When Will Prince George’s Pull the Plug on Dead Development Projects?

If a development project was approved for construction prior to the Great Recession, but it still hasn’t been able to get off of the ground yet, isn’t it time to acknowledge that the project is just…dead? Well, yes, obviously! So why does the Prince George’s County Council have so much trouble letting go of these projects?

Again this year, as it has since 2009, the council has introduced legislation that would prevent approved-but-unbuilt development projects from expiring until at least December 31, 2018. Ordinarily, under county law, most new subdivision plan approvals are valid for only three years, and most site plan approvals are valid for only two years.

Most of the county’s backlog of deadwood development projects consists of large single-family detached residential subdivisions located outside of the Beltway and far away from transit. These are exactly the types of suburban sprawl projects that the county’s own planners have concluded are harmful.

According to planners, this glut of existing and planned low-density residential development makes it harder for the county to develop at the appropriate densities around its 15 Metro stations. That, in turn, puts the county at a competitive disadvantage with both millennial and older homebuyers who are looking for walkable urban development close to transit and with nearby amenities.

Additionally, studies show transit-oriented development (TOD) is a more fiscally sustainable form of development. Thus, the county council would do well to encourage new TOD projects around Metro, rather than clinging to far-flung sprawl projects in places that look like this:

Photo by Payton Chung

Moreover, there is no longer any market need for the county to keep extending the expiration dates on these long-stalled projects. The Great Recession has been over for quite some time now, and housing prices continue to rise in Prince George’s County. Indeed, County Executive Rushern Baker recently celebrated the county’s 61 percent increase in property values since 2010.

Lest you think that there’s no harm in extending the approvals on these dead projects, think again. Keeping old development projects in the pipeline significantly distorts the county’s true development landscape. That’s because the county still has to act as if all of the approved and unexpired development will in fact get built.

This means the county needs to plan and budget for more roads, water and sewer lines, schools, fire stations, and other public facilities to accommodate planned growth that has little possibility of ever happening. It also means new developers might be required to contribute to that new infrastructure, when it may not even be necessary for their particular projects. That puts an unnecessary burden and expense on new and otherwise viable projects, which ultimately discourages quality developers from building in the county.

The council will hold a public hearing on the latest extension bills, CB-97-2017 and CB-98-2017, on Tuesday, November 7, at 10:30 am. Please show up to testify and also contact the councilmembers to let them know your position on these bills.

Is Bias Tainting Prince George's Amazon HQ2 Bid?

Prince George’s County Executive Rushern Baker recently identified three Metrorail station areas as potential locations for Amazon’s new “HQ2” headquarters complex. All of them are in the northern part of the county, even though 10 of the county’s 15 Metro stations are located in the less affluent and more heavily African American portions of the county, south of U.S. Route 50.

One such downcounty site—the Morgan Boulevard Metro station area in central Prince George’s—seems to meet more of Amazon’s requirements. Yet, it didn’t make the county executive’s list. Could implicit bias and structural racism be clouding county officials’ judgment in these types of economic development and land use decisions?

Baker proposed the College Park, Greenbelt, and New Carrollton Metro station areas as potential HQ2 locations. David Iannucci, Baker’s assistant deputy administrator for economic development, stated that these three north county sites “offer[ed] Prince George’s County its best chance to compete for Amazon’s headquarters” based on the factors set out in Amazon’s RFP. In particular, Iannucci touted the locations’ proximity to the University of Maryland campus and the presence of interested developers.

What Does Amazon Want?

As relevant here, Amazon says it needs (1) a huge amount of space (2) with direct access to mass transit and (3) not more than 2 miles from a major highway (4) that is immediately available for development beginning in 2019. The company envisions that its HQ2 site will have 50,000 employees and occupy 8 million square feet of space at full buildout. While the space need not be contiguous, Amazon specifies that recommended sites “should be in proximity to each other to foster a sense of place and be pedestrian-friendly.”

Although Amazon states that it “may consider” sites with existing buildings that could be retrofitted or expanded, it clearly provides that it “will prioritize certified or shovel-ready greenfield sites and infill opportunities with appropriate infrastructure and ability to meet the Project’s timeline and development demands.” The ideal greenfield site would have approximately 100 acres of developable space, according to the company.

Do the North County Sites Fit the Bill?

