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(a) Building roads.
(1) If a road, bridge, storm drain, sidewalk, sidepath, transitway, or other transportation facility is located partly in the unincorporated area of the County and partly in a municipality or special taxing district that is authorized by law to build or maintain that part of the facility that is located in the municipality, either the County or the municipality or special taxing district may improve the entire facility according to applicable County laws or any law or regulation that applies in the municipality or special taxing district, respectively, as if the facility were completely located in the unincorporated area of the County or in the municipality or special taxing district.
(2) The County Executive and the governing body of the municipality or special taxing district must mutually consent to construct or improve the facility, which consent may be granted without regard to the laws of the County or of the municipality or special taxing district regarding construction of roads and assessment for the construction.
(3) The County may build or improve a road, bridge, storm drain, sidewalk, sidepath, bikeway, transitway, or other transportation facility which it is authorized by law to construct and maintain, including when the facility is located partly or entirely in a municipality or special taxing district. Before taking any action under this paragraph, the Executive must consult each affected municipality.
(b) Assessing costs.
(1) If the County or any municipality or special taxing district authorizes the construction of a road, obtains the consent of the other under subsection (a), assesses its cost against abutting property on the basis of benefit to the abutting property, and the assessment is made in accordance with the laws and regulations of the County or municipality or special taxing district levying the assessment, any property which abuts the road or public way but which is located in whole or in part in the other jurisdiction, may be assessed for its proportionate share of the cost of construction in the same manner as if the property were located only in the County or municipality or special taxing district levying the assessment, as the case may be.
(2) Any party on whom an assessment may be levied under this subsection may appeal the assessment, in the same manner under the law of the jurisdiction levying the assessment, as any other party entitled to appeal under its law.
(3) A municipality or special taxing district may, in its discretion, pay all or part of the costs assessed by the County against any property located in it.
(c) State roads. Nothing in this Section affects any State road, except to the extent that the County participates in paying any construction cost under an agreement with the State Highway Administration or any successor agency. (Mont. Co. Code 1965, § 24-38; 1956, ch. 320, § 1; 1971 L.M.C., ch. 3, § 21; 2001 L.M.C., ch. 28, §§ 10, 15 and 16; 2007 L.M.C., ch. 8
, § 1; 2022 L.M.C., ch. 31
, § 1.)
Editor’s note—The effective date of the amendments made to this section by 2001 L.M.C., ch. 28, § 10, is October 1, 1994.
This section is quoted and interpreted in Maryland-National Capital Park & Planning Commission v. Friendship Heights, 57 Md.App. 69, 468 A.2d 1353 (1984).
(a) (1) Any assessments under this Article is due and payable 30 days after the Council adopts the resolution levying the assessment. Until the assessment is paid, the Director of Finance may attach a lien on the property on which the assessment was levied.
(2) The Council may provide in the resolution that assessments may be paid in full at any time or in up to 20 equal annual installments. Each assessment must bear interest on the unpaid balance from the date the Council adopts the resolution at the interest rate paid by the County on its bonds used to finance construction of the road, plus one percent.
(3) The resolution must provide that all or any portion of the assessment may be paid without interest within 90 days after the resolution levying the assessment is adopted, or in equal annual installments starting on the July 1 at least 30 days after the levy of the assessment. Each payment must include interest on the unpaid balance. Any annual installment, together with the interest on it, not paid on or before the September 30 after its due date, is overdue and must be charged additional interest and penalty at the rate prescribed by law for overdue taxes on real property for the full taxable year.
(b) Notwithstanding the provisions of this Section, the Council may by resolution permit a taxpayer to defer the payment of assessments for a period not to exceed 5 years, subject to the following conditions:
(1) The payment deferral must be provided only on assessments connected with property which has been subject to an increased County property tax assessment resulting directly from a government-initiated change in the zoning classification of the property to a higher intensity use. A government-initiated change in the zoning classification of property is a change proposed by the Planning Board.
(2) The property connected with the assessment has been and must be actually occupied by the taxpayer for residential purposes. Any change in use during the period of payment deferral automatically ends the deferral. Any deferred assessment and accumulated interest on it is then immediately due and payable.
(3) The payment deferral ends immediately when the owner of record listed on the tax records when the property was rezoned transfers the property. Any deferred assessment and accumulated interest on it is then immediately due and payable.
(4) The owner must execute an agreement with the County to pay the balance of unpaid deferred assessments and accumulated interest on them immediately if the owner transfers ownership or does not comply with any other condition, or when the specified deferral period expires.
