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What’s a City, and Is it Columbia? · Between Villages

• S1Ep1 What is a City FINAL: This podcast is brought to you by Columbia Association. I'm Hannah. And I'm Lauren. Collectively, for over a decade, our ears have been to the streets. The Columbia Streets. We've listened to, been a part of, and even hosted a few Columbia conversations. God, please don't bring that up. Oops, my bad. The point is we're here with the conversations people have been wondering about for years. We're asking the questions and sometimes even answering them. This is Between Villages Podcast. Hey Hannah. Hey Lauren. If Maryland is not a state, but a cult, what does that make Columbia? I heard it was a city, one of the healthiest and happiest, according to some. Well, is it though? what is a city? And is it Colombia? Legally? Yeah, kind of. I mean, walk with me here for a second. Does it have a mayor? No mayor. Does it have a downtown? Thriving. Does it have more than a hundred thousand amazing residents? Last time I checked. But I still think we may not be a city, even though it really feels like a city. And maybe we're just cosplaying as one. Okay. I'm picking up what you're putting down. I think that's the question we should toy with today. But I think we got some folks in the room who are probably wondering who in the world we are and why we're yapping in their ears right now. We're gonna be doing a lot of yapping on Between Villages, but it only makes sense to kick off this podcast with exploring what is Colombia. Exactly. I personally love Columbia now, and I'll be the first to say, yes, I work for Columbia Association proudly, and I'm not a Colombian by zip code, but I am by heart in love. Shouldn't that count for something? Can I steal that from you? Yes, you can. Put it on a bumper stick. Okay. We don't just commute to Colombia. No. We spend a lot of lot a lot of time here spending time with the people and the places, the pathways, and the parks. Colombia's a good time. But is it a city? I think the answer to that is probably simple, but I can't get past the fact that it feels like a city. And to my knowledge, was Supposed to feel like this a city, designed to feel that way? I did take a little field trip to look into that some. Okay. Where did we go? Went to the Columbia Maryland Archives. It has Columbia's whole history and lore. And it turns out most things in Colombia, the to be or not to be a city was a very intentional decision. Let's take that road for a second. To be or not to be a city. Why wouldn't we just be a city? It's a good question. So one reason was a little bit, if it's not broke, don't fix it. Jim Rouse, the founder of Columbia, and his team thought that there was power in partnering with Howard County because they were a confident and responsive and efficient government. Listen, I've seen those pictures in the archives and some coverage of Columbia. When we look at Columbia before Rouse did his thing with buying up the property and such, I always forget that there was. a whole life of people in Howard County sandwiched right between the major metros in Baltimore and in DC. It was stuff here besides just farmland. Yeah, I wouldn't say it was popping, but things were running smoothly and Rouse thought that there was power in joining forces and not causing a division. Except financially. Okay. What do you mean by that? Okay. So Rouse had his whole vision for this community with pathways and things to do. And he was literally trying to draw everyone here onto the farmland. But that couldn't just happen overnight. And financially, by not making it, by not incorporating, it could be done without going into massive debt. I think you're on to something right there. I can only imagine how much money it costs to a Buy the land, survey the land, figure out what was happening in the space, design what could be there, build the buildings, and do the marketing. It sounds like those bills were super high even for the 50s. Correct. I was gonna say, even back then. So his solution was to create Columbia Association, our employer, and have them. fund those recreation and amenities so that they could happen. I see what you mean here. When we look at the history of CA, we have almost 60 years of creating spaces and places for people to do their thing, be with community, be among their neighbors, and have most of what they need right in their back yard, like shopping malls and village centers and lakes. Gotta love the lakes. Correct. And another thought was nobody needs another layer of government, bureaucracy. So by just leaning on Howard County to take care of that admin and having CA take care of making things look beautiful and providing the fun, it kind of seems like the best of both worlds. I see what you mean there. When you look at history of towns and cities, it seems like there's always a fight about the purse strings and the money's there and then it's not and then it's there and then it's not. And it sounds like Rouse was pretty actively trying to avoid that. He was. And he made it happen in just a few years, which is crazy when you think about it, that he had this vision in his head. He made it happen from nothing. So okay. It still doesn't answer the question though. Maybe I'm just rambling on and it's not a real question. But if we're getting all of these accolades for being healthy city, happiest city, the one that got me the least sinful city, why does it feel like such a city? And what does it even mean to be one? Who who knows? I think we bring in an expert on. Planning and zoning and maybe she's even a friend of ours. I think I know who you're talking about, but clue me in. Jessica Bella, resident and a planning and zoning expert to help us stop beating this dead horse. Absolutely. I think Jessica may be the perfect person to help us break this down, considering she knows us, loves us, and also is a part of this community. Yeah. So let's get into it. We are so excited to welcome Jessica Bella today. She is a planning and zoning baddie and a friend of the pod. Mm-hmm. Go ahead, Jessica. We're so happy to have you run down that CV because y'all is looking like a CVS receipt. Well, thank you guys for having me. I'm really excited to be talking with you again. I guess I'll just kind of start with the overhead: is I'm I'm a certified planner with the American Planning Association. I've worked