Zoning is complicated, but it is a crucial county-level policy to get right if we want to improve our quality of life and fight climate change. I worried after reading “County councilmembers tussle over zoning, sprawl” that we should ground our conversation.
In 2018, after years of work, the county council passed the Zoning Ordinance and Subdivision Regulations Rewrite, which aimed to streamline zoning while building more in Activity Center Zones (ACZs). ACZs are centered around Metro stations or other important areas. Building denser in ACZs reduces the need for cars and costs taxpayers less to maintain and service, among other benefits.
One concern raised in the article is that it is too expensive to build in ACZs because development “tend[s] to need to be lifted out of flood plains.” However, comparing flood maps from FEMA with ACZs, only 7.46% of the land is in flood plains. What’s more,there are only three ACZs where flood zones are an issue — most have no flood plains at all.
Another concern raised was that cutting down trees impacts air quality. Existing intact forests should be preserved, but most of the land in ACZs is not forested. Plus, the primary source of air pollution in our region is transportation. The D.C. area is noncompliant with the federal ozone standard and borderline with the new particulate-matter standard. Putting more cars on the road, which is what sprawl development does, will just make this worse. We really must build more homes and businesses in Prince George’s County’s activity zones.
Joseph Jakuta
Mount Rainier