(5) Interest on the unpaid balance of any deferred assessments must accrue from the date of the deferral resolution at the rate specified in this Section.
(6) A first lien must attach to the property for all deferred assessments and accumulated interest on them. (Mont. Co. Code 1965, § 24-39; 1971 L.M.C., ch. 3, § 22; 1978 L.M.C., ch. 34, § 2; 1983 L.M.C., ch. 48, § 1; 2007 L.M.C., ch. 8, § 1.)
(a) Any assessment under this Article must be collected in the same way as real property taxes are collected under State and County laws. Each annual installment due may be included on the County tax bill, or billed separately, as the Director of Finance orders.
(b) If any person does not pay any annual installment, including any interest and penalty due, the Director of Finance may sell the property against which the assessment has been made at tax sale for the unpaid balance due on the assessment, including any interest or penalty due, in the same manner as real property is sold for nonpayment of taxes, together with all other charges due, if any. (Mont. Co. Code 1965, § 24-40; 1978 L.M.C., ch. 34, § 3; 2007 L.M.C., ch. 8, § 1.)
(a) If any property subject to assessment was not properly assessed, or the assessment erroneously describes the property or is made in a wrong name or in an erroneous amount, or if the property owner was not properly notified, the Council may, if the County Executive so recommends or on its own, correct the assessment by amending the resolution.
(b) The Council may correct an error without further notice to the affected property owner if the owner had notice of the hearing conducted under Section 49-53 and the error did not occur before the hearing was held and was not contained in any notice of the hearing.
(c) If the error occurred before the hearing or was contained in any notice of the hearing, the error must not be corrected until any affected property owner is given adequate notice and an opportunity to be heard. (Mont. Co. Code 1965, § 24-41; 1971 L.M.C., ch. 3, § 23; 2007 L.M.C., ch. 8, § 1.)
The County may, by Council resolution, borrow from time to time on its faith and credit any funds needed to finance construction authorized by this Article, and may issue its negotiable certificates of indebtedness. (Mont. Co. Code 1965, § 24-42; 1971 L.M.C., ch. 3, § 24; 2007 L.M.C., ch. 8, § 1.)
(a) Authority. The County Council, by adopting a resolution, may close to public use or abandon the County’s right to use any right-of-way. As used in this Article, right-of-way means any road, sidewalk, bikeway, crosswalk, water main, sanitary sewer, storm sewer, or storm drainage right-of-way used at any time by the public, including use by pedestrians and bicyclists. This Article applies to all rights-of-way except as provided in subsection (j) and State road rights-of-way, and may apply to a State road right-of-way if the appropriate State agency expressly consents. Before the Council adopts a resolution under this Article, the procedures in this Article must be followed.
(b) Application. Any person or government agency may file an application with the Department of Transportation to close or abandon any right-of-way. In this Article, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise, Department refers to the Department of Transportation.
(c) Fee. Each applicant, except a County government agency, must pay with the application a filing fee set by regulation under method (3) to defray the cost of processing the application and holding a hearing.
(d) Notice to property owners. After receiving an application under this Article, the Department must promptly notify by certified mail each property owner listed in the County assessment records whose property abuts the right-of-way proposed to be closed or abandoned. However, the fact that any property owner did not receive a notice under this section does not invalidate an otherwise valid closing or abandonment.
(e) Notice to public. The Department must prominently post a notice of the application in or adjacent to the right-of-way to be closed or abandoned. The Department also must publish notice of the application once each week for 2 successive weeks in a newspaper of general circulation in the County. This notice, and those sent under subsection (d), must inform recipients of the opportunity for a hearing and the date a hearing will be held.
(f) Hearing. The Executive or the Executive's designee must hold a hearing on the application not earlier than 30 days after notice is mailed under subsection (d).
(g) Executive's report; comments of government agencies and utilities. After the hearing held under this section, the County Executive must forward to the County Council the application, a report based on the record of the proceedings, and the Executive’s recommendation on the proposed abandonment or closing. The report must state whether the government agencies and utilities listed in subsection (h) have endorsed the proposal and the conditions, if any, of each agency's or utility’s endorsement. The Executive must not forward the report or recommendation until the Executive receives a response from each agency or other party. If an agency or other party does not respond within 60 days after notice is first published under subsection (e), the County Executive must presume that the agency or other party does not oppose the proposal.
