Rockville errs in courthouse review

‘‘City staff clearly mishandled this project,” Ullery reported to the mayor and council in a Jan. 11 memorandum. ‘‘I am hugely disappointed by our performance, and deeply regret that the Planning Commission has been denied the opportunity to review this project.”

The site-specific plan for the courthouse was reviewed by planners internally, but due to ‘‘misjudgments, inattention, insufficient thoroughness and a lack of follow through,” did not make it to the commission, Ullery states in the memo.

Because the plans were never forwarded to the Planning Commission, the city exceeded its 60-day window to respond and the plan was essentially approved, Maryland Department of General Services (DGS) Secretary Alvin Collins states in a recent letter to the city.

About a year ago, the city sent a letter to the DGS detailing concerns about insufficient parking accommodations and additional pedestrian traffic at the proposed site. The building could exceed the city’s 75-foot height limit for that area by as much as 21 feet, the letter adds.

But those objections lack legal force.

‘‘The only thing that counts is the Planning Commission’s review under law,” Ullery said in an interview.

If the commission had rejected the plan, which might have exceeded the city’s permissible building height, minimum parking and pedestrian safety criteria, Ullery added, the state Board of Public Works could still have overridden its decision.

Ullery states in his memo that he was not informed the mandatory referral of the plans was formally received by the planning department back in 2005. He initially tried to work around problem and get DGS to resubmit its plan, by arguing the 2005 submission was not properly identified.

That claim was refuted by several documents provided by DGS, including an e-mail inquiring about the submission sent to former Director of Community Planning Arthur D. Chambers and Chief of Planning Jim Wasilak.

During the past two years, Chambers told former Mayor Larry Giammo and Ullery the state had not yet made its mandatory submittal, states Ullery’s memo to council.

The planners did not recognize the submission for what it was, Ullery said in an interview.

Wasilak agreed.

‘‘We weren’t sure whether it was the formal submission and we hadn’t had much communication with the state at that point,” he said in a Monday interview. ‘‘We just didn’t think the clock was ticking at that point.”