Do Baker’s three selected north county sites best match up to Amazon’s RFP? Let’s take a look.

College Park Metro Area. Image by Prince George's County.

The proposed College Park site, shown above, is an amalgamation of scattered parcels cobbled together to form approximately 128 acres. Most of the parcels already have buildings with active uses on them, which is clearly not the greenfield development scenario Amazon prefers. Additionally, portions of the site, such as the 25-acre Discovery District parcel in the northwest corner of the picture, are nearly a mile away from the Metro station by foot. That’s well outside the half-mile/ten-minute-walk station area. Finally, the site is more than three miles from the Beltway, which exceeds the maximum two-mile distance stated in Amazon’s RFP.

The Greenbelt Metro station area (not pictured), which the county had recently been marketing for the now-stalled new FBI headquarters project, has an approximately 80-acre surface parking lot that could potentially be available for immediate development. However, while the site is adjacent to the Capital Beltway, there is currently no convenient or direct access from there to the southbound inner loop of the Beltway. The Maryland State Highway Administration is nearing completion of the design phase for a reconstructed Beltway interchange, but it has not been funded or scheduled for construction and, therefore, won’t be ready by 2019.

New Carrollton Metro Area. Image by Prince George's County.

The proposed New Carrollton Station area, pictured above, promises Amazon more than 300 acres of developable space around the Metro/MARC/Amtrak/Bus station. The problem: pretty much none of that space is currently available—including an occupied residential condominium complex north of the station, an occupied office park south of the station, and adjacent WMATA and state-owned property on both sides of the station that is already promised to another developer. Additionally, because the space at New Carrollton is bisected by the Northeast Corridor rail lines, it would require construction of massive and expensive roadway infrastructure over the rail lines to make the area pedestrian friendly. None of those roads has been designed, engineered, or funded.

Thus, while each of these north county sites has great transit-oriented development (TOD) potential, none of them quite meets Amazon’s RFP requirements.

What About Morgan Boulevard?

Now let’s take a look at Morgan Boulevard. According to the county’s own estimate, this area (pictured below) has more than 225 acres of developable land within a 10-minute/half-mile walk of the Metro station.

Morgan Boulevard Metro Area. Interactive Map by Author.

More than half of that land is currently vacant, appropriately zoned for commercial development, and not otherwise committed to another massive project. Moreover, most of the vacant land closest to the station is owned by WMATA, which is actively supporting joint development opportunities with Amazon.

Additionally, unlike the north county station areas that the county recommended, Morgan Boulevard is connected to two Metrorail lines (Blue and Silver), providing direct transit access to downtown Washington, Reagan National Airport (and eventually Dulles International Airport), the Virginia Railway Express, and most of Northern Virginia. It is also within a mile of the Capital Beltway.

In other words, Morgan Boulevard appears to meet all of Amazon’s needs—and certainly does so to more of a degree than the three north county sites.

Is Bias to Blame for the Downcounty Snub?

So why did County Executive Baker not propose Morgan Boulevard for Amazon’s HQ2 site? When first asked, Iannucci simply asserted that the station area “did not rise to the level of” the northern county sites and “did not address enough of the RFP requirements” that Amazon put forth. Those excuses quickly fell apart when Iannucci was asked to identify the specific RFP deficiencies and to give concrete examples of how Morgan Boulevard supposedly did not match up to the north county locations.

Ultimately, Iannucci settled on the nebulous explanation that while the Morgan Boulevard station area met all of Amazon’s RFP requirements, the county nevertheless declined to recommend it as a potential HQ2 site because the Baker administration did not believe the area possessed a strong enough “potential to be transformed into the type of urban complex that Amazon apparently seeks.”

In other words, the Baker administration essentially refused to advocate for the centrally located Morgan Boulevard station area, even though it checked all of Amazon’s boxes, and instead chose to support three north county locations that plainly did not match up as well, if at all.

It’s true that Morgan Boulevard is located in a less affluent part of the county with a larger African American population. But do those socioeconomic and demographic factors trump any specific set of criteria articulated by Amazon and render Morgan Boulevard unworthy of consideration? Apparently so, in the minds of county officials.

When socioeconomic and demographic factors work to rob an otherwise qualified community of the opportunity to compete on fair and equal terms for a prized transit-oriented economic development opportunity, it’s often because the people making the decision are being negatively impacted by the dual scourges of implicit bias and structural racism.