at a lot of different levels. and a lot of different places in Maryland. So started out my postgraduate career at City of Greenbelt, which is incorporated municipality, also a master plan community. then came to work for five and a half years as a community planner at Columbia Association, which is where I met you ladies. hey. and also got to work in this community for a long time. got recruited into the deputy director role for Howard County Planning and Zoning. realized that was not the perfect role for me. floated for a year doing some contract planning work. And now I've landed as a facilities planner at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. So that's my my shortlist elevator. That is a lot of planning and a lot of knowledge in your head that we're hoping to dig into. But before we do, everyone that comes sit on the couch, you being the inaugural, of course, we have to ask you a very, very important question. And that's What's your relationship status with Columbia? Are you married, friends with benefits, divorced? What is it? Transplant and lifetime partner, I guess, is how I would put it with Colombia. I like that. I definitely relationshipped into it, whereas I I met my now husband when he was living here. and then it was really funny is Columbia is obviously a community that's studied as part of planning work. So I first was introduced with Columbia in a very academic sense of like this is its importance on the timeline of planning history. And then I came to visit and I was like, well this is interesting actually going around here and now this is my home and I wander the trails and I'm actually a Columbia resident and I pay my CA dues. And you know, my daughter's gonna go and learn to swim in all the pools and things like that. So I, you know, I definitely benefit directly from all the amazing assets that we have here. And When I worked here, I was very plugged in to the political and the social community. And now I'm just experiencing it purely as a resident, disconnected from that slightly. So it's had a little bit of everything so far. I love that. Sounds like Columbia put a ring on it. We love her too. And it sounds like you're the perfect person to answer the question that really is kicking off our podcast because we can't have a podcast talking about Colombia and All things community without first getting into what is Columbia? Well, it always depends. Like most things are, well, what do you mean? What's the context? What do you mean that? I think, you know, people in the know will always rattle off the big things. Master plan community. They if they know more, they might bring up Rouse. on a like purely technical level. It's a census designated place. Like if I was if someone in California was like, I have to do a book report on Columbia, they might raise that issue. but other than that, it's it's a community within Howard County within Maryland. That's kind of the base answer. You can dig further. we're digging. We're absolutely digging because I'm not one to argue with the sciences. I will never be one of those girlies. However, one of Validate the emotions around this community that we're in. Because if you Google us or chat us, if you're into that kind of thing, we're coming up with all of the accolades about how great of a city we are. So how does a place like us, a census-designated please? Yep. That is a mouthful. But How do we come to this type of identity crisis? Because we can't be the only ones. Well, actually, I think Colombians are maybe more cognizant of it because I think, particularly those who moved here when it was first getting built out and really were buying into the vision of it as a master plan community, you know, they were very interested in what the technical terms are. I think the majority of people use the word city just to refer to. It's a place we all recognize and there's a sizable population there. And then we say village and towns for slightly smaller populations. it's it's a colloquial term. It's not really a technical term. city is gonna mean something completely different in the United States than almost any other country. You know, what they would consider a city is gonna be completely different. because a lot of it's based on it's your history, it's your history of development. It's the language that you use and the way words form form meaning. so I think there's like when you guys told me, hey, we want to talk about Columbia and what a city is, I was like, Lord, I gotta I gotta kinda look that up 'cause I was like, I I don't off the top of my head, I don't know what it is. And so I dug into it a little bit and I was like, okay, the reason I didn't have a like firm answer is there's there's no firm answer. you know, it's every st in like just focusing on America. Every state in America gets to define for itself what like an incorporated city is. And some of them have requirements for like it must be this many acres, it must have this amount of population, it must have these characteristics. and those things change over time. But like, let's focus on Howard County. Howard County doesn't have any incorporated cities. But so like Ellicott City, which we all told. a city and we all consider it to be a city, it's not legally a municipality, what legally makes up a municipality in and Maryland is defined by Maryland law. and it's changed over time. so like you can you can really dig into like the background of like Maryland's you know its charter and the land use articles and the powers that's grounded to the counties and how it's allowed municipalities to incorporate or not. but I think when you're talking about Columbia, what you really have to focus on is what Rouse says he wanted. He wanted something different than a series of residential neighborhoods that make up suburbs or exurbs of Baltimore and Washington. He wanted a complete city. And what he meant by that is I want schools, I want jobs, I want recreation, I want housing, I want a community where everything people need or want to fulfill their lives is in a central location and they feel like that altogether makes up a city. So I think that's that's what you mean by Columbia. And when you say census designate place, when you're talking like the technical term, I think the three criteria the census uses is it has to have like a sizable population. a certain amount of density to that population and it has to be locally recognized as a distinct place. those are the general terms that they use. And that it's changed through the years, but which Columbia has all that. But I and I will ramble on. I'm so sorry. but one of the things I love I always find interesting, because I'm a planner and then talk zoning and everything else is like if you look at the actual boundaries of like the census designated place, a lot of King's Contrivance and most of Dorsey search get cut off. 