburg, but you should all have them. I know. Crazy. So happy to take questions, and thank you for your attention.

First of all, thank you so much for being here. We greatly appreciate all of your work. I know many of us had a chance to visit you in the flesh in Annapolis a couple of times, and what I can tell you all is they work very hard. I've seen meetings happening until ten midnight, and it is a ninety day sprint. It feels like you have finals every day.

To anyone who thinks that the rest of the year, they say, what do you do the rest of the year when the senate isn't in session? In the community. We're here. We're at ribbon cuttings and public safety events and just and working on our legislation for next year, serving on boards and commissions. We are everywhere, and it is a very year round job. So

Thank you. Questions? I will just also note that, we have a very good working relationship with our state delegation. I know many of us contact you all and are able to get support and stay in communication. I think it has been growing stronger and stronger and greatly appreciate all that you do on behalf of Rockville and Gaithersburg. We'll give them a shout out too. I have a couple quick comments. You noted the rent algorithms as well as the junk fees. We are going to be taking that on in Rockville, so wanted to flag that to your attention. We meet on the landlord tenant code next week.

So stay tuned, thank you for your state work on that. I want to thank you for raising the September. It is Mental Health Awareness Month. It is serious. And people who need help on mental mental healthyou don't have to have a defined disorder. You could just not be feeling well that day. Reaching out to get support, get resources, there is no judgment. People will keep it confidential. Encourage people to do that. Thank you for mentioning that you're going to be ranked choice voting ready. I know there's a year tied to that, isn't that correct? When the machines will be ready?

What we passed is about municipal elections and municipal special elections, So we are taking a step at a time, and nothing is about mandating. It's if a municipality chooses to look at ranked choice voting, the state needs to be ready for it. And the hardware and software need to be RCV compliant, and we are reassured that it will be.

Excellent. Thank you for that. And I know that when you came last year, we asked you about that.

Yep. One step at a time.

Thank you very much. And I also want to thank you so much for the scholarships you provide to many of our residents. Doctor. Miles and I met today with someone who graduated college and is studying his own nonprofit to give back, and he got those scholarships. So it really does help people make it through. And it was meaningful to hear about the impact it had on someone's life directly. And you guys talked about a lot of bills. Just for the residents who are listening, how could they find out about what passed if they wanted to get a list to track? Because there are many new laws and updates.

Do you wanna I'll do it.

You do it. Yeah.

I'll I'll say in general, I think all of us have our end of session letter either on our websites or you could email our offices to get a copy. But, you know, if a resident has a particular issue that they're interested in and just wanna get a synopsis, they're welcome to email any of our offices, and we can help them point them in the right direction.

I'll just add that the state legislature has a great website. It may take a, you know, a few seconds to sort of get comfortable with it after you're surfing around and clicking around on it, but you can look up any bill by topic, by bill number. And at the top of the page, once the bill pops up, as the mayor and council know full well, because I know you do this a lot Mhmm. There is a timeline, and it's in real time. It will tell you where the bill is and how far it got. And it will tell you, did it stop in committee and never make it out of committee, or did it pass the house and not make it through the senate or vice versa, or was it signed by the governor into law? And I would encourage folks to take a look at our state legislature's really good website.

Excellent.

And one more thing I'd add is if you have any suggestions, if you've got ideas for legislation, like the example I gave with Craig Maloney and the architecture board, which is now gonna be, given new enforcement capacity and and a confidential portal and all that, and that was because of his contacting me. So please feel free to reach out to us. We're curious to know what's on your mind.

Thank you. And I know that, timeline is moving up for you all, I so would imagine if you want to hear those kinds of ideas this summer, not during session

Oh gosh, yes.

Because you're already filing it all. So just wanted to flag back because I know that happens when people request things.

Sooner is definitely better than later.

I will say thank you for working to protect our values and our people from immigration to childcare and our schools and public safety. We're looking forward to more of the work that you're doing. Thank you for the money. Really appreciate it. I'm going to just ask my colleagues if they have some brief questions. Councilmember Vallery. Hi.

Thank you. I'll ditto everything the mayor said to keep it quick, but not that I don't about each and every one of you. But I did wanna I wanted to note on the statewide three one one, Senator Kagan, and thank you for that. I think it's awesome. I just wanna flag and I think I mentioned this in a previous briefing that you gave us that sometimes when Rockville residents call Montgomery County three eleven, they're told just to call City Hall, and they're not actually given any information. I just wanted to flag that maybe if there's guardrails there as well. I don't know if that's a training thing or something.

My Chief of Staff is already taking notes,

as am

I. We're on it.

It's very frustrating, and I've experienced it as well myself, where actually then I called this was before I got elected, before any of us were here I was then told, oh, you live in Twinbrook? You are in the county. I was like, well, actually I'm in the city of Rockville, but thank you. I also wanted to note and thank you for mentioning 988, and thank you to the mayor. You can text 988 as well. And so if you don't feel like talking to humans on the phone, and not everybody does, and especially when you are in need of assistance, you can text and also get that help. Thank you for mentioning it, and thank you, as always, for all the support for the community.

On behalf of Doctor. Miles, please go ahead.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Just a quick follow-up question. The specifics of the scholarships I think each one of your office offers, is there an age requirement, minimum, maximum? Yeah. Just put it out there for listening public.

Thank you for asking. All the information can be found on our websites, but we all do it a little differently. We also all have different deadlines. So I mentioned that mine is a week from today at 05:00. 05:00. Not 05:15. 05:00. And Amy's gonna slam the door closed, and that'll be it. But others, I think delegate Vogels is another week or so later,

and yours

is are open still?

Three of

us are still open.

So so definitely do your homework. A senatorial scholarship, and not to not to brag, but just to be clear, repeat. And ours is not a one time grant, but it's for your whole four year career, and it's undergraduate or graduate, and we can we each craft them our own ways, and we each have budgets, but it's a lot. People should really apply. Thank you for the question.

And just to make clear for the public, if you're going to Montgomery College, that's eligible. Trade certain trade schools in Maryland, that is also eligible. Undergraduate, graduate, as was mentioned. It even if you're taking online courses at an out of state school, that might also be eligible. You have to fill out some additional paperwork, but there really is, a lot of flexibility with them, so folks should look into it.

Apply to the scholarships, everyone. I know it's graduation season, so on behalf of my colleagues and I, we wanted to actually do a little special thank you today. I know we hadn't initially we don't do this every year, but we know that this is an important time. And we wanted to just read something to you all if you don't mind. But we wanna honor the work that you're doing and saying, whereas the Maryland State District seventeen delegation is senator Cheryl Kagan, delegate Julie Palakovich Carr, delegate Ryan Spiegel, and delegate Joe Vogel, and whereas the mayor and council of the city of Rockville do hereby extend the sincere appreciation and recognition of the d seventeen delegation for their steadfast advocacy and continued support of the city of Rockville and its residents, whereas the city of Rockville is very fortunate to be able to be represented by such a dedicated delegation whose leadership and commitment have advanced the city's twenty twenty six state legislative priorities, and whereas, in particular, we are grateful and acknowledge your successful efforts in securing $325,000 in LBI's legislative bond initiatives for the Twinbrook Park and Dogwood Park and many more through the years, and whereas these critical infrastructure projects directly support Marin Council's Vision Zero initiative and advance the shared city and state goals, the improvements will enhance safe access for pedestrians, cyclists, individuals of all abilities to key community destinations, including parks, schools, recreations, facilities, and transit.

