MARYLAND, February 23 - For Immediate Release: Friday, February 23, 2024

Council to review state legislation; Committees will review capital improvement programs for public safety-related IT projects, economic development projects, the Department of Housing and Community Affairs, the Housing Opportunities Commission and WSSC Water and discuss Building Energy Performance Standards

The Montgomery County Council will meet on Feb. 26, 2024, at 12:15 p.m. to review bills under consideration by the Maryland General Assembly during its 2024 legislative session.

The joint Government Operations and Fiscal Policy (GO) and Public Safety (PS) Committee will meet at 9 a.m. to review the Fiscal Year (FY) 2025-2030 Capital Improvements Program (CIP) for public safety-related information technology (IT) projects.

The members of the GO Committee include Chair and Council Vice President Kate Stewart, Council President Andrew Friedson and Councilmember Sidney Katz.

The members of the PS Committee include Chair Katz and Councilmembers Dawn Luedtke and Kristin Mink.

The Economic Development (ECON) Committee will meet at 9:30 a.m. to review the FY25-30 CIP for economic development projects, which includes three new projects and two ongoing projects.

The members of the ECON Committee include Chair Natali Fani-González and Councilmembers Marilyn Balcombe, Evan Glass and Laurie-Anne Sayles.

The Planning, Housing and Parks (PHP) Committee will meet at 1:30 p.m. to review the FY25-30 CIP for the Department of Housing and Community Affairs (DHCA) and for the Housing Opportunities Commission (HOC).

The members of the PHP Committee include Chair and Council President Friedson and Councilmembers Fani-González and Will Jawando.

The Transportation and Environment (TE) Committee will meet at 1:30 p.m. to discuss Building Energy Performance Standards (BEPS) regulation and review the FY25-30 CIP for transportation projects and WSSC Water.

The members of the TE Committee include Chair Glass, Councilmember Balcombe and Vice President Stewart.

More detail on each agenda item is provided below.

General Government - Technology Services

Review: The joint GO and PS Committee will review the FY 25-30 CIP for public safety-related IT projects. This includes more than $30 million in funding over the six-year period for the County Radio Life Cycle Replacement program, which provides for the phased replacement of voice radio systems used primarily by the County's public safety and first responder agencies. The joint committee will also review the Dickerson Radio Tower project, which includes $2 million in funding over the six-year period to support the installation of a 450-foot communications tower near the Public Safety Radio System equipment shelter. For the Correction and Rehabilitation Information Management System (CRIMS) upgrade, $100,000 is recommended to be shifted to FY25 from the existing project, while total projects are expected to remain the same.

A new project up for review includes $900,000 over the six-year period to replace servers and data storage that supports a public safety virtual private network and provide services for public safety clients. More than $1.6 million will be included over the six-year period to complete the Law Enforcement Records Management System within the ongoing Public Safety System Modernization project.

General Government, Economic Development Projects: Recommended FY25-30 CIP

Review: The ECON Committee will review the FY25-30 CIP for economic development projects. Three new projects and two ongoing projects have recommended funding within the CIP.

The three new projects with funding recommendation include $452,000 to support the acquisition of property at the Glenmont Shopping Center from the Maryland Department of Transportation (MDOT); $300,000 to support a partnership between Montgomery County and the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine to develop a co-branded lab facility; and $4 million to support upgrades to vacant retail space in the Wheaton Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission headquarters in Wheaton.

The two ongoing projects with recommended funding include $16 million to support improvements at Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA)-owned property at 5400 McGrath Boulevard and $47 million for the coordination of planning and development activities needed to implement the redevelopment of a 110-acre site on Industrial Parkway.

Department of Housing and Community Affairs FY25-30 CIP

Review: The PHP Committee will review the recommended FY25-30 CIP’s for in the Community Development and Housing Programs, which are overseen by DHCA. The FY25-30 CIP for Community Development includes a recommended $4.3 million, which is a decrease of $498,000 or 10 percent, from the previously approved Amended FY23-28 CIP. The FY25-30 CIP for housing includes a recommended $242 million in the six-year period, which is an increase of $9 million, or 3.8 percent, from the previously approved Amended FY23-28 CIP.

