Speaker numbers apply only to this recording. Names come from transcript evidence. “Possibly” marks uncertain attribution.
The Planning, Housing, and Parks (PHP) Committee of the Montgomery County Council met on 2026-10-26 at 1:30 PM. The committee received a briefing on the Burial Sites Context Study and voted unanimously on three bills: Bill 40-26 (landlord payment methods), Bill 41-26 (ADU licensing and fees), and Bill 42-26 (short-term rental platform compliance).
And also, and also, and also, and also, and also, and also, and also, and also, and also, I don't know, it's just a little sticky. Good afternoon. It is uh October twenty sixth at one thirty. We're here for a planning housing and parks committee work session. We have a number of items on our agenda. We are going to get to the legislation here in a minute, but we are going to start with the the burial sites, context study briefing. I'm going to call up Miss Dunn and Council staff and call up our colleagues at the planning department. And just want to express my appreciation for this important work. We have a presentation that will come to the council and uh did uh want to give you a moment to get set up and then we can get into it. I'll start with you, Ms. Dunn, if you have any introductory comments. Um I'll just provide you with just a brief setting for this. Um, as part of the work program, the planning department is looking to um have an amendment to the master plan for historic preservation that would include burial sites. And so they're coming to the committee, give you a briefing on sort on the work that they've had done so far. They've had a consultant survey help them with the work that they've done up to date. Um, and it's to provide an opportunity for the committee to weigh in on any questions or comments you may have related um to what they're doing to prepare for their amendment to the master plan for historic preservation. Well, I appreciate it. Uh, before we turn to plan, I just want to note uh this started with legislation in 2017 by my predecessor, Roger Berliner, so just wanted to acknowledge uh him and that important uh work, Craig Rice and George Leventhal were involved in that as well. So I wanted to appreciate their joint effort in pushing for this, and uh mostly Eileen Magakian, who uh is well known in uh historic and preservation circles, is really the primary champion and advocate for uh this effort, and I think deserves a lot of credit as well as Ms. Bollow and the team at planning for actually executing and carrying this out, but it is uh really important work. And uh just to give uh some context to the why, uh, that's the how we got here. Um, Wesleyan Cemetery on Piney Meeting House is an issue that my office and I have been working on for several years now, working collaboratively with uh descendants and the property owner and county government. Uh, this is a really complicated and frustrating issue in 1975. This land was sold at auction unknowingly to a property owner who had no idea that it was actually a former church site and the home of a black cemetery. And ultimately that was not known until a bulldozer was gonna clean up the property and get it ready for sale, and the neighbors stopped the bulldozer, and ultimately for decades it's been sitting there, and the property owner has paid the property taxes on something that shouldn't have been taxed in the first place. Uh was mischaracterized paperwork error or issue that happened that nobody really knows how or or why. And here we are, we now have Department of Transportation has a right of way and an easement that goes through the center of the cemetery, so even putting up a fence is a question and a challenge within the right of way, which we're working on now. A property owner who wants to do right by the descendants, needs to figure out how to handle it, and is uh working closely with them that this is a unique case in a positive way where actually the property owner is working with the descendants and has acknowledged uh the challenge. Everybody wants to do the right thing, but the right thing is hard uh to do, it's not necessarily the easiest uh thing to do. I only note that to say had there been this project in 1975, this wouldn't have gone to tax sale, and we wouldn't be in this predicament that we are in now more than 50 years later. It really speaks to uh the real life importance of this work. This isn't simply to know our history, although that in and of itself is important enough to know where we're going by understanding where we've been and how we've gotten here. These are sanctified sites, not just for families, but for communities. Uh, but they also have a real impact on the decisions that we make now. So I just wanted to give that as some context. We all have stories of uh different communities and families that we're working on. There are dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of examples of these, unfortunately, and uh hopefully this important project will help us to not only acknowledge the mistakes or sometimes intentional decisions of the past, uh, but also to avoid repeating them in the future.