The Carroll County Board of Supervisors is moving forward with plans to adjust the longstanding agreement with the City of Carroll concerning zoning, permitting, and inspections in the two-mile area surrounding the city limits. Board Chair Stephanie Hausman says they’ve been grappling with this issue since at least April 2024.
By law, the supervisors must present recommendations to the P&Z commission for review. The commission will then comment on the board’s proposals and provide its own recommendations if it chooses to do so. However, those recommendations are not binding for the supervisors, and they can proceed at their discretion. Hausman outlines the three options the supervisors have chosen.
Hausman adds there are consistent themes among those options. All three return the final say on applications and zoning change requests to the board of supervisors, and all fees would return to the county standard, which are significantly lower than the City of Carroll’s fees. The supervisors quickly reached a consensus that those three options were acceptable, but the specifics of the future zoning control plan are still not set in stone. Those proposals now go to the Carroll County P&Z Commission for review, which will likely be during their January meeting if a special session is not scheduled. The issue will then return to the supervisors for a decision in early 2025.
