Pittman and Friends Podcast
Welcome to Pittman and Friends, the curiously probing, sometimes awkward, but always revealing conversations between your host, Anne Arundel County Executive Steuart Pittman - that’s me - and whatever brave and willing public servant, community leader, or elected official I can find who has something to say that you should hear.
This podcast is provided as a public service of Anne Arundel County Government, so don’t expect me to get all partisan here. This is about the age-old art of government - of, by, and for the people.
Pittman and Friends Podcast
Our Future, Our Land with Janssen Evelyn
Land use isn’t abstract policy—it’s the shape of your morning, your rent, and your kid’s walk to school. We sit down with Deputy CAO Janssen Evelyn to go inside the decisions that turn a 200‑page plan into the street under your feet: who builds, what gets built, and how we protect nature while making room for the people who keep our county running.
We unpack the real work behind Plan 2040 and why equity isn’t a slogan here—it’s baked into housing and transportation choices. Janssen shares how “eat the frog” conversations move projects forward across planning, zoning, inspections, and community groups. We talk about the hard pivot from car‑only standards to a multimodal, safety‑first update of Adequate Public Facilities (APF): sidewalks, wider shared‑use paths, safer crossings, and transit connections where they matter most. From Riva Road signal fixes to future‑proofing growth areas, we look at how smarter design can reduce congestion and give residents real options beyond another solo drive.
Housing affordability takes center stage: how the county went from stalled efforts to required on‑site units for rentals and ownership, why some developers rushed to file before the deadline, and how ADUs deliver gentle, incremental supply without changing the feel of neighborhoods. We revisit sprawl’s costly lessons in places like Two Rivers and talk about what placemaking looks like when commercial and residential actually connect. Throughout, Janssen explains the balance of leverage and listening—meeting with MBIA, NAIOP, environmental advocates, and neighborhood coalitions—to surface pain points without losing the core goals: fix outdated traffic rules and build communities that are livable, fair, and green.
If you care about safer streets, lower housing costs, and a county that grows without losing what makes it special, this conversation is for you. Subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a review with the one change you want to see in your neighborhood. Your ideas shape what gets built next.
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Welcome everybody. I am with another friend. Although is it okay to be friends with the people who work for you? I don't know. There's a debate about that. But I'll say friend. Deputy Chief Administrative Officer Jansen Evelyn. Welcome. I would say friend as well, boss. Friend's okay.
Janssen Evelyn:Yes, friend is friend is fine.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Good.
Janssen Evelyn:You can still be your boss. You're always still my boss in this arena. Thank you very much for having me on.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:No, I br I brought Janssen on because you are not only Deputy CAO, but oversee the whole land use portfolio of that job, which means that the hardest things we do in government, the things that start wars. Wars are started over land use, land all over throughout history. But I say that about the county too. A lot of the toughest politics come down to what gets built, where it gets built, whether or not we have the infrastructure to build it, whether we're creating traffic, overcrowding schools and those sorts of things, and whether we have enough housing, whether we have an economy that can actually grow and flourish based on what gets built. So g give us a sense of sort of your typical week and some of the some of the things that you do in your job.
Janssen Evelyn:Okay. Well, again, thank you for having me on here. My week varies, but a typical week involves a lot of conversations, a lot of meetings with Office of Plan and Zone, and sometimes typically with the Jenny Dempsey, the Plan and Zoning Officer, or one of one of the deputies, Lynn or Christina Pompa. Sometimes I engage with IMP not as much as I do with IMP inspections and permits. Inspections and permit and MART. And they all know when I give them a buzz, typically towards the end of the workday, that typically means there's some sort of an issue or some sort of mini crisis that needs to be addressed as expeditiously as possible. I have a lot of engagement with some of the various coalitions that we have worked with throughout the years, whether it be GAN, whether it be ACT, whether it be MBIA, Growth Action Network, Andorrital Connecting Together, advocacy organizations, community-based, right? Correct. And then we also have a couple of advocacy organizations from the building industries like MBIA Maryland Builders Industry Association, and then we have NAOP. And I'm not going to pretend I remember the full acronym of NAIA.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Trevor Burrus, Jr. What I remember it is just MBIA does housing and NAOP does commercial. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
Janssen Evelyn:That's that's that's how I always differentiate. And while some of their issues overlap, they sometimes have different issues. I also engage sometimes with residents or citizens who are having issues as they're navigating the development review process, whether they are doing it from a solo perspective or it's a resident.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Trevor Burrus That's true. You get the people who are just trying to get a permit to get a porch or or some some small thing all the way up to a major subdivision.
