The Streamlining Development Review Work Group met on June 1, 2026, to continue discussions on improving the development review process. The primary agenda item was a presentation by Sherry Connor of the Planning Department on zoning applications, including rezoning types, processes, timelines, and opportunities for streamlining. Work group members asked clarifying questions, debated procedural aspects, and offered initial recommendations.
Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the streamlining development review work group this afternoon. We're going to have another presentation from the planning department. Today we're going to talk about zoning applications. So Chief Miss Sherry Connor is here, and she will start us off. Thank you as always. I'll turn it over to her. Thank you, Director Hightower. Good afternoon, everyone. Today I'm going to give a presentation on zoning applications, including rezonings and other zoning application types and their processes. Of course, the zoning requirements and processes are under subtitle 27, the zoning ordinance. We talked before at our prior two meetings about the subdivision process and site plan process. And zoning applications are decided by the county council. So how zoning works in the county is that it sets the rules for each zoning county, zoning category in the zoning ordinance, such as the land use, density, setbacks, height requirements, things of that nature, and the zoning map shows where those rules apply. So it applies a zoning designation to each property throughout the county. And that can be seen on PGAtlas.com. So those zoning categories are legally binding. They give the geographic location of where each zone is located and applied. These zones are generally intended to align with the recommendations of the general plan and master plans throughout the county. The types of zones include rural and agricultural zones, residential zones, non-residential zones, such as institutional, commercial, and industrial, transit oriented activity center zones, and overlay zones, including military installation overlays or aviation overlays and Chesapeake Bay Critical Area zones where additional requirements may apply. It's our plan development zones, and I'll talk a little bit about that. Oh, yes, I am. Thank you. All right. So ways to change zoning, our zoning application types are through zoning map amendments, and those are subject to what we call the change or mistake rule. So rezoning through a zoning map amendment only occurs if you can show or demonstrate that there is a change in the character of the area, such that the zoning on the property should be rezoned to be in line with the substantial change in the neighborhood. Or the mistake rule, meaning there is an actual and factual mistake when the property was placed in this zone. And it came up as residential. So that you know may be an error. There may be an error in some of the testimony you received, things like that. The second is a sectional map amendment. And that is applied through the master planning process where we take a look at multiple properties and the intended outcome and future development of those properties and apply zoning holistically to implement those recommendations. So as you can see here, as I said, typically concurrent with the master plan, and it's initiated by the planning board of district council. This is property specific, and an applicant may file for a plan development rezoning if meeting certain criteria in order to basically build their own design for a property and establish individual development standards for that property. In the rezoning process, there are multiple stakeholders, including neighboring properties, municipalities, the planning board, the planning department, of course, zoning here and examiner, district council, people zoning council that advises the council, and an applicant or developer. This is a um illustrative procedure of zoning map amendments here on the left-hand side. We talked about before in our meetings, the processes and notifications occur at various stages of the process and uh pre-application conference is that meeting with staff. Um must be done before this application type can be filed. Applicant must also hold a pre-application neighborhood meeting and notice goes out for that 30 days prior. Uh the application, then after that can be submitted to the planning director, and we go through the process of determination of completeness that all documents have been provided that are required with the application. And once that is complete, then staff proceed to review the details and history of the project, um, provide a staff report, and then um the project goes to public hearing before the planning board, after the planning board proceeds to the CHE for hearing, and then to the district council. Um development rezoning is on the right here, and um generally follows those same steps. Uh nearly identical, um, the only exception being in some of the instances of a zoning map amendment, which you see the those exceptions here in the pre-application conference and neighborhood meeting, but essentially follows the same process and multiple hearings. Here's some um examples of rezoning case on the left. We have a PD zoning map amendment, and on the right, a zoning map amendment. And um, this gives approximate of in these two cases of 20 months for the zoning map PD zoning map amendment, and then 13 for the zoning map amendment. Again, it's the change or mistake uh rezoning application. So that tends to go a little quicker, I'd say, because it's you know, based on factual information, whereas a PD zoning map amendment um, you know usually takes longer and could take longer than 20 months as well. Uh there's some negotiating that happens during that process because you are building those development standards and you know, determining what's appropriate along with public benefits being offered. In green is really the application process steps again that staff follow and are acting on, while the orange is um the timeline that the applicant is acting within.