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Zoning Advisory Panel

In March 2009, the Planning Board selected a group of community representatives, architects, developers, and other land use specialists to review, recommend, and provide feedback on new ideas and propose direction for the Montgomery County Zoning Code Rewrite. This panel meets monthly to discuss emerging ideas spanning all aspects of the revision project. The panel will explore rewrite ideas including consolidating use categories, simplifying standards, and "green” strategies like compact design and energy saving practices. The panel’s analysis and feedback is an integral part of the process and will enable staff to produce a code that reflects the County's changing landscape.

These meetings are generally held on the 3rd Wednesday of every month at 7:00 p.m. in the Auditorium at 8787 Georgia Avenue in Silver Spring and are open to the public.

Upcoming Meetings

• March 17, 2010 | Agenda
• April 21, 2010
• May 19, 2010
• June 16, 2010

Click here for information on previous meetings.

Panel Members

Royce Hanson, Chairman
Rollin Stanley, Planning Director
Lois Villemaire, Project Manager
Joshua Sloan, Development review staff
Damon Orobona, Development review staff

Robert G. Brewer, Jr., Attorney Lerch Early & Brewer, Chtd. Brewer practices in land use and transactional real estate matters, as well as in health care matters.  He received his B.A. degree from Hamilton College in 1973 and received his J.D. degree with honors from the University of Maryland in 1976.  Since joining the firm in 1977, Mr. Brewer has specialized in the fields of real estate development and health care.
Brewer has been actively involved in the Greater Bethesda Chevy-Chase Chamber of Commerce (President, Vice President-Economic Development, Vice President-Legislative Relations) and in the Bethesda Kiwanis Club (President, Foundation President, Secretary, Treasurer). He has served on the Board of Bethesda Urban Partnership, Inc. (Chair, 1998-1999). He was appointed to serve as the Chair for the Maryland State Bar Special Committee on Health Law for 1987-1988, and he served on the Section Council of the Health Law Section of the Maryland State Bar Association from 1989-1992.

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Bil Chen, Member, Chen, Walsh, Tecler & McCabe, L.L.P. Bil is a member of Chen, Walsh, Tecler & McCabe, L.L.P. in Rockville. Civil litigation and land use practice.  Land use practice consists of representation of civic associations, homeowner organizations, and hoc neighborhood/community groups.  Former zoning hearing examiner for Montgomery County, Maryland, 1974-75; Assistant County Attorney for Montgomery County, 1971-74; and former staff attorney Neighborhood Legal Services Program of the District of Columbia. B.A. (Government) American University, 1966.  J.D. George Washington University, 1970.  L.L.M. Georgetown University, 1975.  Masters Degree in Planning University of Virginia, 1989.  Chairman, Governor’s Trial Courts Judicial Nominating Commission for Montgomery County, Maryland, 2008-present.

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John J. Delaney, AICP Senior Counsel, Linowes and Blocher, LLP. Formerly an Assistant County Attorney for Montgomery County, Maryland, Mr. Delaney has represented developers, institutional clients and public sector entities in a variety of land use matters before Maryland agencies and courts, the federal courts and the U.S. Supreme Court. He is a member of the adjunct faculty of American University's Washington College of Law. He is co-author of the book, "Handling the Land Use Case" (Thomson-West, 3d Ed. 2009), and his law journal writings include such topics as the crisis in workforce and affordable housing, development agreements and the need for reform in the development review process. He is a graduate of Georgetown University and the Georgetown University Law Center.

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Carl Elefante, Principal, Director of Sustainable Design, Quinn Evans Architects FAIA, LEED AP (offices in Washington DC and Ann Arbor, Michigan). Carl also serves as principal-in-charge and design team leader for a broad spectrum of projects, including architecture, historic preservation, and community revitalization.  He attended Pratt Institute School of Architecture and received a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Maryland School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation.
Elefante served on the Sustainable Communities Task Force of President Clinton’s Council on Sustainable Development (PCSD) in 1994 & 5.  He is President of the Potomac Valley Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, and was a founding board member of the National Capital Region Chapter of the United States Green Building Council.  He also served on the District of Columbia Green Building Task Force and Montgomery County, Maryland, Sustainability Working Group, and currently serves on the Montgomery County Zoning Advisory Panel. 

