The secret history of the “Holt Amendment” to Baltimore County Council Bill 16-25, as reported last week by The Brew, is a perfect example of why individual county residents and good-government groups including NeighborSpace of Baltimore County and We the People of Baltimore County have been complaining for years about the Council’s prolific use of zoning “text amendments” to change the uses allowed on individual properties.

The secrecy also raises questions about the conduct of the sponsor of both the bill and the Holt Amendment: Councilman David Marks.

The amendment makes a “combination” farm/software development and computer systems management business located in an RC-5 zoning district in Kingsville a permitted use. An RC-5 District falls under the rural “Resource Conservation” category of zoning districts.

Marks, a Republican, did not disclose that the amendment was solicited by Ken Holt, a former Republican state delegate and Maryland Secretary of Housing and Community Development under Governor Larry Hogan who owns a farm in Kingsville eligible for such use.

• Ex-Hogan cabinet secretary drafted zoning legislation that could benefit his Baltimore County estate (6/26/25)

Holt and Marks are longtime political allies, and Holt headed the “Reform Baltimore County” slate in 2010 that included Marks when Holt made his unsuccessful run for county executive and Marks made his successful run for County council.

Evidence that one or more provisions of Bill 16-25 were procured by someone with “sufficient influence to secure legislation” is relevant to determining whether it was an unconstitutional “special law” intended to “benefit or burden a particular member or members of a class instead of an entire class” as described by the Maryland Appellate Court in Howard County v. McClain (2022).

The argument that the Holt Amendment served any legitimate public purpose is dubious at best.

Marks’ failure to reveal Holt’s involvement, although it violated no law, denied county residents information bearing on the constitutionality of the bill that they had the absolute right to know.

Text Amendment Gambit

Bill 16-25 was the product of a controversial process used by the Council to circumvent limitations on its authority to rezone land.

The legislation was what is referred to in zoning parlance as a “text amendment.” Under state and county law, the County may legislatively rezone land (change the uses allowed on land) only through the Comprehensive Zoning Map Process (CZMP).

“Piecemeal” rezoning (changing the uses allowed on a single property) is an administrative process governed by explicit standards and is done by the county’s Board of Appeals.

Technically, the Council is not rezoning a targeted property. Instead, it is amending the “text” of the zoning regulations applicable to the zoning district.

The County Council circumvents the legal restrictions on its authority by adding one or more uses to a zoning district and placing detailed locational and other conditions on the new uses that have the effect of limiting the uses to the targeted properties.

Technically, the Council is not rezoning a targeted property through a bill like Bill 16-25.

Instead, it is amending the “text” of the zoning regulations generally applicable to the zoning district in which the property is located, albeit in a very strategic fashion.

Outside the Guardrails

Marks was not required by law to disclose Holt’s involvement because, when the Council began its routine use of text amendments to change the uses allowed on individual properties, it conveniently neglected to impose any procedural safeguards on the process.

The ad hoc, highly politicized process is inconsistent with careful, comprehensive land use planning and regulation. For example, it has produced a lot of market-rate condominiums in underutilized commercial corridors, but not one affordable dwelling unit.

It frequently results in the functional equivalent of “spot zoning,” which refers to changing the uses of parcels of land to uses out of character with the surrounding area.

Then there is the lack of transparency. Nowhere in local government is transparency more important in preventing abuse and outright corruption than in the regulation of land use and development.

Consequently, the identity of a landowner seeking a change in the uses allowed on his or her property through the CZMP, a petition for zoning reclassification (i.e., a piecemeal rezoning) or a planned unit development (PUD) is by law a matter of public record.

That is not the case when a landowner seeks a change in the uses allowed on his or her property through a text amendment, as the Holt Amendment demonstrated.

If nothing else comes out of the controversy over Bill 16-25, it should at least prompt the Council to enact procedural safeguards governing text amendments, beginning with absolute transparency.

The Council’s Complicity

Marks introduced Bill 16-25 to legalize what county inspectors alleged was the unlawful use of property owned by members of the Andrews family at 11957 Philadelphia Road in Kingsville for a commercial plumbing business on land also used for a Christmas tree farm.