Janssen Evelyn:It is why my when I took on this job, my beard was fully black. Now it's gray.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:You only got a little bit of gray there. Trevor Burrus, Yeah. But you don't have any hair left. You've been pulling all that out.
Janssen Evelyn:Trevor Burrus, Jr. Well. Because I've worked in government for so long, that all already fell out.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:That does. So so yeah, I mean basically you are interagency, the different agencies that do land use, and you are, at the same time, uh community liaison. You're not in constituent service, but but you're in that weird space that the the the fourth floor is the floor where my office is, the folks actually you're on the third, but that's a that try to make the whole thing work and solve problems, because sometimes uh the systems that we have set up don't actually do that, and everybody's in their silos and doing their thing, and so you're supposed to bring them together. I'll tell you, and one reason that I hired you for the job is not only your expertise as an attorney and the the work that you've done throughout government, mostly in Howard County and some in Prince George's understanding, but that you have a personality that is s sort of a peacemaker, you get along with people and people like you, and I think that's kind of necessary in these in these battles.
Janssen Evelyn:I know that I have a personality where uh because of the nature of the work I've done, particularly when I was a practicing attorney, I realized that a better way to practice law to resolve some of these issues were to sit down and have uncomfortable conversations. A close friend of mine once said, when you start your day, begin by eating the frog. And that's a weird one, huh? No, because it's the one thing on your plate you don't want to eat. So you eat the frog and then everything else. Or you're full of ever eating protein. Or you're full of protein and then you can just you have enough energy to get to to to charge through the day. But it is one of the things.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:You gotta do the hard stuff.
Janssen Evelyn:Yep. And and I think once you do that from a place of and I would say honesty, integrity, and just realizing that at the end of the day, if you uh if you've done arbitration or mediation or just even simple negotiation, people don't necessarily expect that they're gonna walk away with 100% of what they want. Sure. But people fundamentally at a human level, they want to be heard. They want to be they want to have their opinions validated. And and when you as you began at the beginning, when you say land use is this weird intersection of um that brings out the best and the worst of people. And and I think when you try to navigate that space, you're never going to please all of them or even any of them, but if you're if you're uh continuing in a way that that says, look, I value this relationship, we're folks on coalition building. Yeah. And that's something that I'm not saying this because you're my boss, but that's something, even though I've worked in multiple administrations, it's something that's so, I would say, elemental to how you proceed. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Everybody who works here has to understand that. Yeah. Yeah. And you get it, you get a lot of knowledge from the diversity of thought that And I'll tell you, I came in as as Mr. Tree Huggard from South County Farm Boy, and the developers weren't happy that I'd won the election. And you know, I said we were gonna manage our growth in a way and we were gonna actually represent the people, not you know the people who are just trying to just people trying to make money on land, but the people who live on the land too. And we were gonna represent that. And I didn't want to be pushed around by them, and I'll tell you I didn't listen to them either. I didn't meet with them. I said I said, I'll talk to you about policy, but I won't talk to you about your project. Yes. You got your regulators for that. I don't want to be pulled into the system that so many county executives have been, where they're political donors who tend to be in land use, because they're the biggest donors, are the ones they hang with, and then they end up making decisions to benefit them at the expense of community, and then they they they don't have the transparency and they try to hide what they're doing. And it just wasn't I I had to um turn the ship on that. And I believe that we did to a large degree, but then I felt that we had we also had a plan, a development plan, plan 2040, that we need to implement. And if we're gonna do housing affordability, and if we're gonna do infrastructure before we build, and if we're gonna grow our economy in the ways that that we want it to grow, we have to build some stuff. And the folks who build it are in the private sector. So if you don't talk to them, how are you gonna get them on board and and move the whole ship? So I think we've done that, you've helped do that. But let's go back to your background a little bit more. Yeah, yeah. I first met you at at a bar, right?