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Gerrit-Jan Knaap, Professor of Urban Studies and Planning and Executive Director of the National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education at the University of Maryland. Gerrit-Jan earned his B.S. from Willamette University, his M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Oregon, and received post-doctoral training at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, all in economics.
His research interests include the economics and politics of land use planning, the efficacy of economic development instruments, and the impacts of environmental policy.  He received the Chester Rapkin award for the best paper published in Volume 10 of the Journal of Planning Education and Research, with Greg Lindsey he received the 1998 best of ACSP award, and in 2007 he received the Outstanding Planner Award from the Maryland Chapter of the American Planning Association.  He serves on the State of Maryland’s Smart Growth Subcabinet and on the Science and Technical Advisory Committee to the Chesapeake Bay Commission.

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Bill Landfair, AICP, Associate, VIKA, Inc.. Associate with VIKA, Inc., is a consulting firm to the land development community in the metropolitan Washington area, and serves as senior planner and project manager on a broad range of projects related to land planning and development.  Previously, Mr. Landfair worked for 18 years with the Montgomery County office of the Maryland National-Park & Planning Commission, primarily in regulatory review.  Mr. Landfair received a Bachelor of Arts from St. Mary’s College of Maryland and a Master of Planning from the University of Virginia.  Mr. Landfair currently serves on the Montgomery County Zoning Advisory Panel.

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David Rotenstein, PH.D, Consulting Historian. David Rotenstein is a professional historian and the chairman of the Montgomery County Historic Preservation Commission. A Silver Spring resident since 2002, he has worked in history and historic preservation for more than 25 years, assisting clients with regulatory compliance and corporate history projects. A former archaeologist, David teaches anthropology part-time at Montgomery College. His work includes articles on heritage tourism, the history of the livestock and leather industries, and a history of the nation’s first commercial microwave communications system.

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Garth Rockcastle, Dean & Professor, University of Maryland School of Architecture, Planning. He is recognized for his architectural creativity and expertise and his academic leadership. In 1981, he co-founded the architectural firm of Meyer, Scherer and Rockcastle, LTD in Minneapolis. The most recent of his many accomplishments is the 132,000 sf $35m adaptive reuse of an early Robert Venturi designed office building (ISI) into a new College of Media Arts and Design facility for Drexel University in Philadelphia. His unique approach to the adaptive re-use of existing and historic structures is a primary focus of his professional and academic reputation having designed the conversion of over half a million square feet of some twelve separate buildings into new, award winning arts and residential projects.
In academia, from 1978 to 2004, he was a professor on the faculty of the University of Minnesota, where he taught design and theory.  He was Head of the Department of Architecture from 1991 to 1997 when he initiated and stewarded several far-reaching changes in their professional curricula and the structure of their professional and pre-professional programs.  Starting in July 2004, as Dean of the School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Maryland, he has initiated efforts to expand and cross-connecting the curricular offerings of the School while diversifying and deepening its faculty and digital tool resources. 

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Jennifer Russel, Director of Planning/Principal, Rodgers Consulting, Inc. She is a Principal and team leader of the Planning Studio for Rodgers Consulting, Inc.  a planning and engineering /design firm headquartered in Germantown Maryland.  With an emphasis on design excellence, she guides the Planning team, which is well known for its expertise and experience in New Urbanism, infill development and mixed-use projects. She holds a B.A. from George Washington University and a Master’s in City and Regional Planning (M.C.R.P.) from Catholic University.
With more than 30 years experience in the public sector, Jennifer has overseen land use and development activity review and approvals and master planning activities for one of the largest incorporated municipalities in Maryland charged with autonomous planning and zoning powers.  She is well versed in ordinance revision, plan review, Smart Growth policies and New Urbanism. As Director of Planning and Code Administration for the City of Gaithersburg for 26 years, she was instrumental in the review, development and approval of Kentlands, one of the nation’s first year-round neo-traditional neighborhoods as well as its neighboring community Lakelands.

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Clark Wagner, Vice President of Development, Bozzuto Homes, Inc. He oversees the design and development activities for Bozzuto Homes, manages the entitlement of major projects, and sources new land opportunities for the company. He has developed over 1,300 total residential units over the last eight years that have won numerous awards. Prior to coming to Bozzuto, he spent 16 years with the City of Gaithersburg in various positions. One of his major accomplishments is the author of the City’s award-winning Smart Growth Policy.  He attended Towson University and obtained his BS degree in Liberal Arts, and holds a Masters in Planning degree from The University of Virginia. He recently obtained his LEED Accredited Professional designation from the US Green Building Council.
Wagner is an active member of the MNCBIA having previously served on the Monument Awards committee. He is a member of the MNCBIA Board of Directors serving as Co-Chair of the Multifamily Housing Council. He founded the Ride Allegheny bike tour from Pittsburgh to Gaithersburg which has raised over $100,000 for Operation Second Chance benefiting wounded soldiers recovering at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. He's a member of the Montgomery County Forest Conservation Advisory Committee and the Gaithersburg Historic Preservation Advisory Committee.

