Jesse Houston
planning director · active c. 1986–c. 2013
Planning Director of Ocean City for some twenty-five years. At the November 1994 hearing on the town's secondary dunes he explained that the name is the town's own and not the code's: they are "called secondary dunes to differentiate them from the primary dune which we now know as the Beach Replenishment dune. They're not called secondary dunes in the code but that's the name that we've given them." In 2003 he told the Planning Commission it could not simply declare a moratorium, because a 1967 Circuit Court ruling in Baltimore County holds a zoning moratorium to be itself a zoning regulation. In 2006 he stopped his own commission mid-vote to remind it that Maryland permits rezoning only on a finding of change in the neighbourhood or mistake in the original zoning.
In the record (10)
1986 · 1986-01-06
The council met fifty-two times in 1986 — the first year it sat weekly — and opened the year by lifting a building moratorium
"DISCUSSION ON BUILDING MORATORIUM … Then I think we probably need a motion to go ahead and lift the building moratorium." Mayor Roland E. Powell in his first full year; Council President Granville Trimper; Councilmen Duggan, Meehan, Moore, Ellis, Trumpower, Hurley; City Manager Anthony W. Barrett; City Solicitor Guy Ayres III; City Engineer Dennis Dare; City Planner Jesse Houston; Zoning Administrator Blaine Smith; Clerk/Treasurer Sheldon Dietert. In 1946 the council met thirty-one times; in 1957, forty; now every week of the year.
Rick MeehanAnthony W. BarrettDennis W. DareGranville TrimperGuy R. Ayres III
Source · checked 2026-09-02
1989
Forty-nine meetings, about 1.32 million characters, and still one source — sixteen years after the county paper stopped
City Manager Barrett; City Solicitor Ayres; City Engineer Dennis Dare; City Planner Jesse Houston. The Maryland Coast Dispatch was five years old and the Maryland Times-Press had been publishing since November 1988, held at Enoch Pratt. Neither is in this corpus.
Anthony W. BarrettDennis W. DareGuy R. Ayres III
Source · checked 2026-09-02
1992
A hundred and six documents and a changed council: Meehan in the chair, Mathias and Mann arriving, Gisriel still on the floor
Mayor Roland E. Powell; Council President Richard Meehan; Councilmen Gisriel, Hall, Mann, Mathias, Westfall; Councilwoman Sally Hacking; City Manager Dennis Dare; City Solicitor Ayres; City Planner Jesse Houston; Finance Director Martha Bennett. About 1.35 million characters across 106 documents — more paper than 1990 and less text, the archive form settling in.
Rick MeehanDennis W. DareGuy R. Ayres IIIVincent Gisriel Jr.
Source · checked 2026-09-02
1994
Ninety-eight documents and about 1.92 million characters, with Richard Meehan giving way to George Feehley in the chair through the autumn
Mayor Roland E. Powell; Councilmen Duggan, Hall, Mann, Mathias, Westfall; City Manager Dennis Dare; City Solicitor Ayres; City Planner Jesse Houston; City Clerk Carol L. Jacobs. Both Meehan and Mathias would later hold the mayoralty.
Rick MeehanDennis W. DareGuy R. Ayres III
Source · checked 2026-09-02
1994 · 1994-11-07
The town discovered it had two dune systems — the federal replenishment dune and its own "secondary dunes", which the code does not actually call that — in a hearing that ran seventeen pages
"the requirements for secondary dunes come from Chapter 46 of the City code. They're called secondary dunes to differentiate them from the primary dune which we now know as the Beach Replenishment dune. They're not called secondary dunes in the code but that's the name that we've given them … Chapter 46 and Section 8 of the Natural Resources Article of the Annotated Code established the Beach Erosion Control District." — City Planner Houston. The hearing came out of a June presentation by City staff, the Dune Stabilization Committee and the Worcester County Soil Conservation District. The chamber was hung with maps; President Feehley thought at first that "some people were redecorating the Council Chambers and wallpapering."
Source · checked 2026-09-02
2003
The town could not simply declare a moratorium: a 1967 Baltimore County ruling holds that a zoning moratorium is itself a zoning regulation and must follow the same procedure
Planning Director Houston: "The City Solicitor advised me that a 1967 ruling by the Circuit Court of Baltimore County declared that a zoning moratorium is a zoning regulation and as such it has to follow the procedures of other zoning actions … the Planning Commission has to hold a public hearing on the moratorium issue and then make a recommendation to the Mayor and City Council." The Commission had wanted a moratorium "to preclude an onslaught of submittals for residential site plans in commercial zoning districts while the issue was being studied" — and found that the very act of pausing had to be advertised, heard and recommended, which is time enough for the onslaught it was meant to prevent.
Source · checked 2026-09-02
2003
Eighty-eight documents, about 1.91 million characters, now including the Planning and Zoning Commission's own transcripts — the record's centre of gravity moving from the council to the commission
Mayor James N. Mathias, Jr.; Council President James S. Hall; Councilmen Gisriel and others; City Manager Dennis Dare; Planning Director Jesse Houston; Zoning Administrator Blaine Smith; Commission Attorney Will Esham. The decisions that shape the town are increasingly taken in a room the council does not sit in, and this corpus can read it only because the transcripts are filed with the minutes.
Dennis W. DareVincent Gisriel Jr.
Source · checked 2026-09-02
2006
Mathias's last full year as mayor, with Council President Richard W. Meehan — who succeeds him — in the chair beside him
Councilman James S. Hall as Secretary, later Councilman Lloyd Martin; Councilmen Gisriel, Mann, Joseph Hall; City Solicitor Guy R. Ayres III; City Clerk Carol Jacobs; Planning Director Jesse Houston; Zoning Administrator Blaine Smith. Ninety-four documents, about 2.34 million characters, including Planning and Zoning Commission transcripts. Meehan had been council president on and off since 1992.
Rick MeehanGuy R. Ayres IIIVincent Gisriel Jr.
Source · checked 2026-09-02
2007
Richard W. Meehan became mayor — the council president of the nineties and 2000s, in the chair at last
Ninety-two documents, about 2.31 million characters, including Planning and Zoning Commission transcripts. Planning Director Jesse Houston; Zoning Administrator Blaine Smith; Emergency Services Director Theobald. Meehan had first appeared as Council Secretary in 1990 and had been president through most of the beach-settlement aftermath.
Source · checked 2026-09-02
2012 · 2012-09-25
Planning Director Jesse Houston retired after thirty years with the town, and the Mayor's resolution of appreciation dated his career from 1982
Item 2 of the 25 September 2012 work session was "Retirement Recognition for Jesse Houston, Director of Planning and Community Development". The resolution in the agenda packet, "IN APPRECIATION OF JESSE HOUSTON, 30 YEARS OF SERVICE": "Jesse Houston has contributed Thirty (30) years of dedicated service to the Town of Ocean City, where he began his career in 1982; and WHEREAS, Jesse Houston has played an integral role at the Department of Planning and Community Development of the Town of Ocean City for the past Thirty (30) years... I, Richard W. Meehan, Mayor of the Town of Ocean City, Maryland, along with the Ocean City Council, do hereby commend Jesse for his Thirty (30) years of devoted service and wish him a happy and healthy retirement", sealed 30 September 2012. Houston had presented the design-guidelines zoning ordinance, the sustainable-community application and the boardwalk noise study in his last winter.
Source · checked 2026-09-10