Resources

Try the shortcuts below to find the appropriate county agencies to answer your questions.

 

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Important Agencies

Here are agencies with jurisdiction over environmental and quality of life programs in the county and their web links:

Maryland Department of the Environment
http://www.mde.state.md.us/

Montgomery County Department of Environmental Protection
http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/deatmpl.asp?url=/content/dep/dephome/index.asp

Montgomery County Department of Permitting Services
http://permittingservices.montgomerycountymd.gov/dpstmpl.asp?url=/Main.asp

Maryland-National Capital Parks and Planning Commission
http://www.mncppc.org/commission_home.html
http://www.montgomeryplanning.org/

Montgomery County Department of Transportation
 Street tree program
http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/hwytmpl.asp?url=/content/dot/highway/tree.asp

Transportation Programs
http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/dottmpl.asp?url=/content/dot/index.asp

Maryland Department of Natural Resources
http://www.dnr.state.md.us/

County Legacy Open Space Program
http://www.montgomeryparks.org/PPSD/legacy_open_space/index.shtm

 

More Montgomery County Facts

Montgomery County, Maryland covers 316,800 acres directly to the north of Washington, D.C.  There are 89,000 acres of woodland in Montgomery County, with 31,513 acres held publicly and another 57,487 acres of woodland in private ownership.

The definition of forest used by the State of Maryland: Areas having at least 100 trees per acre of which at least 50% have a 2 inch or greater diameter at breast height.

Montgomery County adopted a Forest Conservation Law (FCL) in 1992 to respond to the State of Maryland’s mandate to enact a law in compliance with the State Forest Conservation Act (FCA)  The state determined that county forestry laws could be stronger than, but not weaker than the state FCA.

The county FCL was originally written to address conservation of upland forests.  At that time, we did not have the emphasis that we have now on building out densely developed urban neighborhoods and redeveloping areas of the county in order to avoid sprawl that would jeopardize the rural Up County.  The law seems to be working as intended in the early 1990s, yet it applies to land of 40,000 square feet or more and does not address individual trees or urban forest.