Agenda items include review of two detailed site plans for the South Lake development, a briefing on the Countywide Sectional Map Amendment, and a proposal to honor former Bowie Mayor G. Fred Robinson.
Although the council is generally united in a goal to reduce development in the Bowie area, they have struggled to find an approach to handling development applications that come before the council. Past actions by this council have included postponing reviews (South Lake), recommending against projects (Pecan Ridge), and canceling council review without a recommendation to the county (Amber Ridge).
Councilmembers have expressed frustration that their recommendations have no affect on the outcome of development projects because the real power lies with county officials. The truth is a little more nuanced.
Although it’s true that the city doesn’t have the power to stop development projects, the city does have a role and responsibility to residents to improve or minimize the impact of development projects. The city frequently makes recommendations to developers and to the county about senior housing allocations, roadways, sidewalks, and walking paths that are accepted by developers, and the council should never give up that responsibility like it did with the Amber Ridge project.
Councilmembers may fear approving a recommendation for a development application because it has the appearance of support for development, but they need to explain to residents that what they’re doing is the most responsible path forward given what the law allows.
Councilmembers should also resist the urge to perpetuate the myth that the path forward to limiting development is to simply stop county officials from voting “yes” on development applications. It’s much more complicated than that, although it is true in some situations.
At the heart of the development project approval process is the concept of property rights. If you own a piece of land, and you propose a development project that matches the use and density of the zoning for your property, and your proposal meets all other guidelines, including adherence to environmental regulations, you have the right to develop your property. You may have to make some roads improvements near your property, but by law, you have the right to build if you meet the criteria.
The second concept is equal treatment for all applicants. If project approvals are based on a County Council vote alone, we have the potential for decisions to be made arbitrarily and potentially subject to abuse and unwanted influence. It’s therefore important that approval for development projects be conditioned on a common set of rules and criteria, and all stakeholders, including the public, can participate in the process to show that a project does or doesn’t meet prescribed guidelines. Forcing projects to adhere to guidelines creates accountability in the approval process.
A corollary to the concept of equal treatment is that development project approvals are not made by plebiscite. In other words, when it comes to someone’s property rights in Maryland, a vote by the people can’t take those rights away.
There have been plenty of times when residents have testified during public hearings where they said something like, “stop this development. The people don’t want it.” That sort of testimony has no effect with the county Planning Board because they can only consider the common criteria which all development projects are measured against. Public sentiment can be used, however, to influence the design of a project, but not to force rejection of a development application.
When it comes to school capacity, the county adopted rules years ago that prevent development applications from being rejected due to school capacity issues. School capacity numbers are still used by the county for planning purposes, but rather than rejecting applications, the county charges a per-unit fee for new development projects regardless of school capacity. The fee is assessed at the time a building permit is issued. The fee is adjusted each year for inflation, and the 2020 rate is $16,698 per unit. The fee is lower for construction inside the Beltway and in other areas where the county is promoting development.
Some residents have testified at public hearings that the developer for this project or that project should be forced to build a new school. Although the sentiment may be right, it’s unfair to force a single development project to pay for 100% of the cost of a new school when the new development won’t have enough students to fill a new school. That’s what makes the school facilities surcharge ideal because every development, no matter how small or how large, contributes an amount that is proportional to the development’s size. It also gives the county the ability to use those fees where the need is the greatest rather than having developers construct schools in places where school capacity is not an issue.
One common complaint is that the school facilities surcharges generated by Bowie development projects aren’t used for school improvements or school construction for Bowie area schools. The truth is that they don’t go directly to school improvements in other areas of the county either. They are generally used to service the debt obligation on money borrowed for multiple school capital improvement projects throughout the county, including projects in Bowie.
When it comes to road capacity, development project applications are rarely, if ever, rejected due to capacity. The process does include an evaluation of road capacity, but if the adequacy tests fail, the developer is usually given the option of mitigating the traffic issue by making road improvements that are proportional to the additional traffic generated by the development.
The Melford developers were required to make several changes to intersections along Route 301 and Route 3, but the improvements were considered to be proportional to the extra traffic that the development was anticipated to generate.
Some residents testified in public hearings that the Melford developers should fund an additional lane in each direction on Route 3. The truth is that the Melford development is not responsible for one third of the traffic on Route 3, and the road improvements that the developer was forced to make were more proportional to the impact that the development would have.
One area where County Council members should be held accountable is for their approval of text amendments.
We recently saw the County Council vote in favor of a text amendment that had the effect of changing the permitted residential density for the Freeway Airport property. The council was certainly within its authority to vote “no” without violating property rights and the principle of equal treatment.
No comments:
Post a Comment