And whereas the replacement of these bridges at Twinbrook Park and Dogwood Park will provide safer, more reliable connections whereas the multi year effort to modernize communications through nine eleven, as well as and we have specific roles for each of you in terms of your work through the year, so I won't go through all of those. But I just want to say a huge thank you to all of you for your dedication, for your hard work, and for making us proud.

Thank you

so much.

What an honor. Aren't you glad we only do this once a year so you don't go past midnight?

Okay. You can look at Amy's purse. Alright. Go ahead, Amy.

Well, I'm there. Okay. 123.

Alright. Thank you.

We'll tell Joe that he

I want to thank the listening public and our state delegation for being with us today. We have another public hearing to proceed on. I do want to note that we started the last public hearing a little bit early. So if anyone was not able to testify during that last public hearing because we were early, please feel free to see Judy or sign up in the back. But just wanted to let you know we will accommodate given our timing.

We'll now begin public hearing number three on Zoning Map Amendment Application MAP twenty twenty six-one hundred twenty six for a comprehensive map amendment, Mayor and Council of Rockville applicants. I'd like to welcome back Holly Simmons as well as Evan Johnson and Jim Waselik of the Community Planning and Development Services Group. Thank you.

Thank you so much. So as mentioned just now and earlier this evening, we are preparing for the comprehensive map amendment public hearing. So anyone wishing to testify specifically on the proposed rezoning map itself, any of the specific proposals for rezoning or the map as a whole, this would be the time to provide testimony on that legislative item. Back to you, madam mayor.

Thank you. I am Alright. I'm just looking to see if there's anyone else who has not had a chance to sign up yet or speak. Ms. Sarah Terrell Farrell, do we have an updated list?

I don't have anyone on this signed up, but I don't know if they're out in the hall and they can't hear us.

Okay. So I'm going to call folks in the hallway. If you're planning to speak in this hearing, we welcome you. Please raise your hand. If you would like to speak, I will call. Please feel free to

come. Good

evening. My name is Ron Tipton. I've lived for twenty years in Newmark Commons. I'm here to comment on the discussion previously about the proposed zoning amendments. And I'm gonna I'm not gonna go through the issues.

What I wanna say is really I'm looking at it from your perspective because I know some of you, mayor mayor Ashton, others came out to our community. We really appreciated that. You know, we really care deeply, about our community and about them. This is we're on the National Register of Historic Places, and yet, what you know, personally, I would hope nothing else would be built on on the property we're talking about, but that's not gonna happen. My point to you would be and I've spent over forty years of my career working in the congress and also working for nonprofits.

And, you know, I think we have a we have a situation here where, yes, there is an important reason for more housing. There's no question about that. And yet we also have a community that's very special and that high rise development would would have a really negative impact in so many ways. I think the r m d 10 is a reasonable compromise. And I think that if I were sitting up there, you know, in the dais with you and I were thinking about, well, how am I gonna handle this?

You know, heard from this and heard from that. I really think this is would be a fair and equitable and and a positive decision to limit the development, allow some development, and keep the wonderful ambiance we have at Newmar Commons. Thank you.

Thank you. Is there anyone else who would like to speak? Please feel free to come up. Please state your name and whether you live in the city of Rockville. Just wanna make sure we have it for the record. Good

evening, mayor and council. My name is Sandra Crow, and I've lived in Newmark Commons for the past ten years. And as many of you know, Newmark is a bit of a sanctuary within Rockville. Cherry blossoms in the spring dance with color and aliveness. The longevity of trees signal continuity, and serenity of the community allow for drinking in the natural essence all around us.

The current possible zoning for RMD 15 or above threatens this. The zoning would allow for 15 units, including possible apartments, and has looser site standards, including a smaller minimum lot frontage and less required open area than what we are advocating for, which is R M D 10. In particular, RMD fifteen is a greater threat to the wetlands that occupy the 9.75 Tower Oaks property. It's home to blackbirds and frogs and salamanders and turtles and snakes and deer. And as you heard from Kate a couple testimonies ago, when the deer have no place to go, they will be everywhere else.

They will be in the streets. They will be in people's yards, as will be the turtles and the snakes. The other day, I saw a turtle that was run over by a car, and it was so painful for me to see, and that I knew that that could be a harbinger for what might happen if this if this property is completely taken over by, by development. So wetlands, why are they important? They act like natural sponges and filters.

They store flood water, slow runoff, improve water quality, and support wildlife. They reduce erosion, maintain streams during dry periods, and store carbon, which can help moderate climate impacts. They provide habitat for birds and reptiles, making some of the most biologically productive ecosystems. We need the wetlands. They because they help filter pollutants, sediments, nutrients, and other, contaminants before water reaches other sources.

So have we asked questions such as what are possible storm water implications for this property? Is climate change mitigation a factor here? RMD 10 is less impactful on this precious space that houses so many of our animal neighbors. So I ask you to give that space the honoring that it deserves, and this impending zone change threatens this. And I'll end with a quote from Wendell Berry. Whether we and our politicians know it or not, nature is party to all our deals and designs, and she has more votes

Thank very much.

A larger memory and sterner justice than we do.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Welcome. Good

evening, mayor and council members. I did not intend to speak, but after the last speaker, I thought I'd add just a little footnote. I have been living in in Newmar Commons and and City Of Rockville for fifty years. Well, the biggest draw was the day we walked into the community, we had no idea we're looking for a house there. We signed the contract the next day not knowing where City Of Rockville was.

We're living in in in Maryland and DC at that time. One of the things I learned that you may not have heard, a few years ago, my wife and I were at a concert. Somebody sitting next to me said, she lives in the Tower Oaks neighborhood, and she loves a neighborhood where she walks, and it's like a little Venice. I said, I've lived there for so many years. Where is that? She was describing our community because of our lake and and and and the topography and and the houses there. So I think I just wanted to add that that she may not be the only one who said little Venice, and I'm sure the world gets around, who has said that about our our our neighborhood and which is part of City Of Rockville.

Thank you.

Can you please state your name for the record?

Raj Gupta. Thank you. U p t a.

Thank you. Is there anyone else who would like to speak? Please state your name whether you live in Rockville.

Good evening. My name is Debbie Chalfie. I'm with the Art Deco Society of Washington, and I had wanted to testify about the historic preservation part of the rewrite. Is now the right time, or are you doing that later? Okay.

Great. Well, like I say, I'm representing the Art Deco Society of Washington, and thank you for considering the written comments we submitted and our testimony tonight. As you know, historic preservation is rarely a cut and dried, right or wrong, black and white kind of thing. There's a public interest in preserving noteworthy architecture and sites for their own sake and to preserve a community's history and fabric, which is why the county, the state, and even the federal government provide, financial assistance and tax credits to owners of historic properties to help them in maintaining and restoring them. Historic preservation also recognizes that times and needs change.

Hence, designation does not prevent change or alteration. It simply means a significant change to an exterior must be reviewed and approved in accordance with law and guidelines. This is most often a matter of balancing a variety of interests, negotiating options, and figuring out ways to adaptively reuse buildings for new purposes. Typically, here in Rockville, there are several governmental bodies involved, that are accountable to elected officials and to the public. In other words, the entire process of historic designation is structured to balance interests and be a check on extreme positions.