It matters not that Prince George’s County is a majority African American county, or that County Executive Baker is an African American man. Internalized biases can be pervasive and toxic, even when the decision maker is a member of the affected minority or class group.

In order to combat implicit bias and structural racism, one first must be willing to acknowledge their existence, and then not be afraid to call them out if they are present. This is true for county administrators and citizens alike.

We must be willing to question and challenge the bases and motives underlying TOD site selections like these that unfairly exclude two-thirds of the transit station areas in the county, even when many of those stations would objectively meet the applicable site selection criteria.

UPDATE (10/20/2017): According to a press release issued yesterday, County Executive Baker added a fourth north county site in his official Amazon submission. That site, Konterra Town Center East, is a shining example of the county's failed economic development strategy, which often prioritizes outer-Beltway sprawl development over bringing transit-oriented development to the county's 15 Metro stations (again, two-thirds of which are in central and south county). Konterra indeed has the space Amazon may want, but it doesn't have direct access to a Metro station--a major requirement stated in Amazon's RFP for its HQ2 site. That county officials apparently value Konterra over a south county site like Morgan Boulevard, which meets all of Amazon's requirements, demonstrates how strong the north county bias is.

Bring Amazon’s “HQ2” to Prince George’s County

Amazon's Seattle HQ. Photo by Kiewic.

Online retail giant Amazon is shopping around for a second headquarters location in North America that is transit-adjacent and has enough land to accommodate up to 50,000 employees. The Morgan Boulevard Metro station area in central Prince George’s County, Maryland, could be a very viable contender in the National Capital Region.

Amazon’s bombshell solicitation dropped early Thursday morning. The company wants to create a co-equal headquarters—dubbed “HQ2”—in a large metropolitan area with more than a million people and with ample access to a talented technical/professional workforce. The ideal campus site would be adjacent to mass rail transit, within two miles of major highways and arterial roads, within 30 miles of a population center, within 45 minutes of an international airport, and large enough to accommodate 8,000,000 square feet of office space at full buildout. In terms of urban design, Amazon is prioritizing walkability, sustainability, and internet connectivity.

The company plans to invest over $5 billion in the lucky community over the initial 15 years of the project, and it wants to move quickly. To that end, Amazon is prioritizing sites that are already zoned for commercial and mixed-use development and that have the requisite utility infrastructure in place. They also want the permitting process to be quick. And, of course, they also want to know what incentives the jurisdiction is willing to offer for this huge opportunity.

Think Regionally, Not Locally

Naturally, large urban areas across the United States and Canada will all be clamoring for Amazon’s attention. Several pundits, including Brookings, place the Washington Metropolitan Area high in the rankings of possible contenders. Already, several area jurisdictions have expressed interest, but the question is whether and how these jurisdictions will be able to put their parochial concerns aside and advocate in the best interests of the Washington region as a whole.

Amazon has requested that each metropolitan area coordinate with its respective jurisdictions and submit one consolidated RFP response that identifies the best suitable sites that the region has to offer. All proposals are due October 19.

If there is to be any hope of the region’s jurisdictions acting as a team, the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (MWCOG) and the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) probably should take the lead in preparing the regional submission to Amazon. These are the bodies usually charged with setting and articulating regional priorities.

Morgan Boulevard Station Checks All of Amazon’s Boxes

Setting aside all the jurisdictional posturing, there are really precious few locations in the Washington region that have existing rail transit access, land area, and proximity to downtown Washington, DC, that Amazon’s HQ2 proposal requires. The Morgan Boulevard Metro Station area in central Prince George’s County is one of them.

Morgan Blvd Station Area. Click for Interactive Map.

Morgan Boulevard easily meets all of Amazon’s location criteria. As you can see from the purple and brown shaded areas on the interactive map linked above, the station sits virtually undeveloped on 56 acres of land zoned for mixed-use development. It is adjacent to one of the county’s major arterial roads, Central Avenue (MD-214) and within one mile of the Capital Beltway. Additionally, the station is only 9.5 miles and 20 minutes from downtown Washington via Metrorail’s Blue and Silver lines.

BWI-Thurgood Marshall International Airport is a short 30-45 minute drive away from Morgan Boulevard. Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport is even closer, and it is directly accessible via Metrorail. Once construction Metro’s Silver Line is complete, Morgan Boulevard will also directly connect to Dulles International Airport.