Janssen Evelyn:All the best stories begin when you meet someone at a bar, apparently. But yes. We met, to be clear, we met at Winter Mako. Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Maryland Association of Counties. Yeah. Eventually I'll realize to stop using the acronyms, but thank you for catching that. But we met at the Maryland Association of Count of Counties. It was their winter session, and I was, at the time, I was working in the private sector. I was an attorney at Baker Donaldson, and I had had an emergent portfolio of work within the municipal space, the local government space, based on my decade exp decade plus experience of working in either government operations, procurement, police accountability.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:You were a deputy CIO in Howard County for both Republican and Democrat, right?
Janssen Evelyn:I want to be clear. It was title, technical title was assistant chief administrative officer. Yes. So I was a ch assistant chief administrative officer at the time under County Executive Alan Kittleman. As you mentioned, he was Republican. I was I was promoted from the Office of Law. I was in the Howard County Office of Law as an assistant county solicitor. And I the the long-term chief administrative officer, his name was Lonnie Robbins, good friend and a mentor to me, he had answered me to come up and work for him. And I had declined because I felt that that position was too political. And I just wanted to.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:What do you mean?
Janssen Evelyn:You ran for office. You tell me too political? But that's the point. It's just no, no, no, it's just funny how life happens. I started working in Howard County in 2015. He immediately wants me to start working with him in county administration. I declined for close to two years because I had no political aspirations. I had none whatsoever. I just wanted to be a good lawyer. Good lawyer. And eventually I realized, you know, you can't look a gift horse in the mouth. This was an opportunity, even though it was we're going into an election cycle. And and I worked there for almost two years under the Kitlin administration. Dr. Calvin Ball became the county executive in 2018. And he retained me. My portfolio grew, it expanded to include contract procurement.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:That's unusual for somebody from the other party to get elected and keep anybody in that close to them.
Janssen Evelyn:No, it's I think it's one, it's a testament to um, I would say, the county executive to Calvin Ball. I also think it's a testament to and it sounds weird to say, but it's I think it's a testament to my reputation. My reputation at the time was just that. Like I'm going to work one across the awl aisle, I'm going to focus on getting results.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:And but you were doing you were doing some personnel matters, right? And you were doing police, a lot of public safety matters, right?
Janssen Evelyn:Yes. When I was an attorney, when I was an attorney in both Prince George's County as well as Howard County, my focus was on it was it was called the government operations division, where we sp equally spent time between land use, code enforcement, as well as personnel matters, including responding to EEOC Equal Opportunities and Opportunities Commission, as well as their state equivalent. And then, along with a lot of back then in Prince George's, we had what was called the LEOBR Law Enforcement Officer's Bill of Rights. And in Prince George's County, I handled dozens of those cases. And when I went over to Howard County, that was still something in my portfolio as an attorney there. Then subsequently it got repealed, which is how I think the police accountability board.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:The police accountability account. Yeah, so when I when I met you at the bar.
Janssen Evelyn:At the bar drinking whiskey.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:At Mako. I think I I introduced by somebody, but we knew that you were potentially interested in get back into government and doing it in Anna Rundle. You were actually running for county council in Howard at the time. And you got beat. Not by much, but you got beat. We were a little bit glad that you got beat. You told me that. Yeah, yeah. Because the question was, should we hire. Yeah. Can he can he work for us while being on the council in Howard? There's really no real reason he couldn't, other than that it might be time-consuming to do that. And so yeah, we were kind of glad when you didn't get elected. And so we hired you. Or maybe we'd already decided to hire you. But you came on, but not in the current position, it was to create our police accountability board, which was mandated by state law, and we wanted to make sure we did a good job. And so you got that rolling before we moved over to this.
