Adequate Facilities

After years of loosely controlled residential growth that led to crowded classrooms and congested roadways, the Carroll County commissioners adopted a stronger growth policy yesterday that would require developers to meet more stringent standards before housing projects are allowed to proceed. With the unanimous approval of a revised adequate public facilities law, the three commissioners fulfilled their campaign promise to curb growth in a county where a yearlong freeze on residential development expires in less than two months.

Public facilities ordinance has noticeable slantThis letter addresses the adequate public facilities ordinance that the board of commissioners is about to enact.First, a few facts. Because Commissioner W. Benjamin Brown seems to have been the most involved in crafting the new ordinance, I'll start by pointing out some interesting items in it.Even though this letter focuses on Mr. Brown, it in no way absolves our other two commissioners of the part they played in the ordinance. Let me refresh your memory with the following.

Never known for making things simple, the county planning and zoningdepartment has taken a tip from "Star Wars."But instead of C3P0 or R2D2, it's RA-15, R-SC, PEC and R-20. Even spelled out -- residential attached 15 units per acre, residential single cluster, planned employment center and residential two units per acre -- these terms require you to be something of a polyglot to understand what they mean.The planning board, which has to decipher these codes on a weeklybasis, was itself stumped momentarily last week when slow-growth advocate Susan Gray mentioned "ag-prez" in her testimony about comprehensive zoning of the west.

Cranberry Mall and Radio Shack have teamed up for a special contest for the back to school season.Radio Shack has agreed to give awaya Tandy 1000 HX computer, including monitor and printer, to the winner of the "Add it up, Back to School is Cool" contest.The contest deadline is Aug. 29, with the drawing at 7:30 p.m. Aug. 30 following a computer demonstration. Entry blanks are available from participating mall stores. No purchase is necessary, but entrants must be 18 or older, and only one entry per person per day is allowed.

In the continuing debate over growth in Howard County, one argument often made against future development is that added growth would soon produce overcrowded schools and traffic jams, which would, in turn, create pressure for ever-increasing taxes.But rarely these days will the county's most vocal opponents of growth mention that Howard County has provisions -- hashed out publicly more than a year ago -- to help alleviate the strain on infrastructure that new growth causes.Omitting that fact from their arguments erodes the credibility of no-growth advocates, whose all-or-nothing approach ignores common sense and history.

A proposed law that would give the county's planning and zoning director the power to deny approval for a development if public facilities couldn't support the growth was unveiled at a County Council work session Thursday.The so-called adequate public facilities proposal was made by the seven-member county Services Study Commission, which has been examining the issue for about two years.After the two-hour work session, council members said it could be another year of public hearings and revisions to the proposal before the county decides what the law would mandate.

The debate over balancing home construction and school enrollment continues this week when the County Council revisits a measure that would preserve limits on development in districts where crowded schools exist. Councilman Dion F. Guthrie said he will reintroduce legislation at Tuesday's council meeting that would leave Harford's adequate public facilities law intact. The ordinance halts preliminary approval of new housing in districts that are home to a school exceeding its designed capacity by 5 percent.

The candidates for Carroll County commissioner on the Nov. 8 ballot, Republicans Donald I. Dell, Richard T. Yates and W. Benjamin Brown, and Democrats Elmer C. Lippy, Rebecca A. Orenstein and Grover N. "Sam" Sensabaugh, were asked to respond to the following questions: What existing measures will you use to control Carroll County's residential growth? What new measures are needed? Their responses appear below:What existing measures will you use to control Carroll County's residential growth?

Howard County's adequate facilities legislation is now official.Opponents failed last week to meet the deadline for obtaining the necessary number of registered voters to sign a petition that would haveput portions of the law on the ballot this fall. A successful petition would have held up the legislation until voters decided whether toapprove it.Opponents needed 4,636 signatures to put the law on the ballot. Signatures of 2,319 voters would have given opponents a 30-day extension to collect the remainder.

Two lobbying groups will attempt to put portions of the adequate facilities law on hold at least until November.Representatives of Citizens Allied for Rational Expansion and Howard Countians for Responsible Growth said the recently enacted ordinance is not in the best interest of the county.The five-bill, five-resolution legislative package has three mainfeatures: a roads test to determine if intersections can accommodatetraffic generated by a proposed development; a schools test to determine if nearby schools will be overcrowded when new residents move into a proposed development; and an excise tax imposed on all new residential and commercial construction.