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Patricia Baptiste, Community Representative
Patricia has been active in civic and land use matters in Montgomery County for over three decades. She is a past chair of the Citizens Coordinating Committee on Friendship Heights and has represented residents in a number of zoning matters before the Planning Board and the Board of Appeals. As a five term member of the municipal board of Chevy Chase Village, she worked on numerous subdivision, zoning, variance and special exception issues within the Village, and represented the interests of Village residents before both District of Columbia and Montgomery County Government agencies. In addition to serving on many County-wide committees she chaired the County Task Force on the Regional District Act. She served on the Montgomery County Planning Board from 1991 to 1998.
Currently she is an appointed member of the County Task Force overseeing the BRAC issues and the Planning Board’s Master Plan Advisory Group on the Functional Master Plan for the Purple Line. She serves on the Board of the Coalition for the Capital Crescent Trail, the Board of the Montgomery County Educational Foundation, the Board of the historic preservation group of the National Park Seminary (SOS), and is president of MobileMed, an organization which provides medical care to over 8,000 medically indigent residents of the County.

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Ralph Bennett Jr. is currently the President of Bennett Frank McCarthy Architects, Inc., a general residential practice that consults on major mixed use and transit related projects.  He was a member of the faculty of the University of Maryland's School of Architecture for thirty-one years.  Mr. Bennett received both his B.A. and M.F.A. in Architecture from Princeton University. Since 1998, Mr. Bennett has served as the Vice Chair of the Affordable Housing Conference of Montgomery County and was Chair of the Montgomery County Housing Opportunities Commission from 1998-2002. He was honored with the Community Architect of the Year Award in 2008 by the Baltimore Chapter of the American Institute of Architects and received the Distinguished Professor Award from the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture in 1998.  Mr. Bennett has also produced numerous publications, both as author and architect.

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Diana Conway has been a resident of Montgomery County since 1991.  She is currently a board member of the Montgomery Countryside Alliance, the West Montgomery County Citizens Association, Hoover Middle School Parent Foundation and treasurer of the Jay Pritzker Foundation.  She received a B.A. in Public Policy from Brown University and a J.D. from the University of Virginia Law School, where she was Secretary and Vice President of the Student Bar Association.
Previously, Conway served nine years on the Potomac Elementary School PTA Board (including two years as president), served on the Leggett Transition Team, the Potomac Master Plan, the Montgomery County Sustainability Work Group, as well as two three-year appointments to the Western Montgomery County Citizens Advisory Board, including one year as chair. She is married and has three children in Montgomery County Public Schools.

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Jon Eisen Managing Principal, StreetSense. Jon, an architect and planner, lives and breathes his business. He is in demand as a speaker because he is passionate about good growth and smart development. When he travels, he studies and photographs the physical elements of municipal life that contribute to urban vitality. His architectural training and planning perspectives help developers and property owners create successful – and profitable – mixed-use developments. He also brings his insights and expertise to local governments and agencies, advising them on the right redevelopment approach. Across the United States, Jon Eisen has conceived, created and completed more than 50 mixed-use projects. A native of Washington, D.C., that city engaged him to examine all its commercial corridors and help produce a plan for revival – just the sort of impossible challenge Jon Eisen relishes.

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Kenneth Hurdle is President of AST, LLC a consulting company that works in the Architecture, Engineering, Construction (AEC) and Real Estate/Home Building Industry initiating growth strategies, business development, marketing concepts and market research, mergers & acquisitions, and select human capital assignments.  His clients range in size from large multinational firms to small local business. Born in Washington, DC and a life long resident of Montgomery County, MD, he has been involved in state and local political campaigns, was President and then Trustee of an 850 family citizens association, works with his local community on land use and zoning issues and was appointed to a Maryland National Capital Park and Planning Commission (MNCPPC) Steering committee redoing the White Flint Sector Master Plan in North Bethesda, Maryland.  Ken earned a BA from the University of Maryland, College Park, in Industrial Technology.

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Jody S. Kline joined Miller, Miller & Canby in 1974 after serving as a law clerk during the summer of 1973 and earning his J.D. degree from Washington and Lee University.  He has been a principal of the firm since 1981 and has served as head of the firm's Land Use and Zoning Department since that time.  He specializes in land use, zoning and subdivision law in Montgomery and Frederick Counties and the incorporated municipalities within those jurisdictions. Mr. Kline is a member of the Suburban Maryland Building Industry Association, the American Planning Association and the Urban Land Institute.  He has served on a variety of public interest commissions such as the Citizens' Advisory Committee on Historic Preservation (Montgomery County), the Ad Hoc Committee for Parking Ordinance Amendments (City of Gaithersburg), the Citizens' Technical Advisory Committee on Public Facilities (Montgomery County), the Neighborhood Six Citizens' Advisory Committee (City of Gaithersburg), the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee for Sensitive Areas (City of Gaithersburg), and the Gaithersburg "Smart Growth Committee".