Thus, we are utterly mystified about why such an extreme and unbalanced rewrite of the historic preservation provisions is being proposed. What problems in the current process are so frequent or severe that these so called solutions are justified? If you, like us, are not aware of any significant flaws with the ways in which nominations are initiated, studied, deliberated upon, and voted upon, then we urge you to take a much more surgical approach to changes or even drop this article altogether from the current rewrite until you can spend more time on investigating and discussing what precisely needs to be changed. At a minimum, you should delete the unanimity requirement for historic preservation. Majority rule is used for all the other land use matters that come before you, controversial or not, and should continue to be used here.

Neither Maryland nor Montgomery County require owner support in order to designate a property as historic and requiring unanimity would be contrary to what the National Trust on Historic Preservation would consider to be best practices. Also, as we pointed out in our written statement, to require anonymity would permit one commissioner on the HDC or one council member who who may just be ideologically opposed to historic preservation or believe that property rights should be absolute. They could hold up designation of any property even if the majority of the public and the majority of the council would want to do that. So we think it's very important that you delete the unanimity requirement and continue to make decisions by majority rule. Second, we urge you to maintain the evaluations by the historic district commission for all demolitions.

The HTC is the body that has the substantive expertise and the undivided mission to evaluate historic resources. This is a prudent requirement because demolition is forever. Finally, please maintain multiple paths to nominations for historic designation. Rather than cutting the community out of the designation, of the initiation process, community groups whose missions focus on history often have their fingers on the pulse of what is happening and are in the best position to alert the HDC to evaluate a property. I appreciate your attention and I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Thank you very much. Thank you. Is there anyone else who would like to speak? Welcome. Please state your name while they live in the city of Rockville.

This is regarding this, zoning ordinance rewrite. So my name is Anna Street Molina, and I have lived in Markwood for thirty years. During last week meeting with the staff, Markwood residents learned that because the comprehensive map amendment is city initiated, the laws does not require written mailers or physical signage. Instead, the city relies almost exclusively on newspaper notices as stated in Section 25.06.01. To increase transparency, I am proposing a change in the zoning ordinance rewrite to mandate email notifications.

When our current ordinance was adopted in 2014, the gassette was a free local paper delivered weekly to every home. The following years, it ceased the circulation. Relying on newspaper of general circulation is now an outdated strategy that leave our residents in the dark. Email communications is not cumbersome. It is efficient.

The city already manages several successful newsletters from the Rockwell reports to the senior center and arts updates. Integrating zoning alerts into these existing digital channels is low cost, high impact and a high impact way to ensure citywide issues or actually reach city residences. It was only in late twenty twenty five, thanks to the staff outreach, that our community became aware of the comprehensive map amendment and its implication on our doors doorsteps. I urge you to update the ordinance to reflect the reality of how we communicate in 2026. Please prioritize meaningful outreach over the legal technicalities. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Is there anyone else who would like to speak? Welcome. Thank

you. Good evening, madam mayor and members of council. My name is Nancy Picard speaking on behalf of Peerless Rockville's board of directors this evening. Tonight, we would like to remind you that historic preservation is for the public good as a proven effective tool for a very wide range of public goals from enhanced property values to heritage tourism, economic development, and more. The city of Rockville has had a long and admirable history of preservation, resulting in a unique unique civic identity and a desirable place to live and work in Montgomery County.

Firstly, tonight, we urge you to retain the current policy that all demolition permits require an evaluation of historic significance. There has not been a citywide evaluation of Rockville's historic resources since 1986. In the past forty years, historic contexts have evolved, and there have been significant improvements in recognizing and also valuing the experiences of African Americans, Asian Americans, women, and other marginalized groups. There is no survey of significant architecture, people, and or events from this time from which Rockville's population became dramatically, very dramatically more diverse. Removing the requirement now risks the permanent destruction of sites vital to the history of underrepresented groups.

Two, we strongly oppose requiring unanimous HTC and mayor and council votes to both initiate and approve sectional amendments to add new properties to the historic overlay zone. This one change is highly unusual and has the potential to decimate Rockville's historic preservation program, allowing a single dissenting vote to derail the city's entire preservation process. It negates regularly accepted standards for historic preservation. It negates the expertise of the HGC as a body, and it also goes against accepted practice for zoning adoption. Peerless Rockville believes no other Rockville zoning ordinance requires unanimous voting, making this an unprecedented barrier that undermines a process of professional review and community input.

Even worse, the current draft allows just one historic district commissioner to stop an eligible property from even being filed, which would stop further review by the mayor and council. Think about that. Thirdly, we support the ability for third parties to initiate evaluations of significance. The current process already requires nominators to provide rigorous justification, identify specific qualifying criteria, and present a formal case before the HDC. There is no evidence whatsoever of frivolous or retaliatory nominations.

Rather, the current process has been consistently rare and invited only serious, well considered entries. We urge you to keep Rockville's nomination process democratic and transparent. Fourth, we have strong concerns regarding the addition of a delisting process that, while itself, may be appropriate, but currently is too vague to protect resources that have already been found to be significant to the city. Pierluis Raffles supports a delisting process only when a site or structure has lost its physical integrity or the specific characteristics that originally qualified it for historic status. We firmly oppose moves to delist based on current whims or external pressures.

Historic significance is not a temporary status to be discarded when convenient. It is a permanent record of our community's identity. In all, we are troubled by the disproportionate inclusion of onerous requirements in the proposed HP article. Collectively, these changes create a zoning ordinance that is more difficult, discouraging, and restrictive for preservation efforts. These proposals represent a sharp departure from the vision established in the Rockville 2040 comprehensive plan, which explicitly calls for the city to proactively identify and safeguard its physical and cultural heritage to preserve the themes and periods of the city's history and development no matter the error.

Thank you for hearing me tonight, and please consider the lasting impact of the proposed changes. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Yeah. This is about the zoning ordinance. You're right. Correct?

It's related. Okay. Okay. Thank you, mayor Ashton and and city of Rockville, Maryland council for this opportunity. JD Kumar to speak here again today. Democrat candidate, US Congress, Maryland District 8. Website is votejdk.com. Now I apologize if not exactly direct on this zone topic, but I believe very relevant this information. So it depends on what this relationship is is or isn't isn't. So, pretty wild today.

Epstein, Repstein, Tacoma Park, Cinco, Ochoalad, Kagan District 17, like, wow. This is a example of candidate JD Kumar inspired competition. I think they got my info, and so they come up here and make these boo koo den De Niro proposals after decades. But I have a lot of respect for mister Ryan Spiegel. I do. Now I know in people who in school who needed cheat notes and crib notes, but it's all good. Again, they're not inclusive. But no worries. It's all good for the greater good, greater good. Make greater good, greater good again.

Now, if I go to US Congress, your zoning and all your logistics here and beyond will be generationally and historically changed. Traffic will be reduced 60 to 80% here and nationwide. And so this is the reason I said this was related. This is a huge multi trillions of dollars nationwide and global initiative. I have articulated and set the tone on this.

Let's discuss. So easy to endorse me. District 17 is same old segregation child's play. Otherwise, you will be relying on Montgomery County government that has been cheating City of Rockland, Maryland government for decades whereby you cannot expend more services optimally. For example, JEDI, JEDI Consultants, tremendous ideas should be compensated properly for the work, that they need to expand, that is so necessary what they're doing.

