PUBLIC NOTICE EXPIRATION OF APPROVED HISTORIC PRESERVATION COMMISSION APPROVALS

Frederick, MD -- The two year anniversary of the effective date of the Land Management Code (LMC) is August 15, 2007. The Planning Department is sending out an advisory notice to all HPC applicants that received approval of a project prior to the effective date of August 15, 2007. Prior to the adoption of the LMC, the Historic District Commission regulations were amended to stay the expiration of all approvals during the pendency of the Water Allocation Ordinance. With the adoption of the LMC, the Historic District regulations, and the Water Allocation Ordinance were repealed and incorporated into the Land Management Code adopted on July 21, 2005, with an effective date of August 15, 2005. Therefore, with the adoption of the LMC and removal of the provisions that prior approvals did not expire, Historic Preservation approvals are now subject to the expiration time frames of the LMC. Accordingly, if your project did not require water and sewer allocation or the project has received an allocation contract indicating there is sufficient water and sewer allocation to build the project, then your project approval may expire on August 15, 2007. Please review all of your old approvals, if you have not submitted and received either a zoning or building permit, you may have to request an extension of the approval by the Planning Department. The Planning Department may grant a six-month extension. Any extension greater than six-months requires Historic Preservation Commission approval.

For the expiration of approved Historic Preservation Commission approvals, Section 423(d)(10) of LMC states:

(10) Any Certificate of Approval by the Historic Preservation Commission shall become void two years from the later of:

(1) the date of approval; or

(2) the date of the water and sewer allocation contract (if allocation is need) specified in §742 (Water & Sewer Allocation) indicating sufficient allocation has been received to construct;

if no zoning or building permit has been issued for development of the project. A six-month extension may be granted by the Department upon request of the owner or developer. Further extensions may be granted by the Commission. This subparagraph (10) shall apply retroactively to all Certificate of Approvals whether issue prior to or after February 8, 2002.

If an HPC project approval is about to expire, a requests for extension must be submitted to the Planning Department prior to that expiration. Information on the specific case number and approval date must be provided. An extension fee of $5 is required for all HPC approvals. If a project approval expires, the project will be required to receive a new approval, will be subject to the new requirements of the LMC, and must pay all application review fees.

If you have any questions, please contact the Barbara Wyatt at 301-600-1792 or Emily Paulus at 301-600-1831.