Last Wednesday the Planning and Zoning Commission voted in favor of mixed use overlays throughout large areas of the county.

Citizens should be outraged by this decision, as the approval has the effect of enabling everything the citizens of our county oppose, including high density commercial and residential development and government sponsored housing initiatives. It is a grand slam for over-reaching bureaucrats and an egregious slap in the face to our citizens. Additionally, it renders months of Pathways public hearings nothing more than a meaningless facade.

The Mixed Use Overlay approval is the defacto equivalent of a complete approval of Pathways’ smart growth urbanization and office park plan, and clearly contravenes the wishes of the vast majority of citizens. It places everything on the table for urbanization, including some conservation areas and farms. Developers will secretly buy 25 acres of contiguous property and pull-down the overlay. Existing residential neighborhoods will also become targets for density development.

To make matters worse, next year we will have five county commissioners elected by district. This will render four of the five commissioners completely insouciant respecting urbanization providing it isn’t in their own backyard, effectively destroying accountability and political safeguards that would otherwise prevent unwise and unwanted development.

Additionally, the mixed use overlay does not establish public water and sewer as a legal precondition to high density or commercial development. It simply states “characterized by availability of public utilities.”

In the absence of a meaningful solution, it is likely the citizens of our county will force this to referendum; initiate malfeasance/misfeasance complaints against certain individuals; and/or install new county commissioners that will remand this plan for rewrite.

Mixed use overlay zoning has to go.

Richard Rothschild
Mount Airy

The Office Park Employment (OPE) overlay zone is only the most recent overlay proposal as there are three existing overlay zoning proposals. Not many citizens understand what an overlay zone is because they are complex to describe. The basics concept is that the overlay hovers above the county and a property owner applies for it to descend over their property.  If the property meets the criteria set forth in the zoning code, and the BOCCapproves it, then the property will be re-zoned with the new overlay zoning.

The criterion set forth in the code is what will dictate where these overlays can descend. There should be some real concern regarding the criteria used to dictate where these overlays can be applied, particularly for the proposed Mixed Use Overlay (MXO). The current proposal consists of less than three pages of text that will guide this overlay, and one and a half of those pages are devoted to the multiple uses that it allows. In the remaining page, you will find some design and process text and very little information on where it can be applied.  The text only states that MXO shall be served by water and sewer and have access to collector or arterial highway.

I don’t believe the citizens of Carroll County want a mixed use overlay that will allow all types of residential, commercial and office development to go anywhere a developer can put water and sewer and where there is a viable collector road.  MXO should be limited to growth areas, and/or over certain base zoning districts.

The planning and zoning commissioners were already discussing how the existing Restricted Industrial (IR) zoning text is flawed and how it is not providing predictability by allowing too many retail uses. This loosely written overlay zoning code does not ensure development in and around the designated growth areas in the county; it just opens the door for sprawl. I think that the counties zoning code needs to be improved so that we can better control how developers shape our home.

Debra Wittle, of Taylorsville, is one of the founders of the groups. She said both started as a response to Carroll County’s draft Pathways comprehensive plan. ”As we started to find each other, we started to hold community meetings, which we are holding pretty regularly ever since we found out about (Pathways),” she said. Wittle, a landscape architect and planner, organized a group of 25 to 45 people who would meet almost each Friday at 7 p.m. either in someone’s barn or at the Taylorsville United Methodist Church. ”During that process, we realized we really needed to pay more attention to our community,” she said. “We don’t want to be surprised ever again.”

About 1,700 acres in Taylorsville were proposed to be used for office park and employment space, accompanied with a rezoning measure that would have come to the County Commissioners. But last week, Steve Horn, Carroll County director of Department of Planning, recommended to remove all office park and employment additions to the plan. Instead, Horn proposed to use “zoning overlays” — which would allow properties to be subdivided and continued use of its current zoning, but give the option of office park and employment uses. Wittle said GTACC is opposed to the overlay uses out of concern that it might not be implemented properly.

“The county should look at places that are more likely to be developed, like Springfield Hospital Center, instead of an overlay that can occur (almost) anywhere,” she said.

For information about the group, e-mail info@no2rezone.com.

Let’s keep it rural. We like it!

The Pathways to Carroll’s Future proposal has ended its public hearings. The Planning and Zoning Commission must sort out what is practical and make recommended changes back to the County Planning Staff. The commission’s report will be extremely important. A lot of people are watching and waiting.

It’s also important to Carroll County’s future. I want to preserve what we have and try not to become a Baltimore or Howard County. Are their taxes lower than ours with all the employment areas, even with Interstate Highway frontage? I am in favor of employment areas, but not to the extent of the Pathways proposal. Carroll County will be offering tax breaks for new businesses to relocate here and we will be stuck with the infrastructure cost.

Why are we choosing a dream of being something we are not in Carroll County? I believe Carroll County has something very special and it’s because we don’t have Interstate highways crossing our county both ways. It’s our geographic location and that can’t be changed. Let’s be glad for what we do have and not wish for something else like super employment areas with traffic, increased crime and a total change of atmosphere.

Ag preservation should be a priority and the Installment Purchase agreement may help achieve our goals. But the building rights, the farmer’s savings and retirement accounts, should not be removed from the Ag zone.

Why change our whole county and try to attract companies that are moving south anyway because of Maryland’s taxes and red tape? Office park/employment areas should be near current growth and water and sewer services. I support the PO/E proposal at Mt. Airy on the Knill farm because it meets these criteria. The 254 acres the county may own at Mt. Airy also meets the Maryland Smart Growth and State 66B guidelines.

The total acreage proposed for OP/E is excessive. The 1700 plus acres at Taylorsville and the 600 acres south of I-70 put a lot of people’s private property rights in limbo for decades if not generations.

We need a level of common sense that’s not demonstrated in the current Pathways proposal. The citizens have already demonstrated that they are not swallowing this plan “hook, line and sinker”.

-E