'Cause they they centralize it. They kinda use Maryland 108 as a as a northern boundary. So it it's not the way that we locally consider Colombia. And we always make the distinction of like, are you part of Colombia or are you like out parcel? And and the only difference there is do you pay the CA lean or not? Like that's that's the and that's not a governmental distinction, that's a private distinction. I'm glad you brought that up because in my research I kept seeing the Swiss cheese problem. And I was gonna ask you about Colombia's fondue situation. Yeah, because we are melting and there's a lot of holes in these answers. Well, I mean, one of the things is Colombia, because of the size, like the amount of land that the RAS Corporation was able to acquire to build out Colombia. has now taken over this area, but the the parcels of land it was not able to acquire, like all view, were here before it. So, you know, there was Howard County is largely farming. And there were a few kind of pockets of development, you know, Alicott City, Lipson, those areas that were kind of sprinkled throughout, and they were little towns and villages. some cities, based on the time period, Savage. And then you were starting to get the the pressure of suburban development. And you're start so you're starting to see these 1950, 1960s residential communities coming to Howard County and being built out. And then Rouse was like, Well, he kind of created a bunch of dummy corporations and just started purchasing as much land as he possibly could. And he And he whatever he could acquire, he was gonna make part of his city. And so the Swiss cheese, the alparcels are the the things that didn't get purchased up. So I'm sure if we interviewed them, they'd be like, We were here before you. What we are not Colombia. You came here to us. You mean to tell me that a man traveled to some place on another land, let's say America, and decided to get a bunch of names and re land and rename it away from the people that were there. That's something that happens here. It happens. I think it happens sometimes for good reason. I mean, there's nothing wrong with purchasing land and deciding to acquire it all. I think some of the most interesting like newspaper articles to read are back from the air before before Rouse announced what I what I'm doing here. You know, All people in Howard County knew is all this land is getting bought up by all these different things. So like the the property I live in that is a C ASS property right now was purchased by a a gravel company. That's who bought that land. Like and then it was like, you know, it was like his little company. Yeah. But it was I it was Rouse, it was just the front for it because he didn't want to like, you know, to keep prices low, he had to kinda hide a little what he was doing. But, you know, once he acquired the land, he was like, I have a vision. He had to sell the vision and he had to sell the vision to the government of Howard County. Yeah. Cause he had to get them on board to say, I need you to change your zoning and your laws so that I can do what I think would this would be an awesome opportunity to do here and look at all the benefits for you, Howard County. Like it was very much a partnership. It was very much a negotiation. You can read through. there were land swaps involved. we in this era, I think we simplify a lot of the I honestly really awesome things that Rouse Corporation was trying to do. He was very progressive for his era. He was really doing really important work. There's a reason Columbia studied and part of the planning timeline in history. but like River Hill, well, like the residents were originally supposed. the residential like homes were supposed to be built in the valley that is now the protected conservation woodlands, you know, area. That was a landslop deal with Howard County because Howard County wanted to protect that area. So and the negotiation for like the amount, the percentage of open space, like the 36% dedicated open space, that was mostly Howard County really pushing for that and getting that number up. So it was very much a partnership between them of trying to figure out Well, what do we want to do with our community? And I think the things that are really interesting for planning and covenant nerds and real estate nerds is when you dig into the kind of Columbia Association covenants and not the ones that control people's individual homes, but the ones for the open space. And you look at the lines of everything that Columbia Association was like. enabling itself to do. It was like, and it may build roads and have street lights and do parks and rec and it can do all these things that were we would traditionally associate with a city. Right. And that was partly because when you come to a mostly rural county and say, I want to build a really large city here, they're gonna look at you like, we cannot afford to service a city. Like we cannot provide the roads and the power and the utility and the schools and the parks and wrecks that this community's gonna demand. And so part of what Rouse was doing was he was kind of sweetening the deal. He was saying, well that's gonna kind of be self-funded. You know, we're gonna have this lean, we're gonna have this organization, they're gonna take care of a lot of these things. And so like that's that's the partnership we're forming. So So it sounds like we have all of the things that would make the cut for having a city and being a city, like the transportations and like how we the governance behind it and the who does what but we're missing some legal documents and some agreements with the county and the state to actually be a city. I think all the nomenclature for me is confusing because you use the term master plan community. And we can dig into what in the world that is. But also in my research, suburb is not a real thing either. I mean it is. It just help me that term has morphed over time. So I'll