Oct 26, 2026 - PHP Committee Worksession

The Montgomery County Council Planning, Housing, and Parks Committee held a worksession on October 26, 2026, covering a proposed countywide historic-preservation master-plan amendment for burial sites and three landlord-tenant bills. Planning staff described a 3–4-year effort, supported by consultant research, to develop a burial-sites context study and later the master-plan amendment; the county inventory includes 347 sites. Members discussed outreach, oral histories, site protection, and possible future implementation measures such as markers and grant programs. No contract award or new procurement decision was made regarding the consultant work or potential grants.

The committee unanimously advanced Bill 40-26, as amended, including proposed receipt deadlines for rent payments; an issue concerning an in-county payment location and exemptions for properties with one to four units remained unresolved for further consideration. For Bill 41-26, an amendment limiting an owner to two accessory dwelling unit licenses and requiring follow-up reporting passed 3–0, as did a technical amendment; retaining the owner-occupancy requirement was discussed but not advanced. Bill 42-26 would strengthen short-term-rental compliance through a license-verification system and annual reporting. Staff identified Granicus as the existing data-scraping contractor and cited approximately $91,000 in annual vendor costs; the transcript also refers to about $10,000 in initial added costs and $31,000–$37,000 over six years, though those figures are unclear. No new vendor selection or contract award was recorded, and the transcript ends during discussion of Bill 42-26.