Region plan may change
Gazetteby Sherry Greenfield
Thursday, October 19, 2006
No issue has elicited as much controversy, debate and dispute among Frederick County commissioners and residents as the update of the New Market Region Plan.
Ultimately, this spring commissioners adopted the plan that determines how much growth will occur in the area including Mount Airy, New Market, Lake Linganore, Bartonsville, Ijamsville, Monrovia, New London and Spring Ridge for the next 20 years.
Not surprisingly, the volatile debate did not end there.
Accusations that some commissioners accepted campaign contributions from developers asking for land rezoning, concerns that decisions were made without resident input and confusion over the number of new homes that will actually be built in the New Market region surrounded the process, and have continued since the plan’s approval.
This campaign season, the controversy has seeped into numerous candidate forums as well. Some of the nine candidates are even promising to overturn decisions made by the current board if elected Nov. 7.
‘‘... If I’m elected, I fully expect to be part of a new majority that will revisit the New Market Region Plan,” said Democratic candidate Kai Hagen. ‘‘Besides revisiting some of the worst aspects of the plan, I hope we can establish a model for how to approach long-term planning more responsibly.”
The New Market region, as defined by the county, is consists of roughly 47,000 acres of land. Over the next 20 years, the region is expected to be the fastest growing area of the county, second only to Frederick.
Access to Interstate 70 and Md. Route 75, and the land’s proximity to Carroll, Howard and Montgomery counties as well as Baltimore and Washington, D.C, provide an attractive market for more homes.
Hagen contends that the adopted plan was hotly contested for good reasons.
‘‘You don’t get good policy from a bad process,” he said. ‘‘The New Market Region Plan update process — and the final plan — encapsulates everything that’s wrong with how a majority of the current board has approached planning. What should have been a responsive, responsible and comprehensive planning process was a developer-driven blitz of haphazard rezonings.”
Hagen believes the board ignored the wishes of residents and the municipalities in the region.
‘‘... Projections for regional gridlock were dismissed,” he said. ‘‘Schools and parks and public safety issues were not adequately resolved. We do not have to accept this outdated, business-as-usual and economically unsound version of poorly planned sprawl.”
Commissioner Jan H. Gardner (D), who is seeking re-election, has also voiced concern for months about the New Market Region Plan process. Like Hagen, Gardner believes in controlled growth and wants adequate schools, roads, water and sewer before new development is approved.
Gardner’s frustration accelerated in February when her colleagues, commissioners Michael L. Cady (R), John R. Lovell (R) and Bruce L. Reeder (D), voted against her motion to meet with representatives from the State Highway Administration to discuss costs for road improvements in the New Market region. Gardner says there is no state or county funding in place to pay for the road improvements to handle the expected growth.
Gardner, along with Commission President John ‘‘Lennie” Thompson Jr. (R) even asked the Maryland Department of Planning for state intervention in the region plan.
If re-elected, Gardner said her main objective is to take up the transportation aspect of the plan.
‘‘I want to meet with the state so we can phase in development with regional traffic improvements so we don’t have gridlock,” Gardner said.
Gardner thinks it is possible to reconsider properties approved for residential growth in the plan in the last six months.
With a majority of the nine commissioner candidates in favor of some form of a reconsideration of the adopted plan, Commissioner Mike Cady has found himself fighting to be heard.
For Cady, who is also seeking re-election, the controversy over the region plan has been nothing short of frustrating. He has been a target of the ‘‘controlled growth” candidates who have accused him of improperly receiving campaign funds from developers seeking rezoning.
Cady has consistently defended himself, claiming he does not read his campaign finance reports so he does not know who is donating to his re-election bid. His contributions are handled by members of the Committee to Elect Mike Cady.
Cady also said he finds the candidate forums difficult, because he has little time to challenge the candidates who he says are giving misinformation about the plan.
‘‘You have six candidates tag-teaming and it isn’t a balanced dialogue or discussion,” he said.
To Hagen’s criticism, Cady contends that for almost four years as a commissioner and liaison to the county’s Planning Commission he did listen to the concerns of residents and heard from many people about the plan.
Cady also contends that he can clear up what he says is a misconception that 14,000 new homes will be built in the New Market region in the next 20 years. Cady said he has compared the 1993 New Market Region Plan with the updated document and it shows significantly less new homes.
He admits it is unclear just how many new homes could be built in the region since many are slated for large ‘‘planned unit developments.” This type of development provides greater design flexibility and deviates from a typical subdivision. It includes various housing types, recreation and commercial centers.
The confusion grows since the county’s Planning Department will not comment on the plan and the number of homes.
Tim Goodfellow, principal planner for the New Market Region Plan, on Monday referred the issue to his boss, Jim Gugel, who did not return phone calls before The Gazette’s press time.
If he finds himself on a board that wants to revisit the plan, Cady said he would listen to their reasons before making any decisions. Unless he hears a good enough argument to re-open the process, he will not vote in favor.
‘‘If you go through the plan and find what is not good I could have a debate with people on why I voted the way I did,” he said. ‘‘...The plan is not perfect, but it’s a good plan.”
WHY I'M VOTING FOR KAI!
Jane Sachs
Thurmont
Although I’ve known Kai for only six months, it seems like I’ve known him since we were both kids. I suppose most people know by now that he lives on land he first came to cherish as a small child from Washington, through visits to his granddad’s mountain farm. That was a big coincidence for me, because I have a similar history up here in the Catoctins. No doubt, Kai too spent hours in those days following deer trails through the woods,...
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