Janssen Evelyn:Yes, I was the inaugural director, inaugural executive director of the Office of Police Accountability here in Anomar County. And when we had communicated at the bar, at Metamaco, I think I had first been introduced by a former colleague in Prince George's County to your then chief of staff, Dr. Kay, who then immediately connected me with Matt Power. This all happened within the 20-minute window. And then Matt was like, oh, let's get the county executive. And so I was focused on bringing in business to my law firm. Right. And the law firm that I was employed with at the time. And then eventually, after a series of conversations, it became apparent that, you know, your staff were looking to initially bring me on as the executive director. And it just so happened that I was so focused on my 2022 race, I stepped away from my position at Baker Donaldson. And so I was jobless. And and then you told me when you offered me the job, like, yeah, we're gonna hire you anyway, but I'm kind of glad that you lost. That you lost by 239 votes. And I'm I'm like, this is pretty traumatic for me, but okay.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Get over it, chance, and get to work. All right.
Janssen Evelyn:Yep. And so we came in and we worked with the city of Annapolis, worked with Crofton, uh, worked with the police department.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yeah, no, we set that up and and and then but I knew, and you knew, that that was only one of your interests. And and one of the things that it made me think you would be good on the land use is that you and I agreed on a lot and we talked about it a lot. You know, I'm a tree hugger, you're a gardener, right?
Janssen Evelyn:I mean I'm also a tree hugger. I'm the president of the Howard County Conservancy. Okay. So and I've done a lot of work in the community gardening space, particularly around ensuring that black and brown people they kind of retain or get reacquainted with their like their relationship with their history with the natural with the natural world. It has so much value. And so during the pandemic, I was honored to be a part of the Howard County NAACP when we had created our first community garden. We called it the George Washington Carver Growing Food Together CSA, where we had a focus on growing historically.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Which I got to visit on a tour of Howard County. Yeah, make-go tour.
Janssen Evelyn:Yep. And you saw that I wasn't making that up, but Yeah, it was true, it was real.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:There's actually stuff growing there. Food.
Janssen Evelyn:Yeah, and and our first couple of seasons we focused on growing not just nutrient-dense foods like brassicas, et cetera, but we were focused on growing foods that historically enslaved Africans had brought over, whether it was okra, whether it was cow peas, black eye peas, peppers. We were very focused on like educating that or reintroducing that to the younger generation. It's been honestly the thing that drove my won my campaign in 2022, but more importantly, it drove my my increasing interest towards how we placemake, how we create communities. Because historically, when you look at how land use has been done, particularly since the pass of the Fair Housing Act, and then we gave local we gave control to zone into local jurisdictions, and we you're very well aware of the history of Red Line and and and how it was utilized to have an adverse impact on black people, immigrants, people of color, and as an immigrant and as a black person, um, it's just always been something that I increasingly had this awareness, you know what, if not me, who was gonna be the person who's gonna get in the space, even though I know, I know how acrimonious and contentious it can be. And and I'll and the only thing I will say about 2022 and that campaign was when I ran, I ran more of like an Avenger. I was like, we are here to right all of these wrongs immediately. Right. I think over the past four years with you, I've had to learn one patience, but I've also had to learn how do I now build relationships that ultimately we are all focused on the same long-term result. So it's definitely mellowed it's mellowed me down or given me a certain level of, let's say, wisdom.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Well, and when I think back on when we brought you into this job, I knew that we not only needed somebody who could relate to the different regulators, the different agencies, and talk to your language and sometimes cajole, but also talk to the um talk to the developers and talk to the communities. And I was particularly focused on getting more requirements for affordable housing in every subdivision that gets built, the moderately priced dwelling, you know, that we call it the Essential Worker Housing Access Act, and that that didn't pass, and then there was a second version of it, the um Housing Attainability Act that did pass. And you know, we had our struggles during that. Yes, we did. And yeah, yeah. I mean, I was concerned that some of the stuff that got into that bill was more about sprawl than it was about actually doing affordability. And it's not a perfect bill, but now we have 15 percent required on rental and 10 percent on homeownership. Correct. And it's something to work with, frustrating that they put all their applications in right before the July 1st when it took effect so that they wouldn't be have to have to actually do those units. But I will say that I needed somebody who who was a strong advocate for affordable housing and essential worker housing, and you have been that. And what I needed that for communities and I needed it for developers. You know, the developers who just want to build what they can make the most money on, and communities who are afraid that if you build that, that somehow the character of the community will change. But at the same time recognizing, you know, being a a listener who would understand that people invest their livelihoods in where they live and they're they're scared that it's gonna change. The number one thing has been traffic. I mean, you know, when you when you got when you build, you got more traffic, and it's been really hard. I think our saving grace has been that we had Plan 2040 and we and we engaged so many people.