Across Central Avenue, slightly southwest of the station and within its half-mile walkshed, sits a vacant 27-acre parcel of commercially zoned land that may be developed with mixed uses. (This is the red shaded area on the map.) This area could provide additional expansion capacity for Amazon in future phases of HQ2’s development. And if that’s not enough, the yellow shaded area directly across Central Avenue from the station provides another approximately 54 acres of industrially zoned space that the county’s land use plans envision for walkable, mixed-use, transit-oriented redevelopment.

Image by Tape.

Locally, Prince George’s County has begun to improve its historically labyrinthine permitting process around its 15 Metro stations. Amazon would be able to avail itself of the county’s expedited transit-oriented development procedures.

In terms of financial benefits, Prince George’s County has some of the lowest property values in the Washington region; thus, Amazon would be able to keep its land acquisition costs to a minimum. Also, much of the Morgan Boulevard site is controlled by WMATA or the county, which significantly lessens the need for property assembly. Finally, there are a host of existing incentives available to Amazon from the state and county for developing around Prince George’s inner-Beltway Metro stations.

The Washington region would be hard pressed to come up with potential Amzaon HQ2 locations that provide more of an all-around good deal than the Morgan Boulevard Metro Station area. At a minimum, this area should be included among the top three sites in any regional RFP response to Amazon.

The Purple Line is Not What Prince George’s Needs

Image adapted by author; original from MTA

With 15 Metrorail stations and 8 MARC stations, Prince George’s County already has substantial rail transit infrastructure to facilitate tremendous economic growth, walkable urban development, and regional connectivity. Yet, virtually all of these station areas have remained underdeveloped and poorly utilized for decades.

The solutions to this predicament are multifold, but they certainly do not include introducing 11 new Purple Line light rail stations to the county mix. Instead, the county should invest in a more robust local bus system and in its exiting rail transit station areas.

The Purple Line is a 16-mile, 21-station light rail project proposed by the Maryland Transit Administration (MTA) to provide more direct east-west connections between Bethesda, Silver Spring, College Park, and New Carrollton. Ten of the stations would be in Montgomery County, and eleven would be in Prince George’s. The light rail system would connect to WMATA’s Red, Green, and Orange Metrorail lines, but would not be owned or operated by Washington’s regional transit authority.

Last August and again earlier this month, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) could not move forward with awarding federal funds to the Purple Line until the agency conducts the requisite study to prepare a supplemental environmental impact statement (SEIS). Senior U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon’s orders provide that the SEIS must address what impacts WMATA’s continuing ridership decline (including this year) and ongoing safety issues might have on the Purple Line.

Move Beyond the “Purple Haze”

Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, MTA, and many public officials and citizens in Prince George’s and Montgomery counties were outraged by the court’s rulings, and they fear that the Purple Line project may well be permanently derailed by the delays that an SEIS would cause.

Yesterday, Maryland appealed Judge Leon's decisions to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. No one knows yet how quickly the appellate court will rule or whether the state's appeal will ultimately be successful.

If the Purple Line is indeed dead, perhaps that is a blessing in disguise for Prince George’s County. The Purple Line has always been more of a “purple haze”—an extravagance and distraction that the county does not need and that diverts essential public resources and attention away from the real solutions to the county’s transit and economic development inadequacies.

Image adapted by author; original by Michael Phams 

This is not to say that light rail is never an appropriate transit solution. Indeed, I have previously enthusiastically supported light rail expansion in my childhood hometown region. But adding a multibillion dollar light rail system in this particular area of northern Prince George’s County—which is already quite well served by WMATA heavy rail, MTA commuter rail, and regional and local buses—is an imprudent use of public resources.

(The nonprofit group Friends of the Capital Crescent Trail and others have offered many reasons why the Purple Line also may not be a good deal for Montgomery County, the bi-county region, and the State of Maryland as a whole; but this post is focused specifically on Prince George’s County.)

Fund a Better County Bus System

If Prince George’s officials are genuinely concerned with improving transit access in the county, the first thing they should do is improve the county’s anemic local bus system. Local and express buses have the capacity to serve even the most densely populated areas in the county that are not already within a half-mile of an existing Metrorail or MARC station. Indeed, buses are better equipped to reach the county’s current scattered population.

