Information Counter

Montgomery Planning does not have property surveys or “site plans” for individual properties.  What Montgomery Planning has on file are called Subdivision Record Plats, which show where the recorded property lines and any easements are located but DOES NOT show the location of a house or building on the property.  Visit the Department of Permitting Services website or call 240-777-0311.

Building Permits are under the purview of the Montgomery County Department of Permitting Services (DPS).  Visit the Department of Permitting Services website or call 240-777-0311.

You can enter the plan number into the search bar in our Development Activity Information Center in order to see all submitted application materials, as well as the M-NCPPC Lead Reviewer.  For questions about the submitted plans, project schedule, and how to get involved and submit comments, please reach out to the Lead Reviewer.

If you know the application number for the project, you can enter it into the search bar in our Development Activity Information Center in order to see all submitted application materials, as well as the M-NCPPC Lead Reviewer.

If you do not know the plan number, you can check for active and recently approved development applications by visiting MCAtlas.org/devfinder, entering an address in the top left corner, and checking the map for any recent development approvals.  To view a Montgomery Planning development application, you can click on the Plan Number link to see details of the approval, including the Lead Reviewer.  For questions about the submitted plans, project schedule, and how to get involved and submit comments, please reach out to the Lead Reviewer.

If there is no development application listed, but there is construction activity taking place, the project may have proceeded to its Building Permit application and did not require an approval from Montgomery Planning.  The Department of Permitting Services is responsible for site plan enforcement and issuing Building Permits.  Therefore, if the project is already under construction, direct your questions to the Department of Permitting Services. Visit the Department of Permitting Services website or call 240-777-0311.

You can look up how your property is zoned at MCAtlas.org/zoning by entering your address in the top right corner.  The property’s zoning will be listed on the left side of the screen under “Zoning Info”.  You can view the zoning setbacks on the DPS-Zoning website.

Please refer to this guide provided by the Department of Environmental Protection.

To look up master plans geographically, you can visit MCAtlas.org and click on the “Master Plans (Adopted)” and “Master Plans (In Progress)” layers.  You can also visit this webpage to identify recent, ongoing, or already-adopted master plans  for various areas of Montgomery County.  For active Master Plans, the page will have information on project schedule, upcoming meetings, current drafts of the master plan, and how to get engaged with the ongoing Master Plan process.  For approved master plans, you can view PDF versions of the approved master plans.  The Master Plan pages each have a staff contact listed on the right or at the bottom of the page, who you can reach out to with any questions you have.

If work is being proposed to a single-family detached house, the approval will be from the Department of Permitting services, who is the issuer of all building permits. Visit the Department of Permitting Services website or call 240-777-0311.

Montgomery Planning only reviews fences if they are proposed within a Forest Conservation Easement.  Go to MCAtlas.org/FCE to locate any forest conservation easements.  If the proposed fence will be in a Forest Conservation Easement, go to MCAtlas.org and click on the “Forest Conservation Inspector Areas” to find the FC inspector for the property.  Reach out to the Inspector for your area for more information about Fence-in-Easement applications.

If the proposed fence does not exist in a Forest Conservation Easement, it will be reviewed by the Department of Permitting Services.  Visit the Department of Permitting Services website or call 240-777-0311.

Learn more about our various plan types, including how to apply.

View general information about the Development Review Process.

To determine if a use is Permitted (P), Limited (L), Conditional (C), or Not Permitted (Blank), use this Use Table. Permitted uses are allowed outright; limited uses have additional standards in the relevant subsection of the code; conditional uses require a Conditional Use Permit which gets reviewed by the Planning Board and the Office of Zoning and Administrative Hearings.

You can click on the uses on the left of the table to see specific Conditional Use and Limited Use standards for that property.  You can also click on the use at the left of the table to view how the use is defined in the Zoning Code, which should help determine whether your proposed use meets the definition of the use in the Zoning Code.

You can check our Record Plat Index by using MCAtlas.  To access the Record Plat Index, click on the “Plat Index” layer at the left of the screen.  Then, enter your address in the search bar, and click on the property to see all approved Record Plats for that property.

This is a question that can only be answered by hiring a surveyor.  If the plat is recent, it is possible that there are some sort of physical markers in the field.  If not, this work will have to be done by a surveyor.