Janssen Evelyn:So your job is implement Plan 2040. Aaron Powell So what's funny is I feel like you're starting to read my mind a bit, but I know that's what happens when you're around each other a lot. But the one thing that I have loved about this role is when you get back to storytelling, when you get back to like what is this all about, it was ultimately all about the implementation of Plan 2040. And when I've and I've Because yes, I am a geek, and when I reviewed other counties' GDPs, they didn't they weren't as one, they didn't bake in equity the way ours did. And they weren't as serious about we will need we have to preserve what makes this jurisdiction, this county unique, the natural, the natural world. But we also cannot ignore how priority took accountability. It took accountability saying prior GDPs have ignored the the same groups that I we you and I have been talking about. And and that was a fascinating thing to see how it wasn't just like performative, it was literally baked into every element, including how you look at the hard decisions, the missing middle housing, how you look at even transportation. And so many people failed when you think about transportation. I know you and I have said this before. Part of my thing is what comes first, you know, chicken or the egg. Like what if you if you're trying to get this jurisdiction, which historically has been a suburban jurisdiction, which historically has gone back and forth with the majority being Republican-led governments, which meant that as the population increased, the government didn't right size, which means the government also didn't think big enough in terms of how do we address this burgeoned population, how do we stop this sprawl development? And I think you have to be, and it's something that I want to make sure anyone that listens to this podcast, one of your takeaways is over the past seven years, Annalona County, led by County Executive Stuart Pittman and brilliant staff like myself, what we have done is tried to turn the ship around, but we're trying to address 40 plus years of sprawl development where where things like AFO have been utilized as adequate public facilities.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Well, yeah, where where there have been there are developments, I mean I'll use two rivers as an example, where they built thousands of homes with a one-lane, one road in and out, a historic road, and creating a peninsula situation and also not managing stormwater the way they should have and and creating problems for the environment around it. And and I sort of look at the history of that and how it went down. There's even documents you can look at. I thought there should be a documentary on that about this is, you know, this is how bad land use is. I mean, it's a wonderful place to live, don't get me wrong. And the people who live there are wonderful people who who also don't want to make the same mistake twice. But it it was sort of textbook sprawl development, not addressing the affordability issues, not addressing the environmental issues, and not addressing the adequate public facility requirements. Correct.
Janssen Evelyn:School and roads and sidewalks and you know, and even emergency personnel and how their response times will get impacted because as you look at the age and population, most of those calls now are going to be EMS related. So but but again, Two Rivers is just another example of how this country, how Maryland, how Antaroma County, how we have dealt with land use. And and so when you come in and you say, let's incentivize well, I mean your verse you're the first thing that I we haven't talked talked about yet.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Well, and I would say it's sort of not dealing with land use. We always had general development plans that were about smart growth and were about agriculture, you know, and they weren't bad. They weren't implemented. And the reason they weren't implemented is because they're not they're not law that has to be implemented. And even when you do have laws, then you can do the modifications, you know, to to waive those. And and that is, I think, where I won't call it corruption, but I will call it undue influence by the people who benefit from waiving those things. And the the administrations did that. And if you look back through who raised all the money to get them elected, that that is where it came from. So that that's always frustrated me, just like big money and politics in general has always frustrated me. However, the solutions don't aren't like don't bring those people to the table. The solutions are, you know, bring all the brains to the table. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
Janssen Evelyn:You see, and I think that's the because I I think if you just say, oh, it's special interests, I I think it's easy to just point to that, but I don't know if that's the complete story. I think people historically have not had the will. And I also think you came in at a perfect time in Anorona County's history where you could not ignore how much the county had changed, how much the county was changing. And then you also had a majority on the on the council. And so it was a bit of a perfect storm. And and because you had a GDP that was so progressive, I think it forced people to say, you know what, we have to do things differently. I I So if you say special interest, I would probably say political will. Maybe ultimately we can get back and say they're they're one and the same, but you came in.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Well, one of the special interests is often um NIMBES, right? Neighborhoods, neighborhoods that were saying hell no. Correct. So you've got that on what you've got the developers wanting to maximize profit, and then you've got the public interest at at large, which includes the need to grow the economy and to have you know housing for all sectors of the workforce.