Currently, Prince George’s “TheBus” system has only 28 routes to serve its 487-square-mile area. It generates a meager 3.7 million trips per year, or 4 trips per capita, and does not operate in the late evenings or on weekends.

By contrast, in similarly-sized and -populated Montgomery County, the local “Ride On” bus system has 78 routes serving its 494-square-mile area, and generates an impressive 26 million trips per year (with 86,000 trips on a typical weekday), or 27 trips per capita. Even in tiny Arlington County, the “ART” local bus system has 17 routes covering its 26-square-mile area, and generates 2.8 million trips annually, or 13 trips per capita.

Prince George’s annual operating budget for bus transit services is approximately $25 million, as compared to Montgomery’s $125 million. Over the next six years, Prince George’s plans to spend only about $2.1 million in capital expenditures on bus transit, as compared to the $98.2 million that Montgomery plans to spend on buses and bus stops alone over that same period.

Meanwhile, Prince George’s has agreed to pay $120 million over the next six years toward the construction of the Purple Line, which will run only in a small sliver of the comparatively affluent northern part of the county.

Stated another way, over the next six years, Prince George’s County is planning to spend less than two percent of its planned capital investment in the Purple Line on countywide bus transit. This shocking inequity in transit expenditures should have true transit advocates picketing in droves at the County Administration Building in Upper Marlboro.

Image by Ben Schumin

It’s also worth noting that federal funding for buses and related infrastructure is available from FTA, at the same 80% match rate as light rail funding. Thus, if Prince George’s focused more of its attention on developing a robust local bus system, it would likely find a willing partner in the federal government.

Purple Line supporters may rightly argue, “Why can’t we just do both—have the Purple Line and improve our bus system?” Well…we could, in theory. But there hasn’t been much political will over the years to improve the county’s bus infrastructure, so it is hard to see how that resolve would magically appear after the county shells out $120 million for the Purple Line. The better strategy would be to take care of the longstanding countywide need for more and better buses first and then evaluate whether the Purple Line still makes sense.

Manage Sprawl and Strategically Invest in Existing Station Areas

Similarly, with so many underdeveloped rail transit stations around the county (including in the Purple Line corridor), it strains credulity for officials to suggest that the county needs light rail in order to spur economic development. In fact, according to the county itself, the opposite is true: the Purple Line could actually harm Prince George’s economic growth prospects.

The county’s current comprehensive plan, Plan Prince George’s 2035, discusses the somewhat enviable dilemma the county currently faces by having too many mixed use activity “centers,” most of which are located near existing Metrorail stations. The plan contends that having too many centers can actually “undermine economic growth” by spurring scattered development that will make it difficult “to achieve the density, intensity, and form necessary to support successful mixed-use, walkable communities and economic generators” at any one center.

Image by M-NCPPC

Already, without the Purple Line, the county has 28 designated centers, 19 of which are located at existing Metrorail and MARC stations. The county predicts that it will not have enough projected growth over the next 20 years to develop all of those stations. So logic dictates that building 11 new Purple Line stations is actually contrary to the county’s stated land use and growth policies.

One thing the county could and should do to improve its ability to grow its exiting transit station areas is to reduce its pipeline of dead sprawl projects and redirect some of that projected growth capacity to its existing Metro station areas. The county should also take more of a leading role (including financially) in redeveloping and revitalizing its neighborhood-scaled gateway station areas near the District of Columbia border.

Prince George’s future transit prosperity begins not with light rail, but with more local buses—running frequently, on time, seven days a week, and connecting citizens countywide to important county destinations and to the 23 Metrorail and MARC stations already constructed in the county. Likewise, Prince George’s economic development potential does not depend on new light rail transit stations, but rather lies in its existing Metrorail and MARC stations. So instead of brooding over the possible demise of the Purple Line, let's rise up and fight like hell for the county’s true transit and economic development priorities!

Prince George’s New Planning Director Is Not Actually a Planner

M. Andree Green

In a curious move, somewhat reminiscent of President Trump’s recent cabinet appointments, the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC) has selected someone with no formal training or professional experience in planning to serve as the director of the Prince George’s County Planning Department. No other jurisdiction in the Washington region has made such a choice, and for good reason: such a decision defies common sense, and it likely contravenes Maryland law.