There are a total of six recommended projects in the six-year period for DHCA: the Countywide Façade Easement Program, Facility Planning: Housing and Community Development, Affordable Housing Acquisition and Preservation, the Affordable Housing Opportunity Fund, the Nonprofit Preservation Fund, and Revitalization for Troubled and Distressed Common Ownership Communities.

Housing Opportunities Commission FY25-30 CIP

Review: The PHP Committee will review the recommended total of $7.5 million in the FY25-30 CIP for HOC. The six-year expenditures are associated with a single project to complete improvements for deeply subsidized HOC-owned units. Typical improvements include replacing roofs, windows and doors and kitchen and bathroom modernization; replacing major mechanical, electrical, plumbing systems and equipment; making life-safety and site improvements.

The recommended CIP also includes three projects, two long-standing revolving funds and one loan guarantee program, which do not have any expenditures in the six-year period but are required to be published in the CIP as legal disclosures.

Building Energy Performance Standards (BEPS) Regulation

Review: The TE Committee will hold its second meeting to review Executive Regulation 17-23, BEPS. At this meeting, the committee will hear from representatives involved in affordable housing development. The regulation is required by Bill 16-21, which was enacted by the Council on April 19, 2022.

The bill expanded the number of buildings covered by existing benchmarking requirements, created a Building Performance Improvement Board and required energy performance standards to be established by regulation for covered buildings with gross floor area of 25,000 gross square feet or greater. Executive Regulation 17-23 would set numerical site Energy Use Intensity (EUI) performance standards for each building group, define how renewable energy will be incorporated into the performance metric and define the elements required in Building Performance Improvement Plans (BPIPs).

The committee first discussed Executive Regulation 17-23 at a meeting held on Jan. 24 to receive an overview of the regulation from representatives of the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). An additional committee meeting is tentatively scheduled for March 18 to meet with representatives from the life sciences industry.

Transportation Projects FY25-30 CIP

Review: The TE Committee will review the FY25-30 CIP for transportation projects, which includes a recommended $1.7 billion over the six-year period. Compared to the FY23-28 CIP, this amount represents a $73 million, or a 4.24 percent, decrease in expenditures. The CIP includes funding for bridges, highway maintenance, mass transit, parking districts, pedestrian facilities and bikeways, roads and traffic improvements. This meeting will include an overview of the CIP and a review of mass transit projects.

A second TE Committee meeting, which is tentatively scheduled for March 4, will cover highway maintenance, traffic improvements and parking. An additional meeting, which is tentatively scheduled for March 11, will review pedestrian facilities, bikeways, roads and bridges. A meeting is also tentatively scheduled for March 18 to address any follow-up questions or issues.

WSSC Water FY25-30 CIP

Review: The TE Committee will review the proposed FY25-30 CIP for WCCS Water, which includes nearly $4.8 billion in funding over the six-year period and represents an increase of more than $277.4 million, or 6.2 percent, from the approved FY24-29 CIP. Under the Maryland Public Utilities Code, WSSC Water must prepare and submit a six-year CIP proposal to the County Executives and County Councils of Montgomery and Prince George’s Counties by Oct. 1 of each year. Unlike other County agency CIP proposals that are reviewed biennially, Montgomery County reviews the WSSC Water CIP every year.

The largest six-year increases include additional funding for the following projects: the Water Reconstruction Program, the Energy Performance Program, the Sewer Reconstruction Program, the Blue Plains Projects, the Engineering Support Program and the Potomac Submerged Channel.

In addition to budget issues, the committee will discuss next steps for regional water resiliency and Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) monitoring.

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The Committee meeting schedule may change from time to time. View the current Council and Committee agendas, Council staff reports and additional information on items scheduled for Council review on the Council website.

Council and committee meetings are streamed live on the Council’s web page via YouTube and on Facebook Live and can be watched on County Cable Montgomery on Xfinity/RCN 6 HD 996/1056, Fios 30, and on the CCM live stream.

Release ID: 24-070
Media Contact: Sonya Healy 240-777-7926, Benjamin Sky Brandt 240-777-7884