Conservationists are cheering over recommendations made to Queen Anne’s planning staff by the Citizens Advisory Committee, seeking to place strict barriers on more runaway growth in the county.
The CAC — the leading citizens’ panel in a year-long effort to develop the next Comprehensive Plan — voted at its meeting in Centreville on Monday night for series of remarkably tough restrictions.
The recommendations are not binding on the Planning Commission – but given the lopsided sentiment, they will be hard to ignore and override.
“It’s all great news and it’s a new beginning for QAC,” as Jay Falstad of the Queen Anne’s Conservation Association reported to its members.
Though, given the county’s history of development, as Falstad also puts it, what happens next needs “a lot of watching.”
Here are some of CAC’s recommendations, based on a “visioning document” prepared from a series of meetings of county residents at high schools last fall, identifying what they want and what they really don’t:
— No more major subdivision development in the Agricultural Zone.
— Genuine one house per 25-acre zoning. Really. No exceptions.
— No more non-contiguous developments and no more “cluster bonus” – where developers get to group their houses closely and get more per acre – what opponents call “cornfield cul de sacs.”
— No more major subdivision development on Kent Island.
— Strike the villages, hamlets and crossroads proposals from the map.
— No new business parks (example: the purple blob below Crumpton on the “Very Scary Map”) until existing capacity is used up — and until there is an economic needs analysis to determine the demand.
— No new IDA — intensive development in the critical areas (example: the huge Four Seasons development on Kent Island).
— Future growth will be directed to existing incorporated towns and growth areas.
— Expand the PPA. That means the Priority Preservation Area. Maryland has recommended that counties put at least 80 percent of agriculture lands into priority preservation. CAC wants more than that.
What happens next is, the planning staff takes these recommendations and prepares a “matrix” of it. The CAC has one more chance to review that matrix and make sure it represents what they want. Then the “technical advisory committee” (made up entire of staff) takes that information to the Planning Commission.
Which takes, as Falstad says, “A lot of watching.”
MAP says
May not be needed with a true 1 unit per 25 acre zoning district but the County should also consider limiting the number of new residential construction permits in the Agricultural Zoned areas. A break down of 80% of the permits going into the County growth areas and no more than 20% allowed outside of County growth areas each year.
A true 1 unit per 25 acres will go along way in addressing development issues in the County’s Agricultural areas.However, for those that choose to develope the County should also consider requiring rural subdivisions to limit development areas to 20% of the site and permanently protecting the remaining lands as open space.