(h) Agencies. The government agencies and other parties from which the Executive must solicit a response are:
(1) the Department of Transportation;
(2) the Department of Permitting Services;
(3) the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission;
(4) the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission, if any part of the right-of-way is located in the Washington Suburban Sanitary District;
(5) each public utility authorized by the Public Service Commission to operate in the area and which has any overhead or underground facilities in the vicinity;
(6) the governing body of each incorporated municipality or special taxing district in which any of the right-of-way is located;
(7) the Police Department;
(8) the County Fire and Rescue Service; and
(9) any grantee of a franchise under Article 2, if the franchise authorizes the grantee to install or use any facility in, over, or under the affected right-of-way.
(i) Temporary closure. This Article does not apply to any temporary closure required by a construction traffic control plan if the closure does not last longer than 12 months. If special circumstances require that a temporary closure last longer than 12 months, the Director of Transportation must apply to the Council for approval to extend the closure. The Council, by resolution, may approve an extended temporary closure under this subsection without following the procedures in this Article.
(j) Storm drainage rights-of-way.
(1) In this subsection, County Executive means the County Executive or the Executive’s designee.
(2) The procedures in this subsection are the exclusive means to abandon all or a portion of a platted or recorded public storm drainage right-of-way that is not used for any other public purpose.
(3) The County Executive may grant a partial or total abandonment of the existing storm drainage right-of-way if the Executive:
(A) receives a written request, accompanied with a survey delineating the area sought to be abandoned;
(B) investigates any potential impacts that the requested abandonment may have upon the existing storm drain facility; and
(C) finds that:
(i) the area requested to be abandoned is no longer necessary for current or anticipated public use in the foreseeable future; and
(ii) abandoning the portion of the right-of-way will not adversely impact the County’s ability to access and/or maintain any portion of the storm drain facility located within the right-of-way.
(4) Before granting a partial or total abandonment of a storm drainage right-of-way under this subsection, the County Executive may require the owner of the land that is presently encumbered by the storm drainage right-of-way, or the proposed owner if the County holds fee-title to the storm drainage right-of-way, to execute a maintenance and liability agreement. If the Executive requires a maintenance and liability agreement, the agreement must:
(A) be on a form acceptable to the Executive; and
(B) hold the County harmless for any damages to private property located in the area proposed to be abandoned that arises out of the presence, maintenance of, or other work related to the existing storm drain facility. (1975 L.M.C., ch. 26, § 1; 1982 L.M.C., ch. 46, § 1; 1989 L.M.C., ch. 29, § 1; 1996 L.M.C., ch. 4, § 1; 1996 L.M.C., ch. 29, § 1; 2007 L.M.C., ch. 8
, § 1; 2008 L.M.C., ch. 5
, § 1; 2018 L.M.C., ch. 10, §1;
2019 L.M.C., ch. 23
, §1; 2022 L.M.C., ch. 31, § 1.)
Editor's note—2008 L.M.C., ch. 5, § 3, states: Sec. 3. Any regulation in effect when this Act takes effect that implements a function transferred to another Department or Office under Section 1 of this Act continues in effect, but any reference in any regulation to the Department from which the function was transferred must be treated as referring to the Department to which the function is transferred. The transfer of a function under this Act does not affect any right of a party to any legal proceeding begun before this Act took effect.
Res. No. 9-1378 establishes guidelines for oral argument proceeding relative to road abandonments or closures. See appendix I, pt. I.
(a) The Council must consider the record of the proceedings and the report and recommendations of the County Executive, including any recommendations of the government agencies and other parties listed in Section 49-62(h), and any other relevant and material information the Council receives from any person.
(b) The Council may at any time remand an application to the Executive or the Executive's designee to reopen the record or consider new information.
(c) A right-of-way may be abandoned or closed if the Council by resolution finds that:
(1) the right-of-way is no longer necessary for present public use or anticipated public use in the foreseeable future, or
(2) the abandonment or closing is necessary to protect the health, safety and welfare of the residents near the right-of-way to be abandoned or closed. In assessing health, safety, and welfare issues, the Council may consider:
(A) any adopted land use plan applicable to the neighborhood;
(B) safe and efficient pedestrian and vehicular traffic patterns and flows, together with alternatives, in the immediate neighborhood, for local and through traffic; and
(C) changes in fact and circumstances since the original dedication of the right-of-way.
(d) A right-of-way which is the sole means of access to any property must not be abandoned or closed. (1975 L.M.C., ch. 26, § 1; 1982 L.M.C., ch. 46, § 2; 1996 L.M.C., ch. 29, § 1; 2007 L.M.C., ch. 8, § 1.)
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