start with the suburb. So generally, most of American history before, I mean, honestly, before automobiles really became like a bridge the gap of how far people could travel in a single day. These of that is you would have these pretty dense clusters of population. And those were traditionally what we thought of as cities. that's where you have those big groupies of cities and then smaller cities along like major routes, typically port cities, like along transportation routes. That's typically where cities and communities get built. And it's particularly where there's economic incentive. So you'll have it along rivers, you would have it along the railroads. major exchange points, even just, you know, road, crossroad towns and villages, places where it made sense because people were stopping for one reason or another, and typically commerce was going on. And then when you started getting you started kind of the first time you really saw it, and I'm I'm I'm simplifying and condensing a lot of history to something, but you started get streetcar suburbs. And so that's when you started getting particularly wealthy individuals could start accessing the areas around big cities to access less densely populated areas. And they would they were running these streetcar lines out to them, these kind of mini railroad lines. And so you would start to get and that's when you got the first suburbs. and so like that's Lawyers Hill in Howard County is kind of one of those. If you go down into College Park area, College Park, Berwin Heights, those areas were streetcar suburbs. And they were and they were spoking off of Baltimore or Washington as the main cities that were driving them. And and obviously there's different cities, but those are kind of the mega cities. And then the car comes along, and so what becomes a suburb gets a lot wider and a lot more dispersed. And then you start having these little suburb communities being built up along big road investments. If you look at aerial photography of when Columbia was built before 32 went through, as 95 was being designed, Columbia really was built on the backs of these major roads. And also it's the investment into Colombia justified those roads going in. So Rouse was really at the right time in the right place because he's he wasn't a fool. He was good at identifying places. Industrial expansion and I would say inventions happening and what's the word that I'm looking for? Life was lifing technological drivers. Yeah. Technological advancements. We had some this landscape changing changed how we talk about the landscape. Mm-hmm. Okay. And then as things have evolved, now we have kind of what we call excerbs, which are Those are the places that are between the city, but not in the main city and but and the suburb. So they're like the kind of the first ring. So you start having these rings around the city, depending on how close you are. And you're partly doing it based on development patterns. So what makes Columbia suburban community versus a rural community? Well, it's our density and the land uses that are here. The fact that we have, you know, an economic sector for jobs and offices and industry. industry, those things, that's what makes it more of a suburban community than just and then you'll have the bedroom suburban communities where you you mostly only have residential and then retail services that need to directly serve that. So Wow. Okay. So what I'm hearing is maybe we're overthinking the city and suburb thing, but we are for sure a master plan community. Yes, we're absolutely a master plan community. it sounds so nefarious on its face, but it's really not. It's just it's just a different planning history, if if I was geeking out on you guys, is always interesting because there's always been people interested in designing how people live and where I mean the Romans were designing cities. They were literally had their like, and every place we establish this, we're gonna put the fort here and we'll have this here, and we'll have this here, and it's gonna be these crossroads, and this will be the entrance where the fort goes. And then they were just like, and we'll put it here. here and we'll put one here across the entire, European continent and up into Britain and heading out to Asia. So like that's some of the earliest like town planning you see is like Roman expansion. I'm sure there's a lot earlier than that because p humans have always figured out, hey, maybe we shouldn't like, you know, maybe we should put that rock over there. Yeah. Let's let's put it let's let's let's put our trash pile like downstream of our water. source, that's the basis of planning. It's just like where do we put things out? and you've had different movements. You've had the Garden City movement, and you've had different kind of as it be as planning became a like a professional enterprise, you had different expertise in people studying how people lay out land and like City of Greenbelt is also a master of planned community and it was actually a a federally planned community. Wow. And it was taking various movements and basically saying, hey, we want to have a dense community here and we want to set it up in this way and we want to put a like a big it's called Green Belt 'cause it literally had like a wooden forested belt around it, the green belt that would surround it. Literal, I like it. Yeah. And so and then when you got into the Columbia area, you had really an explosion of master plan communities happening. You had Reston coming up, and Columbia just on its heels. And so there was There was a great interest in look because people were starting to look at the suburban communities that were just being that were just kind of coming up naturally. and you'll heard the term like suburban sprawl, which is basically that's it's kind of the the counterweight to master plan suburban communities, which is basically like instead of individual land developers buying up land and then building what they were allowed to build there. And then that having impacts on what the on, you know, and then retail would follow them because it follows the money and and you just kind of have these pockets of development happening without like a heavy hand of planning happening. So instead, master plan communities, there's so many different examples, but typically it's a larger developer or community having an idea of we want to have a more centralized