Howard County Executive Calvin Ball has legislation before the Howard County Council to update the local Forest Conservation regulations. It is Council Bill 62-2019 (CB62-2019).

Feel free to read through the bill…but dang it is not an exciting read…so this graphic may be more helpful at the end of the day:

Some interesting stuff in it includes:

“Full Compliance With State Law”. Heck…it is always good to be compliant with state law…why we were not in the past is confusing to me but happy we locally will be in compliance going forward.

“Residential developments must meet 75% of their forest conservation obligations on-site”. This is a good thing…and hopefully helps keep some trees in the eastern part of this county going forward.

“Maximum of 1 acre forest obligation can be met through fee-in-lieu in a residential development”. Another plus…developers and builders can not pay to get out of more than 1 acre of forest conservation obligation on site.

There are other good things…but those are the big ones that caught my attention right off the bat.

I really enjoy seeing many of the environmentally friendly initiatives. The plastic bag tax on the other hand is not that…at least not the way it has been proposed in our local area. Still waiting to hear what our CE thinks of that legislation. Not sure if he will provide a statement in advance of the discussions or just let it work through the council…I am hoping for some type of statement. It will be a thing I ask for in the future.

Scott E