The Board of County Commissioners held a special informational session on March 11, 2026, from 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. to discuss the residential permitting process and recent system improvements. County Administrator Linda Turner facilitated the session, which featured presentations from Planning & Zoning, Public Works, Environmental Health, and the Soil Conservation District. The meeting aimed to educate the public on what to expect when applying for a residential permit and to highlight process enhancements implemented to streamline reviews.
Good evening. Thank you for being here this evening. We really appreciate it. Tonight's information session is about learning about our residential permitting process. So my name's Linda Turner. I'm the county administrator for Calvert County government. I'm really excited to be here and delve into the permitting process and share new improvements that we have implemented to streamline it. We want you to leave here this evening with an understanding of what to expect when applying to a residential permit and the process as the request continues throughout the system and throughout the process. Before we get started, I just want to uh share a few expectations for tonight. This is an information session similar to the one we held back in September. It's just an opportunity for you to learn and ask questions. So during this session, you'll hear a presentation provided by the team. Um you've received cards. So if you have any questions, just write your question down on the card. You can wave it. We have staff that will come collect it, and after the presentation, our team will answer as many questions as we can. So tonight we have representatives from the following departments. We have planning and zoning, public works, the health department, environmental health, and soil conservation district. So together these uh departments work together throughout the residential permitting process. You're gonna hear one coordinated presentation to uh present the overview of the process. After the presentation, these are the panelists that will remain to answer your questions. So now it's my pleasure to introduce you, Jason Brinkley, who's our director of planning and zoning. Thank you, Linda. And she said I'm the director of planning and zoning. I've been director for about a year now. And one of the first things I uh did whenever I took over as director is I actually met with staff individually and met with members of the public. And one of the the frustrations that I think was shared across the board was some of the challenges in the permitting process, whether that's education, whether that's the process itself, whether that's regulations we have some sometimes some control over and sometimes not control over. So that was one of the things that I think we've worked over the last year to try to tackle as a department, as a set of departments and reviewing agencies. And that's something I think we're gonna talk about that process tonight. So this is there's as Linda said, this is kind of a two-part thing. There's an educational component of this is what it looks like going through the residential permitting process. And these are while these are some of the agencies, these are not always all of the agencies, depending upon where it's at in the process. And we're gonna walk through that and then we're gonna walk through some of the improvements that uh that we have implemented and some of the ones that are uh that are on the horizon, a teaser, if you will, of of what's to come. And let's see if the PowerPoint works for me. Yes, success. Step one. So what is the purpose of permitting? And and I think you to understand the purpose, you gotta step back and think what is the purpose of any regulation at all. And that is to provide for health safety and welfare of the citizens and of the county. And that's done collectively through the comprehensive plan, which is kind of the overarching goal of zoning and and of the permitting process or of permitting. And then it it kind of it's uh it's like a Smith Island cake. It there's so many layers to that uh that really dive down through there. And so um that's the main focus of permitting is health safety and welfare. And and second is to plan for and hopefully achieve uh attractive communities with adequate infrastructure and public services. So you you hear a lot about adequate services, adequate public services. You hear a lot about that on the development review side, which is kind of a separate side of permit, then permitting, but it's also important at the permitting side as well. And uh as as with any process, you want to ensure that it's fair and consistent approach to to property rights because we are dealing with property rights here and development and established use uses. And so I think that's the goal of any permitting is to create a level playing field so that there is no favoritism for one person or the other. It's it's a if somebody comes comes in, whether it's somebody you know, somebody you don't know, that everybody is treated equally and fairly in the eyes of the law. And something uh that I've really tried to stir us with my team is you know, we deal with a lot of regulations.