Alternative Compliance

The Howard County Subdivision and Land Development Regulations define alternative compliance and allow the Department of Planning and Zoning (DPZ) to grant someone relief from strictly complying with specific land development regulations. Alternative compliance generally falls into three categories, based on the nature of a request:

• Process/sequence - the order or requirements for submitting plans.
• Design concept - plans that result in disturbing environmental features or trigger modifications to lot and road design, required public road lot frontage, or improvements such as sidewalks, curb and gutter, and street trees.
• Time extension - deferring due dates for submissions, permits, actions, and fees.

The term waiver is still in the Howard County Subdivision and Land Development Regulations, as defined in Sec. 16.104. Regulatory or government agencies most often use the term to refer to a process that exempts an applicant from certain regulations. In practice, Howard County began using the term alternative compliance in 2015 because DPZ requires mitigation and remediation as part of granting relief from certain design criteria; not exempting them. The hope was to amend the term during the rewrite of the land development regulations, which is now scheduled to occur after the general plan has been updated.

Regulations can never anticipate all possible situations. A site may be unusually configured or environmental features, such as steep slopes or a stream may lie directly in the path of a needed entrance road and no other reasonable options exist to access the property. To accommodate such unusual circumstances, all development regulations contain a certain degree of flexibility and allow a rule to be handled in a different way to accommodate reasonable use of someone’s property. Such administrative adjustments allow for flexibility and an alternative approach to site design, while maintaining the intent of the regulation as much as possible.

Yes, jurisdictions across the country, including our neighboring counties, Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Carroll, and Harford all provide flexibility to address development regulations. Some decisions may be made administratively while others require board, commission, or hearing examiner approval.

• To accommodate a road crossing or utility, disturbance to a stream and its buffer should be the minimum necessary. In addition, the area that is disturbed must be returned to its original natural condition to the greatest extent possible. Ways to minimize disturbance could include using a bottomless arch culvert to cross the stream, which from an environmental perspective is a better solution, a bridge, constructing retaining walls to minimize grading and then replanting the disturbed area with native vegetation at the same density that existed previously.
• When a native specimen tree must be removed it has to be replaced by at least two native trees with a diameter of at least three inches.
• When preserving specimen trees, during construction they must protected with a fence around their critical root zone.

• The approved request for alternative compliance is assigned a file number and the request, section of the applicable regulation, action, conditions of approval, and action date must be shown on all related plats, site development plans, and building permits.
• An alternative compliance approval remains valid for one year, or as long as plans are being actively processed in accordance with the development regulations.
• DPZ verifies that all plans and building permits comply with the approvals.

DPZ can approve the request with or without conditions, deny it, the request can be withdrawn by the petitioner, or DPZ can defer action to a later stage in the development review process. A deferral may also indicate that more information is needed before a decision can be made.

Yes, a decision by DPZ may be appealed to the Howard County Hearing Authority within 30 days of the date of its issuance. Information about the appeal process may be obtained at the DPZ Public Service Desk.

When new requests for alternative compliance are received at DPZ, they are processed and posted to the Alternative Compliance Map App, usually within one day. The map app will provide the project location, date submitted, DPZ planner and engineer handling the request and the section of the code related to the request.