approach to this. Columbia, if I was like, if someone wasn't familiar with Columbia at all and they were like, well, what made Columbia important for planning from the planning history perspective, what I was taught in school was what really made Columbia interesting and unique was it was one of the first communities where they were like, instead of just bulldozing everything and just building whatever we want without regard to the environmental features that are here, why not we like look at the steep slopes and hydrology and we'll just do different transparent layers of those and then figure out where we think people should where we should build based on these environmental features. And then they also had a lot of social engineering in Columbia. you had to because a part of that plan community aspect to your point about planning how people live is In the case of Colombia was outright defiance of the social and kind of political landscape that was happening in Maryland and across the country, especially when we look at civil rights and what was happening to people. Rouse was literally engineering a more inclusive environment and the laws around how to govern. These people abroad weren't even keeping up with his vision at the time. actually, some of what he was doing would be considered unconstitutional right now. Because he would literally take a call de sac and be there's 10 houses, and I think we need to have two black families here and two white families here and a Jewish family here and a Catholic family here, an Hispanic family here. And he would literally be like, That's how we're going to designate. And now you're like, Well, that is also unconstitutional because now you're now you're over. He was very much like that's what's so unique is that he was very much a firm believer and he he walked the walk of this is an inclusive community. I wanna make sure that like all racial groups and ethnic groups can live together, and really interestingly for the time period, socioeconomic groups. You know, he was like, I wanna put apartments in townhomes next to single family detached homes, which was very unique in suburban development because he wanted people of different economic incomes to be able to all be part of the same community and to to socialize and gather. And you can always critique a lot of how things ended up and intent, but the intent of Columbia was, I mean, I still remember when I first came to work for Columbia Association, the planner who'd hired me, Jane Demner, who's amazing, she she gave me as like a welcoming patch because this memo that Rouse wrote up. Because apparently some of the real estate agents who were starting to sell his the housing developments had started only showing them to white individu white families and was not and he basically was like, That's great. you're not gonna be allowed to sell any more homes in Columbia. And here's a memo that's gonna go out to all my real estate partners explaining what an inclusive community is and what I expect from you guys. And so it was like in his own words and and I think that was always kind of a foundational memo when I was like, man, this this man pretty awesome. Rouse was a AMB. And absolutely in my backyard. I didn't know where you were going with that. I feel like he took the if you fail to plan, you plan to fail super seriously. And I mean, today, as we talked about, we are on those lists of healthiest cities, happiest cities. And it does bring up the questions of did all that intentionality manifest in the quality of life we enjoy today? Absolutely. I think so. there's always gonna be coincidences in history, but I think a lot of the human-centric and human focused planning work that went into Columbia is what made the quality of life so strong. there was a really heavy emphasis on recreation and learning and supporting human condition. And that's something that can get lost a lot of times. people forget human scale planning in a lot of ways. We are so I realize we are just veering down into talking about Columbia, not so much like Columbia as a city itself, that I think the main thing is that yeah, he wanted it to be able to exist on its own. But he also he chose its location very intentionally as it's between Washington DC and Baltimore County. Baltimore City. Like it's like these are economic drivers. There's going to be jobs. This corridor is going to fill in. And I'm gonna make this Lindsay. And I think if I'm remembering correctly, I think Columbia is the largest city outside of Baltimore. It is. In Maryland. So, it is if it were a city. If it were a city. Well, how would you draw the city lines? There's a difference between what's part of the city versus what's the municipal laundry. See, you're turning into one of us. See. So, you know, playing bringing some games and lightheartedness into the understanding. I have a challenge for you. no. Can you in twenty seconds or less explain who runs Columbia? Because cities would have a mayor. Howard County runs. Which we don't have. So who runs this? Howard County. Your elected city council and your county executive run Columbia. But we have villages. Yes, but those are private HOAs. But we have Columbia Association, which is an HOA on steroids. Is it fair to say Columbia is like a three-legged stool in the unique way that it runs? Yes. I mean, I'm not let me put it this way. Columbia Association is legally an HOA. That's how it is defined in Maryland Code. But it also has an operating budget that is three to five times most municipalities of in Maryland. And the kind of services that Columbia Association and the villages provide to their residents are typically the kind of services that incorporated municipalities in Maryland provide. Like most communities that are incorporated, I guess we I don't know, we'll have to circle back and talk about what it means to be incorporated. But a lot of times some of the biggest services they provide to their residents is wreck and parks. And that's that's that's a lot of what they provide to people. some provide policing powers, some have chosen to take up zoning and actually control for land use. and but but in general it's it's kinda a lot of the The day-to-day services and the way that residents in Columbia interact with Columbia Association. It's partly why sometimes they think Columbia has a city government, is because of this. I remember when I worked here, I