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On Monday night, the County Council voted to approve the last of nine region plans and comprehensive zoning. It was for Region 5, including Odenton, Crofton, Gambrills, and nearby communities.
Christina Pompa, our Deputy Planning Officer in the Office of Planning and Zoning (OPZ), made a statement reflecting on the last nine years of planning, on the Plan 2040 decision to do nine separate Region Plans, on the detailed review of all 270,000 parcels and lots twice, on the engagement of thousands of stakeholders, on the dedicated staff who managed the process, and on the implementation projects that come next.
The Councilmembers responded with something I have never seen them do - a standing ovation to honor the staff who did the work. It was a well-deserved moment of acknowledgement for completing a monumental task, and doing it well. Had I been in the room, rather than watching the video the next day, I’d have stood and clapped with them.
I spoke to a group of business owners at the Central Maryland Chamber of Commerce Wednesday morning, and was asked what I was most proud of as County Executive. I said it was land use planning, and that by dividing the county into nine regions and engaging residents in nine Stakeholder Advisory Committees who hosted dozens of public meetings, we had created an army of really thoughtful community leaders who now understand the public policy tools that we use to protect nature, improve the quality of life for all residents, and generate economic opportunity.
But that doesn’t mean that we all agree on what should happen in every neighborhood. In fact, I will veto seven of the amendments that the County Council made to the Region 5 bill, more vetoes than for any other region. The Council will decide at its June 15 meeting whether to override each veto. To do so takes 5 votes from the 7 member body.
All seven of these amendments increased the allowed intensity of development. One upzoned 27 acres of undeveloped Rural Agricultural zoned land to R1 Residential. Another upzoned 137 undeveloped acres from Open Space to R2 Residential. That’s the one I wrote about in this letter recently.
Both parcels are adjacent to the Two Rivers community, where prior administrations limited development due to environmental conditions and single lane vehicle access. The developer’s plans for the parcels would add to the traffic and stormwater runoff in the area, and are contrary to the Planned Land Uses recommended by our Stakeholder Advisory Committee (SAC), Planning Advisory Board (PAB), and Office of Planning and Zoning (OPZ).
The other five amendments upzone land on the Route 3 corridor, one a tenfold density increase from Residential Low Density (RLD) to R2, and the other four to Highway Commercial (C4), the most intense category of commercial zoning. Commercial development in recent years on the Route 3 corridor has created traffic bottlenecks so intense that the Maryland Department of Transportation project to address the issue has been ranked as the number one state priority.
The applicants for these upzonings were pretty sophisticated. All hired agents who engage in campaign funding, and most are contributors themselves. Some waited to introduce their requests until after the Stakeholder Advisory Committee had completed its work or even much later in the process during County Council review. None of these amendments had the support of the Office of Planning and Zoning, and those that were reviewed by the Stakeholder Advisory Committee did not receive support. The Council reversed what the stakeholders and the planners recommended.
I understand that the financial stakes are high for individual landowners, investors, and their agents, but zoning is not about enriching land speculators. It is about implementing our smarter, greener, more equitable Plan 2040 that builds the future our residents have asked for and that won the Maryland Sustainable Growth Award. I hope that our Council will consider what is best for the communities that engaged so faithfully in the planning and advocacy process.
The other side of Plan 2040 implementation is facilitating the development that we say we want. That’s why I spent so much time over the last three months working with our team to end the moratorium on wastewater capacity allocations in the northwest part of the county, near BWI Airport. We have transit-oriented development, housing, and a lot of good jobs in the development pipeline, but when we were told that a new interpretation of our intracounty agreement on wastewater flow to the Patapsco Treatment Plant in Baltimore City would remove the unallocated capacity we believed we had, all those plans were put on hold.
I was able to announce to my Chamber of Commerce audience on Wednesday morning that we had achieved the conditions necessary to lift the moratorium. An announcement went out that afternoon.
The solution was born of really good relationships and trust that we’d built in recent years. I immediately contacted Governor Moore, who then made his staff available to help. We held separate meetings with Baltimore County Executive Klausmeier, Baltimore Mayor Scott, and Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) Secretary McIlwain and their teams. We established that our actual average peak flow measurements are lower than the peak flow calculation that contributed to the capacity concern. Our internal staff workgroup accelerated plans to divert wastewater flow to our own treatment facilities to the south, and we reallocated $60 million in our utility fund to make that happen on a five-year timeline. And then we learned from Maryland Aviation Administration CEO Shannetta Griffin that BWI Airport has reserved capacity that won’t be used in the next five years. The lawyers and public works teams went to work and determined that the airport could lend Anne Arundel County the capacity it needs while we build out our diversion pumps and pipes, thereby clearing the way for new allocations to businesses and homeowners in the surrounding area.
Combined, these efforts created the conditions that allowed us to lift the moratorium. Investors will be able to move forward once their plans get approved, and ultimately, the Patapsco River will be protected from overflows.
Land use decision-making and development policy are complicated, controversial, and very consequential. Residents and businesses depend on their local government to establish rules and play referee. The game only works when the players trust the ref, and when the ref is nimble enough to get out of the way of the players.
Play on…