What a bargain for the work they do, mayor Ashton. The city should appreciate your ability to get these good deals. Now more zoning related. A local based hydropower and solar wind combo new technology grid. Spain was a leader in the, the wind portion. This will generate thousands of jobs, but it's no longer Spain. It is China. So this portion I've been discussing, the $250,000,000,000 five year plan, for this US Congress District 8, which is which is 50,000,000,000 per year, is very easy to get this. Believe me, just a fraction successful intelligent negotiation by me. Now this clown show County Elridge, this clown show Epstein, Repstein, Elridge thinks that my proposal

focus on the zoning pieces, that would be great because we have to kind of stay with Sure. Public hearing.

I mentioned my ideas to him, and he thinks that I can't do it. And that's a manufactured blubber dub. I know how to do it. I know how to get it done. I don't think he has the history, geography, international trade, business, economics, many subjects deficient. So going back to this

Thank you. That's that's the end of the time. Thank you very much.

Thanks.

Welcome. Is anyone else who like to speak about zoning? Please state your name and whether you live in the city of Rockville.

Thank you. Kenny Peskin, representing International Sign Association out of Alexandria, Virginia. I do not live in in Rockville. But my association, ISA, welcomes the opportunity to provide comment on the zoning text amendment. We have spoken and met with, planning staff and testified, in February as part of the planning commission process.

We are in general, we're supportive of the proposed signage provisions of the zoning ordinance. Specifically, we strongly support several changes that were incorporated into the April 20 draft text as a result of the staff and planning commission process and feedback. We strongly support the inclusion of article 10 freestanding sign standards for illumination that will allow for continued use of internally illuminated freestanding signs in zones that currently allow them. The practice exists and will be continued in the future. We also strongly support changes that were made in the definition of electronic message centers.

Generally, electronic message centers are prohibited under the current ordinance and will be prohibited in the future. But for certain categories of signs that are really not visible to passing motorists, Things like, bank drive through lane indicators, parking garage capacity indicators, quick service restaurant menu boards. There are revisions in the in the definition that specifically exclude that from the from the prohibition and we think those changes will significantly reduce future impact for Rockville's retail businesses. But there's one other area where a change was made in the April 20 version I think is consistent with the spirit of what we had requested but might not have the impact intended. They're in the section for exempt signs from permitting requirements.

The language says signs displaying gasoline prices which must comply with state law and signs displaying electric vehicle charging prices. Those categories, would not have to apply for a permit. But we have some concerns that the city's definition still would apply to gas station price changers, even if something may be, eliminated, from the permitting requirement. We think that if it's still prohibited by virtue of its definition, it might remain prohibited. The draft ordinance references state law, but we're concerned that the reference might be insufficient.

Maryland regulation code 10 dash three fifteen contains several requirements for fuel retailers to display accurate pricing information, including if prices, differ for cash or credit. It also includes a preemption against any local ordinance that might limit the number of signs or the area of those signs. If for example, local ordinance might prevent a fuel retailer from displaying numbers that meet the required eight inches by three and a half inch size for a for a character. But the state law mandates that the stations be able to display pricing information, but it appears silent on the discussion as to what technology might be used to display that price. The law doesn't distinguish between the use of electronic price changers or manual changeable copy tiles or if somebody just applies grease paint to a window.

So long as the numbers are large enough to be readable by passing motorists, we think that almost any sign can meet the requirements of Maryland business regulation code 10 dash three fifteen. We're concerned that reliance on state law to protect the ability of gas stations to use digital price changers, will not ensure their ongoing legality. Our read is that the state law doesn't, address electronic signs at all. Therefore, International Sign Association recommends that the the, draft ordinance be revised in the definition of electronic mess centers to additionally exclude electronic displays in association with the gasoline sales use. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Is there anyone else who would like to speak? Okay. I will turn it back to staff.

Thank you very much, Madam Mayor. I believe that is all we have for this agenda item.

Thank you very much. We appreciate everyone who has come out to testify and provide feedback. I know that this is the public hearing, but just wanted to flag if people continue to send comments, how will you be handling those? Because I know that we might continue to get comments throughout. Absolutely.

So the record, to my knowledge, remains open until the ordinance and the comprehensive map amendment are adopted. So folks can certainly continue to provide comment, both to mayor council at Rockville MD dot gov, also to the community planning and development department, as well. I will note that as we get closer to releasing a final draft on June 1, our ability to fully respond to and integrate comments does become more challenging. And the Marin Council's final work session is planned for next Monday, May 18.

Thank you very much. Appreciate everyone who is listening and providing feedback. Engage Rockville is another place where you can continue to provide feedback and see where we are. Okay, so colleagues, we have two work sessions to come. I'm thinking we might want to take a brief break now. We are close to on time, just about ten minutes behind. However, I think if we can do five minutes, or do you need longer? Seven. I'm hearing seven. Alright.

We'll see you back here. It'll 05/11/2026, and we're reconvening meeting thirteen-twenty six. We're now moving on to our work session, which is Item 12A, Work Session three on Zoning Tax Amendment Application TXT twenty twenty six-two 71 for the Zoning Ordinance Rewrite and Map Amendment Application MAP twenty twenty six-one 126 for the Comprehensive Map Amendment, Mayor and Council of Rockville applicants. We'll be focusing today on Articles six through eight, uses and use standards, zone and zone standards, and general development requirements. I'd like to welcome back Holly Simmons, who's deputy zoning manager, as well as Jim Waselik, Chief of Zoning.

And we also have their backup team who are helping them in the leadership. Evan Johnson, Director of Community Planning and Development Services, recognizing John Foreman, Development Services Manager, as well as from the City Attorney's Office, Nicholas Jumei. Welcome.

Thank you so much. Good evening again, Madam Mayor, members of the council. So this evening is our third of four work sessions on the zoning ordinance rewrite and comprehensive map amendment. As mentioned earlier, our fourth one will be next Monday. Bear with me for a moment here.

I'm not sure. Is someone else able to advance the slides? Oh, too many. Alright. There we are. Alright. So you have before you the work session outline. We will, as our mayor mentioned, be going over articles six through eight. But before that, we do have a number of follow-up items from the Planning Commission recommendations that were before this body back on April 13. So with that section, we are proposing to go through slide by slide.

There are five of them. They all pertain to items in Articles six through eight, and with each of those slides, we are seeking direction from the body. So we'll go through those first, and then when we come to Articles six through eight, where we'll go over the key changes from the old ordinance to the new ordinance, which are reflected in the highlights document, and then in some instances, in our revised staff draft, We will be proceeding or we're proposing to proceed through those articles kind of as a whole. You'll recall that the red text, the red bold italics correspond to direction that we've received from the body previously, whether it was in one of our prerelease work sessions in 2025 or earlier, in April. And then the black text is additional key changes.

Also, at Marin Council's request, we are going to go over light industrial rezonings. We do have two of those, that are proposed in or that were recommended in the comprehensive plan, and we will go over those this evening along with brief mention of next steps. And before I move on, I would be remiss not to mention we also have a member of our consultant team, Michael Stein with ZoneCo, is on the line. He'll be available if there are instances where we need to turn it over to him during Q and A. So first up, our Planning Commission recommendations. The very first one relates to gross floor area restrictions, and I will hand it over to my colleague, Mr. Wozilak.