used to get calls all the time of people asking me about zoning questions that I was like, I really like I can answer some of these, but I need to refer you to the Howard County who has this power and this authority, you know. And it's it's it was hard for people to understand it. I'm so glad you are taking it there because one of the questions we have that didn't come from us necessarily. We listened to the people is this constant notion of wait, shut, incorporate. And so if we can for a second talk about what it means to be incorporated and in a perfect future in the next 7500 years if all things were to remain the same. How that could or could not happen for us here in Maryland. Okay. Like is not being incorporated our superpower? So there's no firm, there's the right answers here. And let me, I'm gonna caveat this. I am not a land use lawyer. I'm not necessarily an expert on this. but my understanding is trying to decide how far back how to blow it up. But Maryland in general, how Maryland set itself up is essentially the state said, I want to give local like governance, including like land use and zoning and the ability to tax. Those powers are granted to the counties and municipalities of Maryland, except for anything I decide to hold on to myself and anything I decide to preempt. So they basically said, unless unless we want to do it, you guys can just do it. You run with it. You have the authority. But most of that power is given to the counties. Maryland has really strong county systems. And I think in I think it was 1954. I want to say in nineteen fifty-four, before this happened, essentially if a community wanted to incorporate, if it said, Hey, we are a unique entity, we have certain things we want to do, we don't feel like we're accomplishing that when we're interacting with our county. Instead, we want to be an an incorporated municipality. they would do a petition or a referendum and those would go to the General Assembly. And so the state general assembly was basically having to deal with this all the time. And they were like, it's a lot of work, and we don't think it's serving our interests or your interests very well. We we want to spend time on some other things. So in 1954, they made a change to the rules for incorporation to become municipality. And they basically said the counties get to have kind of final say on that. So now if you and as a result, there have actually been very few municipal incorporations in Maryland since 1954. There's been a few. I think some of the last ones to happen were the 1990s. and I might be out of date on that. And I know there's communities that talk about it all the time. But my understanding of the generalized process, and forgive me if this is inaccurate, there's probably a a land use lawyer expert out there screaming. but it's right into us. We accept your emails. but basically that you you kind of have to have You have to have a group and they have to say, we want to incorporate, and they're supposed to form an organizing committee, and then they have to form a petition and they have to submit the petition to their county, and the county council has to accept it and review it and comment on it. And then the county essentially gets to say yes or no. And so for counties, one thing you have to think about when you think about what does it mean to be incorporated is, and every structure is different for every particular city and their county that they exist in, is Okay, are we doubling the taxes? Are you now paying city taxes and county taxes? Are we like Prince George's County and Laurel and and City of Greenbelt? The people paid a Greenbelt City tax and they paid a tax to Prince George's County, but it was a reduced rate from people who were not in Greenbelt. And that was the county acknowledging that City of Greenbelt is providing. Policing and park and rec services that we're not having to provide because and so you're gonna and we know that you're you the people are being taxed twice there, kind of. So we're gonna reduce our rates slightly. But then like Greenbelt didn't have zoning authority. That's still I should stay away from Prince George's and Montgomery County because there's there's the whole Maryland National Capital Park and Planning Commission thing is its own beast. but Essentially when you incorporate, you have and you're saying, I want to incorporate you in part of your petition, you have to say, and this is going to be my charter and this is going to be my structure. I'm going to be a mayor council government. And these are the services I'm going to provide to my community. This is everything we're going to do. and then the county has to look at that and and accept it or not. And so a county could look at that and say, this is great. You're gonna take some of the burden off the county and take some of that. self-governing resources onto yourself. But most of the time the county's probably going to look at that and say, why would we want to reduce our tax revenue? You know? And why wouldn't we want to also maintain certain decision making in this area? You know, Columbia's big enough now and centrally located in Howard County. And it's so intertwined with county services, like who maintains the road? That it it would be hard to figure like parse out who does what. And and I think you have to the community kind of has to talk about why does it want to incorporate? What is it getting that it doesn't have right now? And most of the time it's people want they want more localized control. So they want the ability to have kind of a hyperlocal focus on investments we want to make in our community. And a lot of times that stems from them feeling like, The county government is not responsive to our local needs. But and I will ramble on the thing that most people who are interested in corporating don't think about is the overhead expenses of maintaining a government. I know it's expensive, but it must be expensive. And you were mentioning CA kind of being in the heart of all of this with all of the services that you get for the annual charge which you pay out your pocket. And how it's this massive budget that you wouldn't typically get from a municipal and you get to experience all of these things with it. It is almost like having a separate city tax because of the not only the amenities that Columbia Association provides, but also it has a governance structure which unfortunately