Janssen Evelyn:No, I get to correct you, and when he said NIMBY, he meant not in my backyard. Okay, yeah.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:I use a I use one.
Janssen Evelyn:And so yes, there is that backup. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Which isn't necessarily I mean, yeah, ta take at it as you will. I mean, I've heard people say, you know, proudly say, yeah, not in my backyard is what I stand for. Don't don't put it here. Uh it can be a legitimate position, or it can be a racist position. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
Janssen Evelyn:And I've seen uh I've seen both because I've I've knocked doors in the past where people said apartments bring apartment people. And I remember my response was, well, I'm apartment people.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yeah, you're talking yeah.
Janssen Evelyn:I came to this country and grew up five of us in a two-bedroom apartment, and and and so there has always been that is that both and perspective.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:And so And we have a county council now that is disgusted by a statement like that, but we had a county council that loved statements like that in the past, right? That were saying those things on the dais. Yeah.
Janssen Evelyn:Trevor Burrus, Jr.: I think we cannot.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:In addition to solving problems on specific projects and trying to get people to talk to each other and find ways to do things and help to manage the whole project by project, subdivision by subdivision of the county. You do a lot of legislative work with Ethan, who's when it's land use, you come to the table. And and so, you know, we've done some of we did before you got there. We did a number of bills, we did forest conservation, we did uh the density bonus for for workforce housing, we've done accessory dwelling units, and we're still trying to accelerate that because I think it's a real way to get affordability without changing characters of neighborhoods and without big sprawl, without big developments even. So we've got some left. We've got adequate public facilities coming. We've got an impact fee study that we have to get before the council to see what they want to do with that. Tell it tell us what you think is coming that might be hard in in this last year.
Janssen Evelyn:Well, the the two things you just mentioned are incredibly difficult. Um the one that we already have in front of the council is transportation APF. And when you also look at Plan 2040, one of the one of their recommendations, one of their policy recommendations was we have to find ways to one update our traffic APF, which is two decades old, and so it's woefully inadequate, and it's something that both the builders as well as staff want to address. Second, and this is the more future-proofing portion of it, is we want to get to the space where we are we're trying to f we're trying to address how we want housing, how we want development to look going forward. Well, how do we want transportation to look on APF? So to me there you see, that's the thing. Transportation to Sweden, right?
County Executive Steuart Pittman:We went to Sweden and we saw how they do it, multimodal, multimodal, right? And ours is all car-based.
Janssen Evelyn:Ours is all vehicular-based, which has huge negative impacts when it comes to pollution, to stress, to sprawl, whereas if we find ways, particularly around the growth areas that we want to in the county. Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Centers, and then and we start to connect these communities in a way so that our kids don't have to just use a vehicle. They can they have safe ingress and egress on bikes. That's true.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:And so we're facing some headwinds on that. It it can be when the government says, okay, adequate public facilities means for you to be able to build something, we have to make sure that the facilities are there. And one of the facilities might be bike trails, sidewalks, and that is part of transportation, not just the roads not being failing. So there's that as well.
Speaker 2:Correct.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:So the changes that we're proposing add some of these requirements in some instances, right?
Janssen Evelyn:Absolutely. No, in in many of the instances, I mean obviously based on scale, based on where you are, if you're in South County, you're not going to have to do that. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Exactly.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Or address I mean, some people would like that, but it's incredibly expensive.
