The two-year-long battle over Charles County’s Comprehensive Plan is reaching white-hot conditions, and the stakes are enormous for Maryland and the Chesapeake Bay. On the chopping block are a county deemed the third most valuable ecologically in the entire state, and Mattawoman Creek, once heralded by fisheries scientists as Maryland’s “best, most productive tributary to the Chesapeake Bay,” but now faltering from overdevelopment.
The issue is not only that outstanding natural resources would be devastated by a proposed land-use plan. It is also political: Can a rogue county, with single-vote majorities beholden to a land-speculators’ lobby on each of its two governing boards, trample widespread local support for a smarter growth plan, and totally eviscerate the smart growth initiative of a governor who supports the Bay restoration and should understand that the objective cannot be met if Mattawoman Creek and its watershed are further compromised by urban sprawl?
The fight is playing out on rough terrain during a perfect storm. The terrain was prepared during a year-long public process in 2011, during which the county made an admirable effort to engage the public in a required six-year update of its Comprehensive Plan. The Sierra Club and its allies in the Smarter Growth Alliance for Charles County (SGACC) were fully engaged. As a result, the land speculators and development industry that have controlled land-use for over two decades, still smarting from losing permits for the Cross County Connector, were dismayed when a compromise plan with overwhelming public support was created that steered toward smart growth. The speculators acted decisively, pouring money into an astroturf campaign cynically named the Balanced Growth Initiative. BGI hired a lobbyist who had served as a former state delegate and county commission president, and ran newspaper ads to harness knee-jerk adherents to the notion that guiding growth sensibly is an affront to “property rights.”
Then a storm began boiling, born of a fluke of timing that juxtaposed the Comprehensive Plan update with the development of a “Tier Map” as required by the Sustainable Growth & Agricultural Preservation Act of 2012 (the “Septics Bill”). The Septics Bill was Governor O’Malley’s premier initiative to curtail sprawl development and reduce Bay pollution. A Tier Map must divide a county into four “tiers” according to whether (i) sewer is in place; (ii) sewer is planned; and if not planned, whether (iii) large or (iv) small subdivisions on septic are permitted. The Act intended to prevent large subdivisions from further sprawling over areas dominated by forest and agriculture.
The original Septics Bill gave the state some teeth to ensure compliance until Mac Middleton, a pro-sprawl state senator from Charles County, gutted state oversight. As a result, BGI offered its own Tier Map to Charles County’s appointed seven-member Planning Commission, which by a single but reliable vote, passed it on—with no alternations whatsoever—to the elected Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) for approval. In a classic “tail wags dog,” the Planning Commission then altered the draft Comprehensive Plan to conform to the Tier Map, with sprawl proposed over the majority of the county, and intense development over a sprawling “development district” 30% larger than Washington, DC, blanketing the Mattawoman watershed.
When the Tier Map went to hearing before the BOCC, the Sierra Club and its allied SGACC mobilized citizens who filled the hearing auditorium in La Plata. These citizens greatly outnumbered those drawn into BGI’s astroturf campaign, and spoke with authority and knowledge about the benefits of smart growth, and the blow to quality of life that the proposed Tier Map epitomized. Perhaps it was this grassroots success that compelled the BGI’s agitated lobbyist to tell a statewide environmental leader in the lobby after the hearing “to kiss my —-.”
The BOCC appears to be delaying approval of the BGI Tier Map until they receive the Comprehensive Plan itself. Unfortunately, history suggests that the five-member BOCC, again by single vote, will pass a plan by and for developers. The majority has already just voted $1 million in the 2014 budget to study a reapplication for wetland permits for the Cross County Connector, even though permits have already been denied once by the Army Corps of Engineers because the highway is “contrary to the public interest.”
If in fact Charles County does follow the Tier Map and thus adopt a land-use plan custom-made for developers, the result would be even worse than the 1990, 1997, and 2006 plans that have led to a loss of fish-species richness and abundance in Mattawoman Creek; condemned all but one of Charles County’s watersheds to be listed as impaired; raised property taxes to the second highest in the state in order to service sprawl development; led to the greatest use of school trailers of any county in the state; and in general degraded the quality of life.
As the election cycle kicks off, it is essential that a message be sent to elected officials that citizens will not stand for county commissioners that carry water for powerful land speculators. It is important from a statewide perspective that a rogue county earn the ire of those wanting to clean up the Chesapeake Bay. First, learn about smart growth solutions at a public forum on May 30 sponsored by the Smarter Growth Alliance for Charles County (see sidebar). Then swell the numbers at an upcoming but presently unscheduled hearing before the Board of County Commissioners on the comprehensive plan. Finally, use the Club’s unique political capabilities to get involved—now—in the next election.
Jim Long is a member of the Southern Maryland Group.