most people don't participate in. We have a a very low amount of actual participation in our voting, but we do have democratic representation and system set up for that. Most incorporated cities, they don't maintain their own they don't maintain schools. That's still a county level function. And the county still mo often maintains many things in that community. and it is the overhead is expensive. You gotta admin administrative run like to administratively run a government. cost money because you have to pay a lot of people to to make it function and make it work. and you're taking on that burden into a much smaller and smaller community. and then I just have to put a plug in here. Part of the argument for governance at all, like for the entire system that we as humans have created is the idea of that we're gonna collectively pool our resources. And invest back into our community because there's certain things we can't do individually that we can do collectively. And when you have county or state level organizations, some small communities are gonna feel left out because what counties do is they pool money and then they can do bigger projects at different locations throughout their county that they wouldn't be able to like that individual community could not possibly fund by itself. And so Functional counties and functional governments are responsive to all of its people and they think through the needs of all the community members and they try to not just equally but equitably distribute the resources collected throughout the entire community. And if you have strong functioning government, you will have representatives who care and look after all the individual communities they have. And I think a lot of times. the call or the consideration for incorporation is people think my voice is not being heard. The people I talk to are they feel like their voice isn't being heard at the at the existing governance structure. And so if we just had more local control, then it would be the way I want it to be or and we'd have more control over that. Maybe, maybe not. You might just have more pockets. You might just now have a neighborhood that feels left out of the decision making rather than a community that feels left out of the decision making. And I think one of the challenges with talking about incorporation is it is going to leave out commun like, say Columbia Incorporated, and it decided to take on and the and the county was like, blessings to you. Go do your own thing. And Columbia said, great, we'll take on the roads that you currently maintain. We're gonna do all the parks and rec, we're gonna do zoning and land use. Cause I think that honestly, a lot of Colombia, that's really what they want. They just want more land use and zoning control over things because Colombia is really cognizant of the master plan community and the legacy of that. And so people are really plugged into that aspect of it. and even at the county said, sure, you can do all those things. Well, now what happens to the communities on the fringe of what doesn't get incorporated? Are they are they no longer being served by a governance structure that's considering the needs of everyone in Howard County? Or are they being left out? I think that's something to be cognizant of as I think about this. So we're talking a lot about services and the interplay of Howard County Columbia Association and the villages. So I feel like this calls for maybe a little lightning round. Okay, well, I'm gonna put on my theater child hat. I'm gonna ask a question and you tell me where to go. We're calling you. Ring, ring, ring. My kid needs a public school. Who should I talk to? you need to talk to the Howard County School System. Okay, okay. Here's another thing. My role needs fixing the road, Jessica. The roads. I'd say, and can you tell me the road? And then the first thing I'll tell you is the entity you need to go talk to. Okay. She said it could go a neat a a few different ways. Okay. I want to go swimming. There are so many pools and I want to go to one. Who do I call here in Columbia? that's Columbia Association and just just a plug. They're really awesome and convenient and well taken care of and the lifeguards are spectacular. Okay. A C, C, C. Okay. Two more. I want to advocate for something to come to my village. I live in one of these village, I'm a village people. Bring it here to me. Eight of the village centers are owned by a single corporate entity. And it's basically like trying to call up the the developed land developer of your local Walmart and saying, I want my Walmart to bring this. It's that same structure. It's a private corporation that's running an economic like So like village boards? Nope. It depends if you're talking about your village center and you're talking about the retail of your village center. It's a private corporation that owns and maintains that. Something totally different. Yeah. Although most village centers have CA owned property on which community centers are placed and the local village boards manage those spaces. So if you want to do something on CA owned property in combination with your village board, that's a good conversation to have with them. But most of the village centers are just private and it's gonna make every Colombian, they're gonna cringe, they're gonna roll over. They're basically glorified strip malls. So it's it's the equivalent of trying to call up the owner of your local strip mall and saying, Hey, I want such and such to come here. Wow. Now don't get me wrong, they're prettier and they're nicer and they're better run and we like the way that they're planned, but that's what they are. Final one. I dream of being the mayor of Colombia. the mayor of Columbia. I think that that might be the kind of the CEO of CA. Lord Jesus. I mean, if it's purely ceremonial, I it's like Queen of England level mayor, like, but it's the governance structure for Parks and Rick. But to clarify, Columbia does not have a mayor. It does not. If you actually want to talk to the ex the like elected representative it's the county executive of Howard County. my goodness. That was so fun. I don't think we're ever going to stop asking questions. And I don't know if we just opened up the floodgates of our inbox or increased the identity crisis. But I'm so glad we got to do this with you. You can say col it's you know, Columbia. People just Columbia. People know what