Janssen Evelyn:It does not necessarily make sense. Right. But in the areas where we are in close proximity to transit centers, we do want to find ways so that people can get to these transit centers safely. I mean, that's the that's the one thing it's it's about it's all it's about resident safety.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Talk about River Road. I mean, everybody's upset about the apartment buildings that are going up, even though some in some cases they're replacing commercial that had much more traffic, but apartment buildings going up and traffic on River Road, which has been addressed by some things with the timing of lights and left turns and actually the data shows that traffic is moving better right now. But there is a danger that development is going to slow things down.
Janssen Evelyn:So APF requires them to pay for pay for some of these infrastructure improvements and which are sidewalks, which are which are safe, pedestrian.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:I mean, yeah, we're doing wider sidewalks now on regional roads so that you can actually get your scooter, your electric scooter, your butt, whatever, as well as walking. And again, these are short term encouragement.
Janssen Evelyn:These are short-term pains for long-term results. And it's something that and and I want to be very clear. I'm I I think when you get reaction to because other jurisdictions are doing this, and I know we're not Montgomery County, but other jurisdictions are finding ways to address again, I call it future-proofing, and it would be pointless to add all of the land use legislation and say we want to we want to make it, we want to let our essential workers live here without making sure their children have a way to get around, to give them options other than using a vehicle. Like that's how when you talk about how me and you kind of like sync, it's these are the ways you preserve the natural world. The ways you maybe it's the influ we were we were in Sweden a year ago, so it's a way that we start to create those, the type of infrastructure that's needed for the future of Ana Rundel County, as well as make sure that we are addressing the transportation issues that of the traffic issues that come up. Because when you look any in Ana Rundel, it's either the two biggest, two of the bigger issues are always we need more housing or affordable housing. Yeah. And but then it's too much traffic. So we have to find the right way to address both. And I do think, again, chicken and egg.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:So we had the strategy that we ended up using on MPDUs, the having the requiring of moderately priced dwelling units. Developers said it's going to cost us too much money, and we couldn't get a majority of the council without getting the development community on board. Correct? That's we face that again potentially with traffic APF, that it's cost them money. And so does that. Does that mean that we're negotiating with MBIA and NAOP, the development lobby, exclusively to get council votes? That seems weird.
Janssen Evelyn:No, no, no. I don't I I don't look at it that way. I view it as because ultimately when you look at if NAOP and MBIA, if they represent a lot of the build the if they represent the builders, we want to make sure we know what their I need to know what their pain points with this bill are going to be. So I don't view it as negotiating. We've already I've during the summer we met with a variety of different groups, the council advocacy groups, including GAN, Act, et cetera, to discuss our transportation APF. And now that we are now that the bill is introduced, I want to make sure that when that bill is up for a vote, I know that with I can say, look, we'll get whether it's I would love 7-0 or 4-3 or 5-2. I so I want to make sure what are the pain points. But it goes back to how you said part of my job and this is what makes it sometimes difficult is listening and then not just reacting, but then saying, all right, negotiate.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Well you got to be creative too, come up with with a third way sometimes. Or we gotta be just play hardball too, sometimes. I mean, we played hardball on the NPDUs when I said we're not gonna pass any of these bills that benefit the developers that they want until we get this one done. And we waited for a year and then they find- you know, they were they were under pressure because there were some things they really wanted to get done, and we said not until we pass that bill. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
Janssen Evelyn:And I think that tactic made sense for that. I think this one, honestly, I think I need to I because I while I have a list of some of those issues, I want to make sure I fully hear it from the horse's mouth so that I can then look at staff because sometimes it's easy. This work group, the transportation work group was around since the SHUE administration. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Well, that's the thing, and we've been working on this for seven years, and can I say damn it on this show? Damn it. Let's get a bill forward and and have the debate. You know? Are we gonna be a county that moves toward environmentally and more equitable transportation systems, or are we just gonna are we just gonna go get in our big old cars and go parking lot to parking lot and build sprawl development and have huge you know, it it's we gotta do the hard thing sometimes. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
Janssen Evelyn:And so speaking of the hard thing.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:I know you agree with me. No, no, I do.
