Howard County residents sitting in traffic jams and eyeing new homes might believe that development is running rampant, but the facts say otherwise, according to Marsha S. McLaughlin, the planning director.
"We think development is actually pretty well-phased. It is a challenge to convey that to citizens," McLaughlin told County Council members this week - including council Chairman Christopher J. Merdon, an Ellicott City Republican, and west Columbia Democrat Ken Ulman, both candidates for county executive.
The pace of residential growth has dropped sharply while commercial construction is booming, McLaughlin said, noting figures in the county's 14th annual Development Monitoring System Report, which tracks development since the adoption of the Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance, known as APFO. The latest report covers Oct. 1, 2004, to Sept. 30, 2005.
McLaughlin said that further growth restrictions will only drive home prices - which rose 77 percent over the past four years - higher because "we're not manufacturing any more land."
The report said that grouping new houses in clusters in the western county is preserving thousands of acres of open land, though residents often criticize the practice.
Of the 10,390 acres of the rural west subdivided since the law took effect in 1992, 72 percent, or about 7,479 acres, "have gone into preservation or permanent open space" due to clustering new homes on small portions of development tracts, the report said.
Councilman Chares C. Feaga, a western county Republican, said that when he extols clustering at meetings "people don't believe me. You can't sell it to the public."
Ulman joked that the county could advertise the benefits of clustering by erecting billboards on preserved land reading, "This is preserved."
The much-maligned APFO was designed to delay new homes around crowded schools and intersections, and, despite criticism, it has done the job, McLaughlin said. The law was tightened in 2000 to include middle schools and lower the crowding threshold from 120 percent to 115 percent. That means that if an elementary or middle school is more than 115 percent over local program capacity, building is delayed for up to four years. In addition, the county's classroom capacity limits are lower than state standards, giving the law extra strength.
