Montgomery council votes today on corridor speed cameras, a rent-algorithm ban and street-takeover fines

By Staff Reporter

ROCKVILLE, Md. — The Montgomery County Council is scheduled to take final votes Tuesday on three bills that would reach into residents’ daily lives: one letting the county put speed cameras along its most dangerous corridors, one banning landlords from using rent-setting algorithms, and one making participation in an illegal street takeover a misdemeanor carrying fines of up to $5,000.

Each bill cleared committee on Oct. 5 and is listed for a roll-call vote at Tuesday’s session, according to the council’s action staff reports posted in its legislative information system.

Speed cameras on the High Injury Network

Bill 17-26, introduced at the request of County Executive Marc Elrich and co-sponsored by Councilmembers Dawn Luedtke and Will Jawando, would authorize speed cameras in school zones with posted limits of at least 20 mph and on any road identified as high-risk in a state or county highway safety or Vision Zero plan. Controlled-access highways, expressways and interstates would remain off-limits. The bill relies on a 2025 state law, House Bill 1173, that let local governments use their high-injury crash corridors to site cameras.

The county now bars speed cameras on 60 of the 100 miles in its Vision Zero High Injury Network, according to the County Executive’s figures cited in the staff report. At a June 16 public hearing, Assistant Chief Administrative Officer Earl Stoddard testified that those corridors make up about 3 percent of county roadways but account for 41 percent of serious and fatal crashes. He said the bill would not add cameras to the county’s inventory of 76 red-light cameras, 38 fixed pole cameras, 96 portable units and six trailer units, but would widen where they can be placed.

The money is not trivial. The Office of Management and Budget said it could not estimate the bill’s fiscal impact, but noted that from fiscal 2015 through 2024, speed cameras averaged $177,513 in fines and $95,344 in expenses per camera per year, a net of about $82,169 each. The bill would also let the executive implement any future speed-camera authority Annapolis grants by executive order, without returning to the council.

The Transportation and Environment Committee voted 3-0 to recommend the bill and, at the executive branch’s request, made it an expedited bill. In an Aug. 11 memo, the executive branch said it had been working with the State Highway Administration to identify corridors and was prepared to issue permits, publish camera locations and begin enforcement.

A ban on rent-setting algorithms

Bill 8-26, sponsored by Jawando with Councilmembers Shebra Evans and Kristin Mink, would bar landlords from using or subscribing to an “algorithmic device” to set rents, fees, occupancy levels or lease terms, and from “price coordination” with other landlords. Each violation, and each day a violation continues, would be a separate Class A violation, according to the staff report.

The Planning, Housing and Parks Committee voted 3-0 on Oct. 5 to narrow the bill to tools that draw on “non-public competitor data,” matching an ordinance the City of Rockville adopted this summer. Monthly aggregated rent reports, data used for government affordable-housing programs and landlords with a single rental unit would be exempt. The budget office said the bill is not expected to require additional county spending.

The Apartment and Office Building Association of Metropolitan Washington opposed the bill in written testimony, calling algorithmic tools “an important revenue management resource” that can also lower rents when supply rises. Housing Justice Montgomery said it supports preventing “what should already be unlawful price fixing.” Jawando, in an Oct. 5 statement, cited Rockville’s law and Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown’s pending lawsuit against RealPage, a property-management software company. The Justice Department settled its own case against RealPage in November, Bethesda Magazine reported.

Street takeovers

Bill 27-26, from Councilmember Andrew Friedson and co-sponsored by Council Vice President Marilyn Balcombe and Councilmembers Sidney Katz and Luedtke, would make it a county offense to take part in an unlawful race, speed contest or street takeover as a timekeeper, flagger, starter or participant; to aid, promote or organize one; or to remain after a lawful order to disperse. Violations would be Class A misdemeanors. The Public Safety Committee, voting 2-0 with one abstention, raised the maximum fine from $1,000 to $5,000, the most state law allows, according to the staff report.

Friedson introduced the bill in June after a series of illegal car rallies in the county. Montgomery County police in April announced arrests in connection with a February takeover in Chevy Chase that damaged two police cruisers. Prince George’s County adopted a similar local ban earlier this year. Mink has proposed an amendment, listed for Tuesday, that would turn the bill’s list of takeover maneuvers into an exhaustive list so the definition does not reach beyond its intent.

Testimony at the July 14 hearing supported the bill, the staff report said, though some speakers asked the council to exempt protected protests explicitly and to extend coverage to parking lots and private property.

What comes next

Bills that pass go to Elrich for his signature. The Washington Inquisitor will update this story with the votes.

Photo: A speed enforcement camera on Wisconsin Avenue in Bethesda. Tony Webster / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.