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William Kominers is a Partner in the Bethesda, Md. office of Holland & Knight.  Mr. Kominers practices in the areas of land use, land development, zoning, real estate, administrative and municipal law. He also engages in documentation of development projects in areas such as density limitations, traffic mitigation and plan enforcement. Mr. Kominers has represented clients in administrative proceedings involving rezonings, master plan amendments, subdivisions, adequate public facilities examinations, site-plan reviews, special exceptions, variances and building and occupancy permits.
Before joining Holland & Knight, Mr. Kominers was a partner for five years with a Washington area land use firm. Prior to that, he practiced for almost 20 years in land use law as an associate and partner at a land use firm in Montgomery County. Mr. Kominers has served as an occasional guest lecturer at the Catholic University Planning School and the George Washington University Law School, as well as an Associate Professional Lecturer in Law at the George Washington University Law School.

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Lisa Rother, Urban Land Institute Washington. Lisa recently celebrated the 21st anniversary of her move to the Glenmont area of Montgomery County. She is trained as a professional planner and worked on zoning and planning issues for the City of Rockville for 18 years, and then for the next five years was part of a team in the Montgomery County Executive’s Office that helped to coordinate real estate and land use issues among the County Council, Planning Board and Executive Branch. For the last two years, she has served as the Executive Director of ULI Washington, the local district council of the Urban Land Institute that provides leadership in the responsible use of land and in creating and sustaining thriving communities.

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Kim Shiley is a resident of Clarksburg. She is a founding member and current Vice President of the Clarksburg Town Center Advisory Committee, Inc. (CTCAC).  Over a two-year period, the Committee uncovered hundreds of site plan and building code violations in Clarksburg Town Center, which led to County-wide stop-work orders and widespread reforms in development review and approval procedures.  In 2006, Ms. Shiley participated in a mediation process involving the five builders and the master developer of the Town Center, which led to a Compliance Plan and Program being imposed by the Maryland National Capital Park and Planning Commission (Planning Board).  For the past three years, she participated in the development of detailed site plans and has spoken before the Planning Board and the County Council regarding Town Center.  She has presented and spoken about Clarksburg Town Center and the planning process to professional and civic organizations throughout the metropolitan area.  Ms. Shiley is also a member of the Clarksburg Civic Association, a past member of the Congress for New Urbanism, and in 2005 received the “Community Hero Award” by the Montgomery County Civic Federation.  Ms. Shiley is a Regulatory Health Project Manager for the Food and Drug Administration and a Nurse Corps Officer in the U.S. Navy Reserves.  She holds a B.S. in Business Administration, Real Estate Finance and a B.S. in Nursing.  She is currently pursuing an advanced degree in Management at the University of Maryland.

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Mike Watkins, Architect, Michael Watkins, Architect, L.L.C.. After 19 years with Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company (DPZ), in 2007 Watkins enrolled in a new one-year degree program being offered by The Georgia Institute of Technology in association with the Institute for Classical Architecture & Classical America (in NYC).  Having received his MS Architecture with a Concentration in Classical Design degree in 2008, Watkins has now established his own firm, Michael Watkins, Architect, LLC, which provides services as an architect, town architect and town planner. Watkins is one of several co-authors with Andres Duany of the SmartCode, a CNU Award winning zoning ordinance that, once adopted, legalizes the development of traditional neighborhoods.  In 2003 Mr. Watkins edited and produced "The Guidebook to the Old and New Urbanism in the Baltimore/Washington Region".
In his free time Watkins serves on the boards of several organizations including the Seaside Institute, BOTA and New Star Communities.  Working with the BOTA organization he leads college and high school students on mission trips to Tecate, Mexico where they build homes for families in need.  New Star has committed to build a mixed-use neighborhood of more than 200 residences in Pass Christian, Miss., largely for those impacted by Hurricane Katrina and other recent storms in the area.

M-NCPPC Staff Contact

Lois Villemaire
Lois.Villemaire@mncppc-mc.org
301-495-4512

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Zoning Montgomery is a website dedicated to the 3-year process of reorganizing, revising, and simplifying the county’s current zoning ordinance in order to accommodate the most ideal future development. zoningmontgomery.org

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