You, Ms. Mayor and council, you may recall that there were, gross flurry restrictions on certain use types, within our zoning ordinance. The planning commission recommended removing many of those. And in your discussion, you actually recommended removing almost all of those. And so our recommendation now is to retain the ones that are in the residential zones and those deal with ADUs and cottage courts, home based businesses and accessory structures.

But we also recommend that all the ones that deal with mixed use zones that those be eliminated. We do want to highlight one which is the single tenant commercial use and we think we believe that that one should be eliminated as well. That eliminated any store to a 65,000 square foot footprint. Also in the IL zone, we recommend eliminating those GFA restrictions, and replace that with a requirement that the use be accessory to the principal use. And that's to kind of continue the fact that the IL zone is for industrial uses.

It's not intended to be a mixed use, but certainly some of those other types of uses are supportive of the industrial use. And that was our intention for that recommendation. And, be happy to answer questions or look forward to your direction.

You want us to pause now? Excellent. We'll do it differently this time. Alright. So I am gonna start on this side of the table this week. Councilman Van Gruenk.

Thank you. I you definitely listened to our feedback. This is exactly kind of, at least from my perspective, exactly, I think, the direction that we're going to. I might have some follow-up questions with regard to when we're getting into some of the details in Article six and some of the specific usages. But at least with regard to the specific issues of eliminating the GFAs in the IL zone and the mixed use zone, I support it completely.

Thank you. And I want to also just say my colleagues, if you don't have questions, it's fine. Feel free to pass. Councilmember Shah. I also support there's no questions. Thank you. Councilmember Jackson?

No, I also support there's no questions.

Okay, thank you. Thank you very much. I know this is something I raised and was just I was scratching my head on what this was, and so you guys really listened to our feedback. I think this will help with economic activity. You also talked about protecting the residential zones, so I think there's a nice balance here. I have two questions. When I was looking at the chart in the staff report, it talked about food established 25% of the GFA of the building does not apply to carry out. And I think there was one for office or retail, 25% of the GFA of building. Can you just explain that?

I believe those are in the industrial zones that we're looking at. And, yeah, the intention there is was to limit how much of a particular space that those uses could take up so that the use still maintains its industrial focus but allows for office use in case that industrial use requires a certain amount of office or could use some retail space to to sell the product that they're manufacturing.

I I would add, though, everything that mister Wozelak said is correct, but we are proposing to eliminate those at this time. As seen on this chart, it might have been a little bit more confusing on the chart that's in the attachment to the staff report, but the current proposal is to eliminate those restrictions.

Okay. Thank you. On the chart, it has current zone and then the revised draft, and then it didn't say an explanation, eliminate. So I appreciate your clarification there. That's great. Councilman Vallari.

Yes. Thank you. I am in strong agreement with all the recommendations as noted in particular, and I just want to raise this as something that we talked about previously. This chart gives a good kind of context for it, and that is probably one of our most celebrated mixed use success stories in recent history is 80,000 square feet, which is 15,000 above the cap, and that is Wegmans, the anchor of timber quarter. So I'm extremely excited about eliminating this restriction because I think that that is a model.

I do want to note that the creation of a champion project status was part of how that was made possible. So I just want to flag, put a pin in it, that I think that deserves kind of a broader conversation as well, whether or not we keep the kind of geographical location of Champion projects, whether or not we just use what we have learned through that process and expand it throughout the city. I just want to note that, and I am extremely excited that we're getting rid of that. I'm also, in the industrial light zone, extremely excited that we're eliminating the GFA restrictions, especially because it does allow for that kind of flexibility to allow for being secondary to the actual industrial use, allowing for grabbing a coffee at Majorga, as some of us may do. It's not the principle, but it does allow for that kind of connectivity to the neighborhood and to the community.

I think this is very reasonable, and I support it. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilmember Fulton.

No questions fully support these recommendations. Thanks.

Yeah. Have no questions either, madam mayor, and thanks to staff for answering my questions in advance. Thanks,

doctor Miles. And I wanna say thank you for including the history in the in the staff report. I think I read about 10 times the there wasn't a time in our history when people didn't want big box stores. And I think given economic activity and some of the things that we want to attract, like a Wegmans and other kinds of places, I think we're kind of changing that history. So we want economic activity.

We are open for business. And I do think that once this does go through, I want to make sure that we are collaborating with Rockville Economic Development, Inc. So that they are able to tell folks in the community and work with site selectors to know what's possible here. I did have one question about the ADU piece that my colleagues somehow reminded me of. You noted the state law removed restrictions on attached, but it does not remove restrictions on detached. Is that correct? You don't have to answer that now, but I just wanted to make sure that we were fully aligned with state law.

So what we have proposed for the restrictions on the accessory dwelling units is in alignment with state law. They did two primary things. I believe it was back in 2025. One is requiring that you cannot have a restriction on an accessory dwelling unit that is any lower than 75% of the principal dwellings gross floor area. Our current ordinance restricts you to 50%, so we did raise that.

The other thing is that accessory dwelling units are not allowed to count toward the lot coverage on a site, and so we revised the definition of lot coverage to specifically exclude accessory dwelling units. So if our city attorney wants to add anything to that, he is absolutely able to, but we do believe that we are in alignment with state law.

Thank you. And then did the state law I remember this being a discussion with some of the state meetings I was at. They were also saying that ADUs can be in HOA communities. Can you confirm whether that happened? We Or just double check on that?

Yes, Madam Mayor. I'll have to double check on that. I don't recall.

Okay. I know that was part of an early bill, I want to just make sure that we're tracking so that we're fully in alignment. Okay. We're ready for the next section.

Alright. Next up is established setbacks. So this is something that we also saw briefly on April 13. As you'll recall, established setbacks are the average distance from the front lot line of all buildings on a block face. Currently, in our r zones and our RMD zones, your setback is a numerical standard, for example, 25 feet from the front lot line, or in instances where that established setback is greater, that's what applies.

So this always pushes homes away from the street and in addition to doing that, it is quite complicated for individual homeowners to calculate. In many instances, it also only results in maybe a foot or two of additional distance from the street. But the calculation you still need to go ahead and do the calculation, figuring out the distance of all of your neighbors' properties from that front lot line. So we recommended and the planning commission supported removing established setbacks from the ordinance entirely, and I believe it was this body members suggested, could we retain this but make it optional and bring houses toward the street in instances where the established setback is less than that numeric standard? So we actually did find precedence for this.

This is what Prince George's County has done in their new ordinance. We do think that this would add flexibility, particularly for folks who want to just have kind of a hard and fast standard. They don't wanna have to go to the bother of figuring out what all of their neighbors' distance from the property line is. They can default to the setback of the zone. But for folks who might like to do that calculation and think that it would make a difference for them, this would be an option. So this is our current recommendation to retain established setbacks as optional and where they are applicable, they would be less than the setback of the zone having the impact of, in some instances, potentially bringing homes to the street. And with that, I will turn it back to you all.

Thank you. Council Member Shah?

I wanna thank the staff for listening to us on this issue. I support the recommendation, and I think this provides more clarity.

Council Member Jackson.

Thanks. Thank you for listening to us, and I fully support the recommendation.

Thank you. I just have a question. I know we debated this very much last time. Is there what's different from our debate?

So this might actually be more reflective of where I think you all landed as a body last time. The difference is staff's recommendation. Previously staff was saying, let us just eliminate this entirely, and I think what what the body suggested allows additional flexibility. And so we did go investigate to see, is there a structure for doing this? Could this make sense for the city of Rockville? And now we are coming back, I think, aligned with where where you all landed.

