The story by Hallie Miller (A ‘pro-growth’ candidate wants to shake up the Baltimore County executive race, April 28, 2025) on the candidacy of Catonsville attorney Nick Stewart to be the Democratic nominee for Baltimore County executive in 2026 framed what should be a key issue in the campaign: Will county leaders resolve upon a thoughtful, long-term plan for redevelopment of underutilized commercial corridors and increasing the housing supply, or will they continue business as usual?

Business as usual in Baltimore County means micromanagement by council members of land use and development within their districts through “councilmanic courtesy.” As practiced in the county, councilmanic courtesy doesn’t simply mean giving appropriate weight to a member’s views on zoning changes and project approvals; it means deferring completely to the member’s judgment on decisions entrusted by law to the entire council.

Stewart’s condemnation of councilmanic courtesy is spot on. The practice has replaced plan-based decision-making with ad hoc political calculations, rendering the county’s master plan almost meaningless and the county’s Department of Planning irrelevant.

Who needs experts in planning, design and transportation and other infrastructure when you have politicians making decisions based on which way the wind is blowing? No other county places so much control over land use and development in the hands of individual council members, and the county suffers from decades of chaotic, substandard development as a consequence.

It is ironic that councilmanic courtesy now is touted by some council members as the means to protect their constituents from overdevelopment, because in the past it was used by those members to cater to the wishes of builders and developers. In exchange, those builders and developers helped make the campaign war chests of members of the Baltimore County Council far larger than the war chests of any other city or county council in the state.

It will take careful, knowledgeable planning focused on the shared well-being of all residents to pull the county out of its economic decline and solve its housing crisis. And a county executive willing to try to break the virtual stranglehold that individual council members have on land use and development in their districts.

David Plymyer is a former county attorney for Anne Arundel County, and lives in Catonsville

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