Kent County has joined the ranks of a growing number of counties and municipalities concerned about the state’s growth and development plan known as PlanMaryland.
PlanMaryland was introduced by Gov. Martin O’Malley as a way to address growing urban sprawl and environmental concerns, according to the plan’s website. Counties and municipalities statewide are concerned the plan does not take local comprehensive plans into account and will take the planning and zoning authority away from local governments.
“It’s almost laughable when people on the western shore think they can do a better job (with planning) than folks on the Eastern Shore … there isn’t a piece of waterfront land on the western shore that hasn’t been developed and here we are probably the most rural area around,” said Commissioner Ron Fithian.
During Tuesday’s meeting Gail Owings, county director of Housing and Planning and Zoning, introduced a letter to the commissioners written by the county planning commission expressing some concerns with PlanMaryland. This will be the second letter the county has sent to the state about the plan.
The letter mostly focuses on the big issues the planning commission was worried about, Owings said, primarily staff time.
“We remain concerned about the schedule for implementation, the bureaucracy, and the cost for both at the state and local levels that will become necessary to implement PlanMaryland. … All county departments have had staffing reductions and increased responsibilities, thereby increasing the difficulty in providing timely responses to various state requests,” the letter states. “In addition, several large state-mandated programs such as the Local Watershed Implementation Plan and changes to the Chesapeake Bay Critical Area Program follow a similar implementation schedule. The combination of these major efforts places an untenable burden on our existing staff.”
The planning commission recommends that the state come up with a list of priorities regarding which state-mandated programs should be implemented first. The commission also asked that the state fill in the blanks in the plan regarding benchmarks.
Speaking from the audience, Paula Ruckelshaus said that Senate President Mike Miller and Sen. E.J. Pipkin recently asked for the O’Malley administration to defer implementing the plan until the general assembly has a chance to review it.
“PlanMaryland has significant control over local and county governments … I would urge you to join with Miller and Pipkin to ask O’Malley to defer it,” she said.
Commissioner Alex Rasin said maybe the commissioners should go on record saying they are against PlanMaryland.
Commissioner Fithian recommended that the commissioners send a letter asking that nothing be done with PlanMaryland until everyone has a chance to review it. Owings said she would draft a letter expressing the commissioners’ concerns.
D LaMotte says
From what I have read, PlanMaryland is an attempt to stop the sprawl that has become so much of our landscape.
With population increases projected for Maryland, I understand the need for this. Additionally, a county
Can do what it wants re growth, however, such county will not receive state
funding.
Steve Payne says
The most recent plan can be reviewed here: https://plan.maryland.gov/PDF/draftPlan/PM_revisedDraft.pdf
Ken Noble says
I agree with DLaMotte on her concern regarding “sprawl” and the necessity to define growth areas. We still do not really know how to define “sprawl”, though and I don’t “hear” our leaders saying they don’t want to attempt to limit it…ahhh whatever it is. What I hear them saying is, you (Maryland) want us to do all of the PLANNING in “PlanMaryland”, but you won’t pay for it…AND…you also want us to clean up the Bay and protect the critical areas with benchmarks that are simultaneous and similarly unfunded. These things ARE a lot easier for an Anne Arundel, Howard or Montgomery County to do.
From a “planning school” perspective…”PlanMaryland” is not a PLAN and that is the problem. It is missing the critical “implementation”, “selection” and “evaluation” phases of a plan. PlanMaryland is an encyclopedia of problems with an affiliated encyclopedia of solutions having no funding for these three steps in a planning process. A “plan” has more elements that result in actually DOING something, in other words. Instead of facilitating the DOING of the “plan”, Maryland is saying here is a big book of problems and ideas….get back to us when you figure out how to solve these problems….with no money to do that. THAT is a problem.
I also have problems with the fact the Maryland Department of Planning….where I USED TO WORK….somehow completely ignores both the economic threats and opportunities of our proximity to Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. For the most part I see missed opportunities from that selective ignorance. When I spoke directly to one our state planners about that problem last spring in their visit to Washington College I got back, “Are you kidding, how may people do you actually KNOW who work or come from those places?” I shook my head and told him that would be difficult to catalogue and the point is that you do not count that “gravity attraction.”
So, I am happy with a healthy dose of skepticism from our Kent County leaders and officials with respect to PlanMaryland.
Ken Noble
American Institute of Certified Planners.
Steve Payne says
Ken Noble Says “We still do not really know how to define “sprawl”, though ” Is a long used generic term that basically means spread out piecemeal development that results in excess road construction and open use as well as space loss, etc. If you still have your APA Membership there’s lots of very detailed information online now.
https://www.planning.org/search/results.htm?Keyword=sprawl
“completely ignores both the economic threats and opportunities of our proximity to Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.” I think your right but I can say that on the western shore the planners focused on the proximity and relationship to DC. Development was promoted, mostly through comprehensive planning by the counties, to be inside the beltway for that reason.