Good afternoon, Commissioners.

So by request, um you asked us to come back and and give a refresher on uh DRRAs or DARAs.

Um I'm not sure if there's a uh absolute correct presentiation.

I'm used to DRRA, so forgive me, Commissioner.

No, that's all right.

Municipal municipal background, yes, for me.

So DRRAs are development rights and responsibilities agreements.

And uh last year the county um put in our code uh the ability to implement them.

But I'm going to go back and just refresh everybody's memory as to what they are and then and talk about um what our process is for utilizing them, and then happy to answer any questions.

So again, just a quick refresher, I'm not gonna read through everything, but essentially a DRA is was enabled by the state of Maryland in 1995 to uh uh was enabling legislation to allow jurisdictions such such as ourselves to um to implement these um these agreements.

And uh this was in recognition of Maryland being a late vesting state, and it provided some allowances to developers and some um some surety in the in the development review uh development process.

Essentially a DRA is an agreement between a local jurisdiction such as ourselves and a developer for certain things.

And uh whether uh and I'll get into kind of the specifics.

One of the key elements of a DRA is that it locks in the codes at the time of the execution of the DRA.

And that's what gives the some assurance to the developer in that when the agreement is made, whatever codes are in place, um that if codes change, then they are not uh required to uh to uh adhere to those new codes.

So again, it's it's in response to the late vesting that that uh Maryland has.

So um why would we want to implement them?

So again, it provides a developer with stability in their land use regulations.

A developer makes a significant investment when they start down the development process.

And having unsure not being sure as to what kind of codes they may be subject to after a year or two of working through developing those plans, there's a there's a risk there, and um some developers are willing to make that risk, but in a large um project, sometimes projects can take over a decade to to fully build out.

Um a DRA gives them that assurance that the codes aren't gonna be changed on them.

So it encourages them to then uh it may encourage some developers to want to initiate development in in a jurisdiction.

Um DRAs, and again, this is an agreement between the local jurisdiction and the developer.

Um some DRAs have benefits to the county.

Um in agreement to to uh freeze the regulations, um the developer may um provide something to the county.

Um Frederick County had used these for a number of years and they had large subdivisions with well over a thousand some um some dwelling units, and as part of the DRAs, um school sites were given, um fire station sites were were given, that sort of thing.

So that was all part of the agreement.

This would just be county.

Okay, so the state's not going to defer the stuff they put on in the next 10 years.

Correct.

They're the ones that put the owner's regulations on, but we can just for ethnic.

These are primarily like zoning type type codes, which are our responsibility.

If the state were to change stormwater management regulations or something like that, they would still have to follow through with those.

And there's always a provision that local government can still change regulations if essential to protecting public health safety and welfare.

So we're not a hundred percent locked in, but we would have to have a good reason to change regulations and enforce those on the developer.

So does a DRA apply to all development?

No, it's entirely voluntary, and it has to be an agreement between the county and the developer.

There's no legal requirement that we have to enter into a DRA.

So if we don't want to do one, we don't do it.

State law, the enabling legal legislation had a couple of requirements that need to be included in the DRAs.

Things like how long the agreement would be, permissible uses, density, maximum heights, and so on and so forth.

And when we adopted our DRA language, we incorporated all of these requirements from the state.

So if there is some sort of provision that we are going that the developer is going to say give property or something along those lines, that would need to be documented in the DRA agreement.

State law also requires that a public hearing be held allowing citizens to weigh in on the agreement.

And like most contractual agreements, it can be amended or terminated by both parties.

So how DRAs have been used in other counties.

Since it was enabled in 1995, there are 11 counties who have um who have uh enabled their own legislation.

Two counties, Howard and Queen Anne's, have since repealed their DRA ordinances.

Frederick and Charles have amended their DRA legislation after having used them, and we weren't able to find any examples since then that they continue that they've used them.

Four counties, Enronville St.

Mary's, Calvert and Talbot, rarely been used, and Kent, Dorchester, and Caroline have never been used.

Now here in Carroll County, there are three municipalities that have enacted uh DRA legislation.

Um has used it uh several times, and it's been used once in Hampstead, and um even though Mount Airy has the ability, they have not used it.

Do you remember which one in Hampstead?

I don't off the top of my head, but we can certainly find that for you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I apologize, this these slides are well over a year old.

So if something's happened since a year in the past year, I would not have updated it.

If you can, I'd appreciate it.