Attorney M. Andree Green (Checkley), of Upper Marlboro, began her tenure as Planning Director on January 18. She replaces Dr. Fern V. Piret, who retired after serving 26 years in that position. For the past six years, Green worked as the County Attorney for Prince George’s. Before that, she worked for approximately eleven years in the legal department of M-NCPPC, the quasi-independent state agency responsible for planning, zoning, parks, and recreation in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties.

Without question, Green is an experienced government lawyer, with nearly two decades of experience working in Prince George’s County. But Green is not a planner. She has never worked as a planner as has no educational background in planning. So how and why is she now being paid $192,000 a year to be the county’s Planning Director?

Green is Unqualified for the Planning Director Position

The Prince George’s County Planning Director is supposed to be an experienced planning professional. The position description for the job, which we obtained from M-NCPPC, states that the minimum qualifications are “at least 12 years of progressively responsible and broad-ranged planning experience that includes four years of planning experience at the managerial level, preferably five years at the department manager level.”

Green has zero years of professional planning experience, either at the managerial or non-managerial level. The American Planning Association’s American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) is the national body that verifies and certifies the professional qualifications of planners. According to AICP standards, Green lacks even the minimum level of professional planning experience to be eligible to take the certification exam.

Thus, Green did not meet the minimum qualifications for the job when she was hired. Indeed, Green does not even meet the minimum qualifications for the currently-posted position for Deputy Planning Director, which requires 10 years of professional planning experience and preferably two years at the managerial level.

By contrast, nearly all of the other planning directors in the Washington metropolitan area had more than 15 years of prior management-level experience in planning before assuming their respective positions, and most are AICP-certified. [UPDATE: For a comparison of the qualifications of the region's planning directors, see this chart.]

M-NCPPC Likely Violated State Law By Hiring Green

The state law creating M-NCPPC specifically provides that the Planning Director and Deputy Planning Director in Prince George’s County “shall have education or professional experience in a field relevant to the responsibilities of that department.” As judged by the agency’s own criteria, as set out in the job descriptions, Green does not possess the requisite education or professional experience for either position. Therefore, M-NCPPC’s hiring of Green was arguably arbitrary, capricious, and contrary to Maryland law.

M-NCPPC spokeswoman Andrea Davey stated that the Planning Director position was posted on a variety of websites for approximately three months, from August 2–October 31, 2016, and that a total of four candidates were selected for interview. The agency would not disclose the identity of the other three candidates, citing confidentiality laws. However, Davey did indicate that the agency “did not deem it necessary to employ an executive search firm” in connection with this position.

Dorothy Bailey, Vice-Chair of M-NCPPC’s Prince George’s County Planning Board and a member of the selection committee, stated that Green was “second-to-none in her commitment to Prince George’s County, and in her know-how of the critical nuts and bolts involved in the planning process.” Board chairwoman Elizabeth M. Hewlett also cited favorably to Green’s “proven managerial experience and keen legal acumen.”

Green may well be a committed public servant, and she certainly has relevant legal knowledge and managerial experience. But she lacks any prior professional experience or training in planning—and that makes her selection as Planning Director untenable, and possibly unlawful.

How Can M-NCPPC Fix This?

Green’s employment contract is for two years, and it contains a “sweetheart” severance provision requiring the agency to pay her 12 full months of salary ($192,000) if it breaks the contract without cause. However, M-NCPPC could likely still void the contract without penalty, since Green did not have the requisite experience for the job to begin with. Additionally, the severance provision could itself be unlawful, since state law requires that the Planning Director and Deputy Planning Director shall “serve at the pleasure of the Prince George's County Planning Board.”

Ideally, M-NCPPC should consider reopening the Planning Director position and conducting a national search for a truly qualified and experienced professional planner with a proven track record in leading a large urban planning department. If possible, Green could be offered another position within the agency that meets with her actual qualifications and experience (e.g., a position in the legal department or in intergovernmental affairs).

Perhaps more than any other jurisdiction in the Washington region, Prince George’s County needs an experienced and innovative professional planner to lead its planning department—someone who can advocate effectively against the county’s overdependence on outer-Beltway sprawl development, help develop a workable plan for transit-oriented development and revitalization around the neighborhood gateway Metro stations near DC’s border, and oversee the implementation of a new 21st century zoning ordinance, among other priorities. Let’s hope M-NCPPC will make that happen.