Good afternoon.

It is Monday, July 13th.

Welcome to the Transportation and Environment Committee.

We have one item on the agenda, which is a resolution to approve amendments to the comprehensive water supply and sewage systems plan, water and sewer category change requests.

And there are four category change requests.

These properties are spread out geographically throughout the county.

One's in Potomac, one's in Boyds, one's in Spencerville, and one's in Durwood.

And with that, I will turn it over to Mr.

Lachenko.

Good afternoon.

As the chair mentioned, we do have four requests for us today.

We have staff from DEP, the planning department, as well as remotely from the Department of Permitting Services in case there's any questions regarding these requests.

And just one minor correction.

We don't have one in Durwood, but we do have one in Clarksburg.

There we go.

Durwood is in within the sewer envelopes, I hope we don't have too many that appear from that area.

We do get a lot in the Potomac area, as you know.

We dealt with a lot in that area, but also the Spencerville area.

These are areas on the edge of the envelopes.

So that's where you tend to see these requests.

And that's what we have today, though, as you said, is quite a variety from throughout the county.

We do have some slides just to keep us on track today and help us move efficiently.

So I was planning to go through each one individually and take up questions as we go along, and then the committee can express their position on each request as we go.

Excellent.

Let's do that.

And just some background information.

Of course, we were finishing up on our budget process and also had to do a uh a public hearing notice for them.

Uh so we had a held a public hearing on June 30th.

Uh, we also had uh provided notice to WSSC and the Planning Board.

Uh the planning board met and discussed these requests on June 25th.

Uh the committee's discussion is today, and the goal is to turn these around unless there's further complications or issues we have to deal with, so that the council can take action on July 28th.

Just real briefly on the category change process itself.

Uh DEP is the responsible department in the county for managing this process.

Uh the applications uh from the property owners come to DEP, which reviews the requests, uh processes the amendments, uh, coordinates with uh other departments and the outside agencies on any comments and issues regarding them, and then develops recommendations that are then um uh brought through the county executive process for uh the county executive's recommendation.

Uh DEP does have an administrative process that it does regularly throughout the year for those items that are found to be consistent with the water and sewer plan policies and master plan uh and which uh can therefore be approved.

Uh, there is not an administrative denial process, so uh denials by their nature uh are recommended for denial by the executive, but come to the council uh for action.

And the council's um actions can range.

They could be approval, just a straight approval as as requested.

It could be a conditional approval, contingent on some other action happening, or it could be a deferral pending further information or a straight denial.

And just a little bit on the water and sewer plan itself.

Uh the county is required by state law to comprehensively update the water and sewer plan every three years.

Um, however, text amendments and category changes like these can be approved at any time uh by the council.

But it is important to note that whatever the council does approve does have to go to the Maryland Department of the Environment for final action.

Uh so uh if the council were to act on July 28th, we would then uh transmit that formally to MDE.

Uh they have a set amount of time uh within state law uh to act, and um if they act to approve something, then that's the final approval.

Uh if they act to deny, then that then the council approval is is over or over uh overruled by that.

Um the most recent update was done uh back in 2022, so we are due for a comprehensive update.

And according to DEP staff, we are expecting to get a comprehensive update this fall.

Uh so uh depending on the timing of that, uh that uh I mentioned in in one of the requests today uh where council staff recommends deferral.

The reason is because we have a pretty close time frame for a comprehensive update that could impact that request.

And then in general, the specific water and sewer plan policies come into play.

That's what drives a lot of the discussion you'll see with these category change requests.

So you'll you'll see that repeated throughout these requests.

What policies apply within the water and sewer plan and what uh what does the master plan have to say about the general um policies for water and sewer in in those areas.

Uh so ready to dig into the requests themselves.

Uh the first request.

This is the one in the Travilla area uh on Piney Meeting House Road in Potomac.

Uh the slide here has a um uh a picture of the property itself.

The property itself is vacant.

Um it's a 1.5 acre RE2 zoned property.