Bill 41-22, Waiving fees
Sponsor: Administration
Benefits: Certain developers
This bill allows the Administrative Officer (obviously at the direction of the County Executive) to waive fees for certain projects (developers) based on undefined criteria. It was admitted that the Bill was a direct result of the recent IG report which found that one developer was illegally provided such a waiver of fees for Metro Centre in Owings Mills, which continued for 10 years under two administrations. The waiver resulted in the County losing a million dollars of revenues.
Note that the title of the Bill makes it appear that its purpose is to require a process for granting such waivers, while the most important part is actually to clarify that the Administrative Office is allowed to do so (which some experts claim it does not presently.)
This whole fiasco was obviously one of the main reasons for the Director of PAI to quit.
Baltimore Sun article.
At its June 6 meeting, the County Council delayed voting on this Bill until July 5.
p>See here
and here
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