Thank you. And when it says bring homes to the street, can you clarify that?

Yes. That's maybe a little bit too informal. What it would do instead of requiring a greater setback, it would require or it would provide the option of having a lesser setback.

And what's the least amount of setback

that could happen? We are not proposing that there would be a least amount of setback if there I don't frankly know if it would be necessary. I believe I understand from mister Wozlak that we think that this would apply in very few instances throughout the city. However, if we did want to have a minimum, I think we could put a stop gap in there as well.

I was just wondering, like, there is natural line in neighborhoods, and I'm just wondering if it's gonna be, like, literally bring it to the street. So I that's what I want to be mindful of. I didn't want anyone to lose their rights in the last proposal, but I'm wondering if this gets us, like, literally, as you know, right to the street. So could that happen? Because that would really stick out strangely.

One thing we've considered is the fact that, even though house facade may be at the setback line, the zoning ordinance actually allows a front porch to encroach 12 feet into that setback line. So that may be kind of a break point that provides some separation that we're seeing in our neighborhoods, something that we could go on Yeah.

I want some additional examples of what could happen here for me personally just so that it's literally not right at the sidewalk. Again, I don't want people to lose property rights from where they are now. That was my biggest concern when the last proposal was brought forward. Councilmember Larry.

Yes, hi. On the flexibility provision, does that specifically need to be drafted into the ordinance text tonight or is that something that is in the staff implementation detail?

What we would do is take the direction back and put that in the final draft. We do have text that we could model this off certainly, if if and you know, if the body gave us the direction to implement this, we would put it into the final draft. And if you did not like it at that time, you'll see it again. Okay. So

that I would was just and and I thank you for for I just wanted to see how that would go in practicality. And I think as part of that too, maybe sharing some examples would be helpful to Madame Mayer's point as well. Think generally I really like preserving the option for it because I think that these mandatory established setbacks really lock us all into the low density patterns that we're trying to correct for here, right? And I think I really do strongly support eliminating them. I think this optional provision so applicants can use a lower setback when it benefits the project is a very elegant solution to what we're trying to do here.

So thank you for that.

Councilmember Fulton.

Very pleased with where this landed. No questions,

and I support it. Thanks. Thanks. Doctor Miles.

Thank you, madam. I also support it. Thank you.

Councilman Van Grak.

You you guys are literally two for two. You listen to us exactly what we're looking for. This is absolutely, I think, the right thing because it essentially says we can make it easy or to make it a little bit more difficult, it'll benefit us. Exactly the right way to go. Staff, spot on.

Thank you all. So next up is front yard coverage. The definition for our front yard coverage is the percent of the front yard covered by driveways, parking areas, and sidewalks regardless of paving material or perviousness. And that last phrase, the regardless of paving material or imperviousness or perviousness is really important in this instance. I will note that this was introduced in 2009 with our last kind of comprehensive update to the zoning ordinance.

It really was focused on aesthetics. I know there's been some questions around storm water, some questions around lot coverage. This would not change the lot coverage requirements for the site, and it also would not change the storm water requirements in city code, which are contained in chapter 19. So as noted previously, our recommendation and the Planning Commission's recommendation was to eliminate the front yard lot or the front yard coverage requirement. Again, this would not impact lot coverage or the city's storm water regulations, but it would make the ordinance much easier to administer.

Typically, we are finding that folks have not conformed to this requirement upon enforcement, which is situation.

Council Member Jackson. I'll come back to you. I'm still noodling on this one as well. Because I think that I am concerned about and I think you're meaning this, if it is I still think we have work to do on stormwater management, and I've been very clear and consistent on that. Especially in our older neighborhoods, we are having flooding issues, and we don't have the floodwater management plan. We haven't touched the building code. I know there's a lot of issues on that. I see neighbors fighting on you and causing my house to flood and my yard is flooded. Just is a thing. We've heard it in drop in.

I just want to make sure because it says regardless of paving material or perviousness, that's the part that really sticks to me. That's the concern I have. So I will really flag I I wanna flag that in particular. That's that's a sticking point. I don't know if there's anything you wanna say about that.

No. I actually think that that's an excellent point. And this is something that currently is carried forward in the staff draft and in the revised staff draft from our current ordinance. So our colleagues, our friends over in the Department of Public Works are well versed in implementing our stormwater regulations, but this is in the zoning ordinance. So this is something that DPW never sees.

They don't assess whether it's pervious or impervious, and we in the zoning department just look to see if it's covered. So you could have a 100% pervious paver parking area in your front yard, and we would count it toward this because aesthetically, our zoning ordinance says this is displeasing. So in DPW, they look at chapter 19. Anytime that a development comes in and meets our threshold for review of stormwater requirements, they are assessing the site for water quantity, stormwater quantity, stormwater quality, and safe conveyance. All of that is kind of governed at a high level by state requirements, but we at the City of Rockville say the state requirements are not quite good enough for us, and we actually have a lower threshold than the state does.

So our stormwater regulations are quite robust. And at the same time, the state is updating their stormwater regulations, and we plan as the city to update hours following when they update theirs. And if you're even looking at kind of, like, a more comprehensive level aside from the site, I'm sure that you all are well aware that our friends again in DPW are undergoing a kind of citywide flood resiliency master plan. That is a process that's currently ongoing. It also has an Engage Rockville page, and they're encouraging folks to call to attention specific flooding areas throughout the city so that the city can address them at a more comprehensive level.

Thank you. Yeah. And that that speaks to my concern about moving forward with this now, as particularly with the allowing for impervious. I understand my my sensitivity and heart goes out to allowing some parts of it because there are areas that you can't park in front of a home. People want to have a loop in front.

I'm thinking about some homes under the last part of Manakee, some parts of Twinbrook, some parts of Hungerford where there's just not a lot of parking. And so and I know people are also trying to see EVs, so I know sometimes people wanna be able to to create some little circle in front of the house. So I I have some sensitivity in, you know, what the new reality is for people. At the same time, we are dealing with climate change. Recognize that what we have is not enough, particularly in some of the older neighborhoods and the trajectory of what is going on, we're going to have to deal with flooding.

We're changing our pipes to deal with flooding. We're changing a lot. And I know a lot of cities in Maryland are dealing with this. So that's my concern. I can't support at this point allowing the impervious fully to have just a free rein on that. So that's where I stand on this particular one. Councilmember Vallari.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I appreciate the concerns that you raised, and perhaps others are concerned about it. I will bring a couple examples as to why I'm not concerned. And living in one of the lowest points in the city, the sump as it were, hanging out with storm water people, I know I live in the sump, you would think that I would be more concerned with this. I think to a certain extent, it was trying to this provision was trying to adjust for a problem that really didn't materialize.

Overnight, there was not a bunch of people that decided to pave over their entire front yards, and those kind of situations would exacerbate things like stormwater management. I will say that we can't regulate what is probably one of the most destructive in terms of stormwater management, and that is lawns. So for all the people that have a front yard, nothing but grass and nothing else, that is probably equally detrimental to stormwater management, and we don't regulate that. And personally, I think aesthetically, I think it could look better all along. But zoning is zoning, not aesthetics.