The bill did so by adding “combination of a Christmas tree farm and a plumbing, mechanical, and utility company” as a permitted use in an RC-5 zoning district, but only if located in the Kingsville Regional Planning District.

After introduction of the bill, Marks proposed an amendment to the bill also adding a “combination of a farm and an auxiliary small business consisting only of software development and computer systems management” in the same zoning district.

Both uses may include outside storage of materials and equipment, warehousing and up to 25 parking spaces if “related” to the businesses, which made the bill especially troubling to neighbors in the rural community.

How could Council members, without asking questions, evaluate whether there was a public need for this amendment?

At the hearing on the amendment to the bill on April 7, Marks stated that it was “crafted after conversation with some of the residents in the area.” Oddly, neither he nor Legislative Counsel Thomas Bostwick, who further explained the amendment, identified the property targeted by the amendment or its owner.

Even more oddly, the other members of the Council didn’t ask, and passed the amendment by unanimous vote.

Without having answers to those questions, how could the members evaluate whether there was a public need for the amendment that justified any private benefit? Answer: They couldn’t.

Were all seven Council members complicit in keeping the source of the amendment from the public?

A Fine Legal Line

There is a fine line between a lawful text amendment and a text amendment that constitutes a “special law” prohibited by Article III, Section 33 of the Maryland Constitution. As described in Howard County v. McClain, “a special law is one that relates to particular persons or things of a class, as distinguished from a general law which applies to all persons or things of a class.”

A text amendment invariably is introduced by the council member in whose district the targeted property is located and, because of the Council’s rigid adherence to “councilmanic courtesy,” it almost always passes.

As noted in the McClain case, one of primary reasons for the prohibition against special laws is to “prevent one who has sufficient influence to secure legislation from getting an undue advantage over others.” The court stated that is where a determination whether a text amendment constitutes a special law should begin.

In other words, the fact that the amendment was solicited by a longtime political ally of Marks can be used as evidence that the Holt Amendment was intended for the private benefit of someone who had sufficient influence to secure its introduction, rather than to serve a public need or interest.

Making a Bad Bill Worse

Neither of the two commercial uses now permitted in rural Kingsville serve an obvious public need or interest.

On the other hand, the private interests of the Andrews family clearly benefited from the original language of the bill. The beneficiaries of the Holt Amendment are a matter of contention.

Holt told The Brew that the amendment “had no benefit to me whatsoever,” although the facts indicate that, if he wishes, he can take advantage of it.

Holt and his son-in-law, Carson Wright, are co-founders of Next in Line, Inc., which developed and markets veterinary appointment scheduling software and lists Holt’s large horse farm in Kingsville as its principal place of business.

Wright and his wife live next to Holt’s farm on land that Holt sold to them in 2021.

Wright is listed as chief technology officer of Next in Line, and Holt works at the company’s office in Baltimore during the week. The company launched a new product, Vet Suite, last December.

Holt’s farm is in an RC-5 zoning district within the Kingsville Regional Planning District, and the bill would allow the farm to be “combined” with a software development and computer systems management business as a permitted use.

Whether Holt gained a private benefit and an “undue advantage” from the amendment he requested would be an issue in litigation challenging Bill 16-25 as a special law.

In my opinion, Bill 16-25 was vulnerable to challenge as a special law before the Holt Amendment. The amendment made a bad bill even worse.

Text amendments like Bill 16-25 are a key component in the elevation of individual council members to the status of zoning czars within their own councilmanic districts.

Marks and his colleagues tout the process as a way to “solve problems” for constituents. Perhaps, but it is also highly effective for use in currying political favor and soliciting campaign contributions.

When it comes to text amendments, I suspect that the only unusual thing about Bill 16-25 was that, on this occasion, the Council actually got caught hiding important information from the public.

• David A. Plymyer retired as Anne Arundel County Attorney after 31 years in the county law office. To reach him: dplymyer@comcast.net and Twitter @dplymyer.