Adequate Facilities

In a story in yesterday's Carroll County section of The Sun, the chronology for certain events in Hampstead was incorrect. The town Planning and Zoning Commission gave preliminary approval to 220 homes in North Carroll Farms on Aug. 29. A resolution was introduced Sept. 13 in the Town Council to test the municipal adequate facilities clause in court. The confrontation between William Drummond and James Springer occurred at the Sept. 26 meeting of the Planning and Zoning Commission.Amid a chorus of catcalls and jeers, Hampstead Town Council members this week rejected a resolution that would have put the town's adequate facilities clause to a test in Carroll County Circuit Court.

After 300 hours of work and a month of informal hearings, the county's adequate facilities bill has been sent to the County Council for action.The bill is scheduled to be introduced at the council's legislative session tomorrow night, aired at a public hearing Jan. 21 and voted on Feb. 3. The council is expected to make the bill emergencylegislation, so that it would take effect immediately upon passage.The planning board will receive the proposal Tuesday morning toensure that the bill is consistent with the county's general plan and that the provisions for administering it are workable.

The proposed Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance contained in Council Bills 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and Resolutions 19, 20, 21, 22, and 23 makesfor very difficult, technical and sometimes hard-to-follow reading.But after spending considerable time reading and rereading the package (and meeting with many on the APFO Commission), I'm convinced that adequate facilities are the one thing that this legislative package would not provide.Although portrayed as a grand compromise by its authors, if this legislation were subject to truth-in-labeling requirements, this package would have to be titled, "The Developer's Relief Act of 1992."

After two hours of meticulous questioning yesterday, members of the planning board lavished praise on the 12-member adequate-facilities commission."What you have accomplished is superb -- a wonderful job," said board chairwoman Helen E. Reuther."

So far, the county's adequate public facilities law hasn't impeded over 100 subdivisions that are exempt from the growth regulations -- but the next step for 39 of them might prove more difficult.The developers of the residential and commercial projects met a Monday deadline for filing road construction drawings and other plans, but the next hurdle in maintaining the exemptions requires some developers to pay all fees and post bonds assuring construction of roads and storm drains."Very few plans have been denied for failure to meet [adequate facilities law]

The Howard County school board is scheduled to reconsider Tuesday a measure that would determine which schools can accommodate new residential development. Each year, school officials craft a chart that designates the areas ripe for development under the county's Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance by labeling schools as open or closed. The ordinance ensures that roads, school buildings and other infrastructure can handle more residents. Recently, the school board failed to pass the chart, voting in favor of it 4-3. The chart requires at least five votes for passage and allows for the student board member, who has limited voting powers, to cast a vote.

The Howard County school board, in the second vote this month, approved a measure that would determine which school communities are designated as capable of absorbing development. The panel voted to approve a chart that school officials craft to denote areas ripe for development under the county's Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance. According to APFO guidelines, school capacity must be deemed adequate before approve is given to residential projects, and the pace of such development must match elementary and middle school capacity.

Residential development in Carroll County would have to meet more stringent adequate-facilities standards and would be required to pass two tests before developers could proceed with their plans under recommendations approved yesterday by a task force. The group was formed after the county commissioners imposed a yearlong freeze on residential development covered by the county's adequate-facilities law. The law is designed to prevent residential growth from overwhelming schools, roads, the water supply, and police, fire and medical services.

IF CARROLL COUNTY is to have cohesive land use planning, state Sen. Larry Haines' effort to exempt small, rural residential subdivisions from the county's adequate facilities standards is horrendously misguided. This bill has little to do with allowing farmers to develop their land. It would simply carve a loophole in LTC Carroll's planning process large enough to drive a John Deere through.Mr. Haines contends that the planning commission is now in a position to deny farmers the right to develop their property.

The Carroll commissioners' yearlong growth freeze met its first courtroom challenge yesterday when an Eldersburg developer asked a county judge to let work proceed on his proposed 21-lot subdivision in Finksburg. Developer James Kohler is requesting an injunction against the 4-month-old freeze, which he says is unfair because the county gave him a certificate saying that if he met certain conditions, he would be allowed to develop his project in 2005. Circuit Judge Michael M. Galloway said he might take a few weeks to rule on the injunction request, adding that his decision could set a precedent for the 90 other projects affected by the freeze.