I really want to stay in that lane of what you know, we're looking at. I'm not trying to draft rules to determine what something's going to look like. My concern as well, if we do not eliminate this, then are we inadvertently creating greater challenges for people who do need to increase front yard coverage because they're trying to adapt a home, because they have a mobility impairment or any other sort of disability where they would need to adjust for a longer run up to a front door. Again, something I have personal experience with. We had to do this at the home that I grew up in so that my dad could actually have a ramp that eased up into the front door.

So I'm very low to not eliminate it for that reason. Again, it's an issue that the problem didn't materialize. We didn't have people paving over everywhere. I want people to be able to adapt their home if they do have a mobility impairment or they've moved into a home where they do need to add a ramp to the front yard. So I do have a quick question before moving on.

As noted here, if we didn't eliminate it, would permeable pavers count toward the coverage? I think I've raised this before but I can't recall. I don't have the best memory.

Yes, they do.

They do. So right now, the existing issue is treating pervious and impervious in the same sense, even though one is better for stormwater management. So would much rather eliminate this front yard coverage. Again, it's not a problem that the city is actually facing. It was an aesthetic concern. We hear about zoning, and I don't think aesthetics should play a role in zoning, and I don't want to hinder the ability of people to adapt their homes if they have mobility impairments or other needs like that.

To Councillor Valerio's point, can you clarify what happens if someone is trying to adapt their home for ADA purposes and how you handle that, are there limitations?

Sorry, Madam Mayor. If the percentage of the front yard coverage increases, and specifically would it fall under the ADA?

No, can someone, do they allow more flexibility currently?

Just a carve

out for? I was curious.

Fair

enough. The

current code allows for if the improvement does not meet the zoning requirement but is needed to accommodate the home, it does allow for that to be installed.

So there is a carve out that already exists. And there is no requirement between pervious or impervious for that, is there?

I'm sorry? Your mic.

Oh, my gosh. Sorry. I was like, why is Kate trying

to hit me?

Assist you. Assist me. Exactly. Her assisting hurts.

No, I'm kidding.

Like, there's no requirement. If they are allowed in that exception, that coverage will not have to be pervious. Know what I mean? Pervious materials as part of that coverage.

No.

Okay. So I just think we're all debating a problem that doesn't really exist in the city, and we're not just don't again, going back to the aesthetics thing, I don't think that we should be looking to our zoning code to enforce aesthetics.

Councilmember Fulton.

So I'm in favor of this recommendation, and I feel like I should explain why given the conversation. Part of the whole purpose of what we're doing with the zoning code rewrite is to rationalize, make sense, have the right places in our code do the right things. And I hear you and I think you make a lot of sense that stormwater is a problem. There are the appropriate avenues to deal with stormwater, and it's not this. I hear also that we want to make a code that is easy to enforce and for people to understand, and to be read in plain language and people know what it means.

So for that reason, I think that we should handle storm water via our our storm water regulations, and we should remove this requirement. Because I also take your word that it is based on aesthetics. And just so you know, through the rest of this conversation, anything that is based on anything being aesthetically displeasing will be something I'm not in favor of.

Thanks. Doctor Miles. Thank

you, madam mayor. Again, thanks staff for answering this or beginning to answer this question for me in advance. They have already raised a question that I highlighted. It was then packet page 89. And both the response that you all gave me via email and the discussion night sounds that I I I gather that if there was going to be a significant increase in impervious or more specifically, if there was gonna be an impact on stormwater, DPW would be involved, and there would be some sort of check and balance in that in that way.

I'll just so it is it is a concern as expressed previously. I just I trust that the city will do what's right. My concerns are have been outlined, and I guess, yeah, I'll just have to trust y'all so I can I can vote in support of it?

Councilman Van Grack.

So I definitely acknowledge that this is tough. There are some competing interests here. But I think that there's a conflict here between kind of helping residents with kind of a fee simple use of their own property and what the city may or may not be able to address. And I think, you know, in addition to which, it's challenging to enforce. So I think for all these reasons, I actually support it, mainly because we've got challenges with regard to what people want to do or what they're grandfathered into their property, and legislating into that with goals that we may or may not be sure what their direction is makes the most sense.

So I thank staff for this, proposal. I do support it.

Council Member Shaw.

Thank you. I wanna also thank staff. I I do support this recommendation. I think just because we may eliminate the requirement doesn't mean that people won't have front yard coverage. And I do think that there are other ways that we could address storm water regulations. So overall, yes, I do support this. Councilor McJackson.

Thank you, mayor. So just because something is challenging to enforce doesn't mean that we should just remove it. And I'm with the mayor with concerns about the storm storm water regulations. Now you guys have made me feel better about your recommendation by saying that Department of Public Works will handle the storm water looking at the storm water coming off the yard. But can you just describe that process for me?

Since it's more public works, they shifted it to me, which is perfectly fine. I mean, whenever we're gonna have additional impervious cover on a lot that creates additional stormwater to the extent that it could cause any type of flooding, particularly on adjacent private property, we would have some public works department to come in and do a calculation on how much stormwater we think is gonna be generated. Are there appropriate easements and swales in place to convey the storm water to appropriate location? And then can that storm water also be treated and held back to prevent flooding downstream? So that was a lot, but that's the analysis that they would No.

I I appreciate that. So my question because you you said that it's challenging to enforce. And as I understand it, it was usually, we find out about it later. And so people have already done that. So is there a way for, the city to then come in and say, you need to do x and x and x to to your property to conform with the Yeah. Yeah. So I'm

As part of the building permit process, if we were concerned about issuing a building permit that would create so much impervious cover and, let's just say, nuisance storm water that we would have public works take a look at it, and we may add a add a condition to the building permit. But what if it's already been built? I mean, it could become a private matter. If we issue a permit and the structure is in place and it's creating a challenge and we signed off on it, so it could be a a matter between two private property owners.

Alright. Well, I support the recommendation, but I still have some con concerns. But you guys have kind of given me some comfort in how you're gonna handle the summer water. So, yeah, I guess I'm comfortable with your recommendation.

Question, just to follow-up on what he said. So essentially, there may be more storm water issues that come up because we don't have additional, you know, considerations if the it gets covered. And it'll just be a legal matter between the two residents. Is that what I I'm sorry. I may be simplifying that too much.

No. I would let me let me

try it again. So if someone is adding so much impervious cover onto their property through a permit process, whether it's a driveway, a new structure, etcetera, then we would ask the public works department to probably have the property owner do an engineering survey to determine, again, how much sunroir is being created, can it be channeled appropriately away from their property and any other, private property, and there's a is there an opportunity downstream from that point to collect the water, treat it, and most importantly, not create a flooding situation downstream. So all that analysis could be part of us issuing a permit.

So would that be ahead of time, or would it be after there's a problem?

Yes. After the complaint. Our goal would always be to do it ahead of time

at the permitting stage. So we do that now.

Correct.

And so we won't have the requirements to you can cover as much as you want, right? And we the the team will do a calculation on stormwater because I council member Jackson and I were in a drop in. And it's literally Yeah. Some a resident is just there are some neighboring conflicts that are happening where pervious just land not landscape, but a just a platform.

Sure. A deck.

A a deck or something. It was, you know, impervious. Excuse me. And it was causing a lot of water into their, like, ankle ankle high. Yeah. And they are in an older neighborhood where the water doesn't funnel out. The resident was not required to run the water back. And I've just heard this from a number of residents in Rockville, again, some of the older neighborhoods.