Janssen Evelyn:It's one of the things where uh everyone, whether I'm talking to the industry, council, staff, everyone knows my two North Stars on this bill are fix an outdated traffic APF and then start to future-proof. That's why, and I think everything, whether whether it's the original path, whether you're hardballing or it's going to be what is the third path.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:And it's great if we can get everybody on board. Correct. But we might not. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
Janssen Evelyn:No, I I I so this is where I I know I'm my superpower sometimes by kryptonite is that I'm eternally hopeful. And and even up to the last minute, I I this is something where I am hopeful, and that I think both people from the industry, as well as community advocates, as well as the council, I think I now have enough credibility with those three different sources to say, look, how do we make sure I get to yes?
County Executive Steuart Pittman:I guess the point here is that these land use issues are our future, and we often have the debate what comes first, you know, the health and who which is more important, the health and human service side or the land use side. And they're so integrated because you can destroy opportunity for people with land use or you can create opportunity for people. You can create a good quality of life or a really bad quality of life.
Janssen Evelyn:So can I say one last thing? Uh I promise you. You want to get the last word? No, not the last word. But what you just said, it was like I was in church and I was like, I just had to stand and agree. No, I do think land use, and I know I'm a sci-fi geek, but when I think about the matrix, I think, well, what is the red pill in the matrix? I do think land use is where like it's been my and I've been saying this when I ran last time, and when I when I'm doing my work now, land use is the land is the red pill in the matrix. Because all of those things from a HHS perspective, from uh from an educational perspective, if you have a safe space to be housed, you then it then opens up the possibility of for new futures for the people who have historically not have had had that access.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:So to me, And if you have livable communities, and I gotta say, developers have gotten a lot better at building stuff that works for human pe human beings. And you know, the sprawl developers don't have to worry about that. They just build a suburban, you know, the thing with the houses and somebody's gonna drive somewhere else to go shop and and then the commercial and the residential don't even talk to each other. Yeah. It's all it's all becoming one and it should. And sometimes you've got to get developers from the outside to come in who are more creative and are used to doing multi- you know, but um I also think it's because you have places where live, work, and play, right?
Janssen Evelyn:Trevor Burrus, Jr. Correct. But you also have people like like me and you that are now at that table. They're the ones making some of those decisions because they also have some of the same, while they have different interests, or I'm talking about even the same builders, uh because they're they're I I view the Trevor Burrus, No, we've got some creative ones.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:We have some creative ones. We have like who agree with the agenda, the public policy agenda. And then there are there are some who are a bit stick in the mud who've been calling the shots for too long. But I'm I'm just you know I'm But I think that's I've only got a year left and I'm not on the ballot, right? I can say whatever I want.
Janssen Evelyn:No, but I think that day, I think those people, even from a power perspective, I don't uh if you look at like who's going to have more power in the future, it's going to be the people in the industry or community advocates that realize like we want placemaking, we want community. The pandemic, and that's the thing, we can't escape it. It's been five years ago, but we can't escape how the pandemic made us one, it made us fair, but it also made us find and learn about community in a way that we had not up to that time. And I think those people, as they get into positions of more influence, whether it's politically, whether it's business, like, they can't lose that perspective. So again, I know I'm in I'm an eternally hopeful person, but I do believe, like, I I talk to many people like that. All right, Jansen. Yes.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Jansen, you tried to get the last word. I I won't have to. I'm gonna I'm gonna do the last word now. So and you're gonna agree with me. And this is gonna inspire everybody, I think, which is which is that the good news is that, yeah, everybody's at the table now. Everything's transparent now, and I've been really impressed with the way the developers are getting smarter and the advocates are getting smarter, whether they're advocate for the environment, advocate for affordable housing, or those two sides talking to each other. Yes. And and we got some people in this county now who've been through the region planning process, many of them, and they are smart. They have learned, they have learned policy and their minds have been open and they're at the table. And that gives me a lot of faith that you know when I'm not in that office and you're not in that office, there's still people in this county that are gonna, their values are strong and and they know how to how to talk about these issues and how to debate them. I agree with you. All right, yes, sir. Getting our jobs. Yes, sir. All right, well thanks, Janssen.
Janssen Evelyn:You're listening to the Pittman and Friends podcasts. If you like what you hear, please hit the subscribe button, share with a friend, and join us for the next episode.