that is. Columbia, Maryland. That's the place. Yeah. It's a city, it's a place, it's a community. We're exactly who we say we are. Columbia, Maryland. You just need to actually figure out who who legally is responsible for something. when you want to get something done. Well, thank you for getting into the nitty gritty, educating us, giving us more questions. I tried my best. I'm not gonna pretend I'm an expert on everything, but it was interesting to to dig in and talk about it. I mean, love Columbia. So and then I also, always wanna tweak and perfect it. Yes. Planning and zoning baddie, local resident and just an all around friend to the pod and to us personally. Thank you, Jessica. Thanks for having me. It was good to be back home. Yay. And for people who wanna find you, if you wanna be found, where can people find you? I avoid social media like the plague. she said don't look for her. Okay. Okay. If you see me walking the trails or at the pool, you can say hi. but in general I actually avoid social media and I kinda put my head down and just do my job. So what I heard is we got an exclusive here right here on Between Villages Podcast. It's lovely to see you guys. Thank you. Yay. That was some conversation. I love time with Jessica. We should absolutely do that more often. That was a humdinger of a conversation. Listen, I don't know if I left with the answers or more questions, but what I do know is that there are so many layers to this. I know we keep talking about Swiss cheese, but all of this government planning, zoning, Howard County, CA. People in the villages, we are more like an onion. We are we're peeling back the layers all season long. We absolutely will. It's just it's so interesting to me in all of this, is that we're so comforted by straight answers of yes, no, and these things that are seemingly lateral that we just want it to fit neatly into the boxes and the descriptive language that we use every day. When the truth is it changes, it grows, and there's no neat answer for who we are and why we are this way. Nobody puts Columbia in a box. Nobody, absolutely nobody. But at the end of the day, some things we can agree on is how great we are. I agree. I feel like that was established. One of the things I really found interesting and what Jessica was telling us is that here in Maryland, it's kind of at the county level. And our cousins over in Ellicott City aren't actually a city either. And we're all just census designated places. That blew my mind, but then it really shouldn't because Maryland is such a county-centric place. no other state talks in terms of being from a county. That's true. And it's clear that, you have these election cycles where the county executive runs and they highlight all of these great census. Stop trying to make CGP happen. Okay. I'm not gonna abbreviate that and upset everyone, but you get the point in where I'm going with this. It's that our municipals are growing and thriving, even though they're not actually towns and cities. Yeah. No, I completely pick up what you're putting down and I really appreciated Jessica clarifying who does what in Colombia. Or the fact that it's hard to clarify who does what in Colombia. It just makes more sense as to why there's so many passionate people waiting to like help because you never know. It depends on what block you're standing on as to who's gonna clear out the snow or who do you call about these things. And we're all just working together, better together. We are Colombia. But if I can humbly try to sum up the humdinger of who does what okay for the people. This might be ambitious. Okay. I love an ambitious moment. Go ahead. Look, Howard County is the government in the traditional sense. We have, as you said, the councilmen, we don't have mayors. They handle the zoning and the schools and the police and the trash. Columbia Association, not the government, but we oversee the open space and do so much to make Columbia what it is. In such a connected community, but we're not taking out the trash and we're not governmentally in charge. We're not. But as Rouse designed, Columbia Association is there and a part of this engagement civically. Like it's a big deal to feel like you're part of the community and have a voice. And one way you can do that here is if you live in one of the 10 villages with the election and things like that. That really make home feel like home. I really love how she said that with the whole incorporation piece because we toy with that idea, we as the greater conversations of the internet. But it makes a lot of sense, especially from a community planning and zoning expert, which is this nebulous idea, this planned community allows you to do just that. Plan to include people who otherwise would be excluded. And I think That's a really good thing. More voices, more choices. Yes. You summed it up so well. No notes. Thank you. Throwing it back to the three legged stools. So we talked about Howard County. We talked about CA. and we have to talk about the villages too. Absolutely. There's ten of those. Did you know that the villages were actually modeled after the US Senate? No. It sounds dramatic, but one Columbia councilman From each village is on the CA board. That actually makes a lot of sense. You get to vote in the village election for your person to represent your village on the Columbia Council. And then the Columbia Council goes through some meetings and some logistics. And those people are later often selected to be on the CA board of directors. Yes. So I'm so glad we got to talk to Jessica. And I feel like that's a great way to start this inaugural season. Where we're gonna be having so many more conversations, the comfortable and uncomfortable truths, asking questions about Columbia, life here. There's so much more to come. I know. I'm so excited. And thank you guys for joining us on the first episode and hopefully coming back for more. Absolutely. Thank you for Columbia Association for keeping the lights on, paying the bills, and helping to make this platform happen. Thank you to the pod squad, Hannah, Lauren, Joe behind the camera. Hey Joe, and we can't wait for more of this, so make sure you check the show notes for resources and links, and we'll catch you between the villages. Subscribe and listen to more full episodes, available everywhere you get your podcasts. You can also join the conversation at between villagespodcasts.org.