Mhmm.

So they were allowed to do that now, and they weren't told to be kind to your neighbor and run it back. So that's why raising the question because we've actually heard the feedback.

We understand the concern.

But do we have a fix for that?

Sorry. The reason I'm pausing is it just really depends on the details. Right? How big is the lot? Mhmm. How much impervious cover they're adding? What is the condition, if any, of any swales on adjacent properties? I mean, I'll just be candid. If a if a lot was built in Rockville over the past, I'll just say ten years conservatively. Right? There's a really good chance they're built with appropriate slopes, with appropriate side yard drainage, with appropriate rear yard drainage, even catchment basins that lead to the street to a dorm water downstream storm water management area. So I'm not worried about those so much. But if it's a if it's a part of the city that has insufficient storm water management in the whole area itself

Mhmm.

And then they add impervious cover, and we're thinking, gee, this looks like it's gonna creep onto the adjacent property owner's property, then we'd ask for the analysis. So, again, it it really depends on the property location and the improvement that are being proposed.

That is super helpful. I just because we are hearing some challenges is something that is unique about what we're doing now, and I'm just trying to make sure we don't exacerbate that all around the city. If maybe we could do some follow-up with DPW just so that we know what is the process for Stonewall. Because it tends to happen where there's something in the old neighborhood, house gets redone, and now it's in an older neighborhood that doesn't have the stormwater management And I was also curious as to if you all ever thought about allowing pervious versus impervious. That's just a consideration.

I just think that for me, personally, I I I think that we need to think about those things for the City. Just

to give an example, as somebody who just lives in one of the older neighborhoods, and again in the sump, I feel a strong kinship on this issue. There are a myriad of individuals in or around where I may or may not live that have grandfathered in, so zero possibility of us to do really anything, right? A stormwater exit out of the curb, which we don't do now. However, it's done. Those are all grandfathered.

And what can often occur, which does every winter, is that there's a giant ice flow in front of an entire block, and none of us can do anything about it that then melts and then adds to our flooding situation. So there are a lot of less than ideal situations. I agree. In the permitting process, if it's caught, it's going to be caught. However, I'm less concerned, I think, long term on those rather than how we can help to mitigate some of multitude of grandfathered in situations, which I think are actually deeply and more problematic.

Thank you.

Next up is Dhirmesh and I will hand it over to Mr. Wasilak.

So the staff draft of the Zohr will add a definition for DIR MESH and also standards separate from our normal requirements for fencing, which relate to height. We talked about this with the planning commission and the staff and the commission's recommendation is option two, which addresses kind of the corner lot issue where two front yards were not allowed to have the higher fence that would eliminate potential deer encroachment. So this option essentially puts corner lots on the similar plane as an interior lot. So the front yard would not have that protection, but the rear and side yards would. There are options if the mayor council would consider, you know, covering the front yard as well, that we think, you should consider if if you would like to.

But our recommendation is still for the option two.

Thank you again for hearing us out on bringing this forward because there is a very big difference between mesh and fence, and I think we've seen a lot of examples throughout the city. I do think we need to talk about what do we do about the increasing Lyme disease and the increasing rise of alpha gal more broadly, but that's out of the context of the Zohr. I stand where I was at the last session on this one. I think that there should be some allowances in the front. And I noted the options that you gave.

So one is I'm okay with allowing around individual plants. I think that is a good option. There was also discussion in the brief book that offered the opportunity for people to have deersmesh up front as well with 10 feet from the right of way in the front of the house. So I still support the side of the

house

and allow people to have it on the side of the house and corner lot. So I just want to make sure that's clear. But specifically with not allowing an option two, you can't do anything about the front. And most of the neighbors I've met with, they've actually gotten Lyme disease in the front of their house working right near their property front. So that's one of the things I think we could do is if maybe it's not right up on the sidewalk, but if there's some level of setback or people can also include it around individual plans, I think that gets to what I was hoping to accomplish. So that's my feedback. Councilmember Vallari.

This is truly one of my favorite topics. I went like this for a reason. But mostly because I've talked to a lot of the community members that we heard from tonight in the Hungerford community. Heard about it in Twinbrook and East Rockville and talked to the residents that are concerned about this. And I think that ultimately the challenge here is that we do not want to treat people's ability to protect themselves or the investment in their landscaping based on the shape of their plat.

And I have a problem with that. So, for instance, a family on an interior lot, know, they're trying to establish a front garden, right? Deer eat it every year. From the street side through the front yard, their corner lot neighbor on the same street, facing the same deer, suffering the same damage, can instill deer mesh under option two. They, however, cannot, because they wouldn't fall under those standards.

So I want to be able to protect everybody's ability to keep themselves and or their landscaping investment safe. I've definitely leaned harder on the side of public health. I'm grateful that we heard from a Lyme disease survivor here tonight. There's a lot other reasons beyond that, but I think that as a public health good, as a matter of equity, that option three, again, we're talking about see through mesh. We saw pictures of it.

You can't see it from far away, right? And it is in no way intrusive nor unsafe. So I would depart from staff recommendation and would support option three because it treats all plats equitably.

Councilmember Fulton.

I support option three CEG, my reference to not being in favor of anything designed specifically on aesthetics being displeasing. Option three lets people protect their property.

That's why I'm in favor of it. Thank you. Doctor. Miles?

I support staff's recommendation of option two.

Thank you. Councilman Van Grieg.

So, actually, similar to the the mayor, I'm slightly torn here because on one hand, you know, from a policy perspective, I understand option two and why staff recommended it. On the other hand, I have also heard from a lot of people that have the front yard issue, And I don't know where that middle ground can be. I know that there's a limited amount of restrictions that you can do with regard to fences close to the property because it's not really the setbacks that's often applied to, properties. But I also know that people are having these issues with regard to their front yard as well. And there are people who have significant planning and are spending more time in their front yard than their backyard.

I think at this point, I'd probably default to option three with no other middle ground. But I think to the extent we can have some ability to allow fencing in the front yard would be beneficial.

Thank you. Councilor Mershaw.

I agree with option three because of the public health issue. My my concern is also just about cost. I'm not sure if this would be this would require more burden on the property owner. But other than the cost issue, I support option three.

Councilmember Jackson.

Thanks, Mayor. So thank you for all the work on laying out the options and the Planning Commission as well. I just want to say, I mean, it seems like we're going to we're doing this because people are getting Lyme disease and other investments in landscaping. But the broader context is that we're still going to have a problem with deer. And I know that this isn't the time or place to discuss it, but it seems to me that there's nothing we can do without corroboration from the county and the state and even the federal authorities because there's a lot of federal lands around here.

And even if we were successful in removing deer in the city of Rockville, deer don't know that there's a city boundary, so they just keep coming in. So but that's another discussion for another time. Now, I I think that when I look at it, I think that a lot of points have been made, and my colleagues made a lot of good points about the various options. I think, at the end of the day, I'm for option three.

Thank you. Can you also clarify that there's not a requirement to use part of a gate and then part of a mesh? That was something that was concerning to me that we heard in testimony. We could they could just have full on mesh for the whole thing. Correct? Yes. Okay. Alright. Some there was some comment about having to attach to a fence, so I don't think that is a thing.

That that was an option that we presented that you could consider requiring, but it doesn't have to be that way.

Yeah. I think that would not be good. Okay. So I think you've mister Mihaelic?