By Pete McCarthy

	Photo by Staff file photo by Sam Yu  This June 2009 photo shows U.S. 15 running left to right with Willow Road perpendicular at lower right. The Board of County Commissioners voted Thursday to allow the City of Frederick to annex the Crum farm, to the left of Willow Road, and the Thatcher property, on the far side of U.S. 15.

The City of Frederick is about to gain some acres.For more than a year, two large farms just north of the city have been approved for annexation, but the city and previous county officials disagreed on zoning so developers were told they would have to wait five years.

The Board of County Commissioners voted Thursday to end that mandatory waiting period and allow the developers to proceed immediately.

The two farms — known as the Crum and Thatcher properties — total nearly 400 acres. Both are north of the city limits along U.S. 15.

Frederick Mayor Randy McClement was at Thursday’s meeting and called the commissioners’ decision a positive one for the city.

“We need the growth area,” McClement said. “Everything is set in place. We are looking forward to the ability to give our residents an opportunity to stay here and work here.”

The city approved annexation of the land in 2009.

The properties are ripe for development, according to Commissioner C. Paul Smith.

“I think this will be a great benefit for the city,” Smith said. “It had been planned for some time.”

Commissioner Billy Shreve said, “I think it is a good example of planning.”

Before significant construction can proceed, the developers would need to make improvements to a U.S. 15 interchange and other road enhancements.

“I think it takes care of the important traffic problems we have,” Smith said.

Construction at either site is still years away. Both developers will need a year or two to finalize their plans, according to land-use attorney Bruce Dean.

The Crum property, just north of Willow Road, is 285 acres, and the plan is to build up to 1,200 homes and a mix of commercial and retail space, said Dean, who represents both developers. Up to 400 of those homes could be built before the interchange is completed, he said.

The Thatcher farm is across U.S. 15 on Biggs Ford Road. The plan there is to build up to 1.3 million square feet of office space, which could result in thousands of permanent jobs, Dean said.

Both developers are excited to get started, he said.

“The focus was the proximity to Fort Detrick,” he said. “That is the No. 1 economic driver in Frederick County.”

Both companies should have plans developed in the next two years, but there is no way to know when construction could begin, Dean said.

“There is no huge impetus to be building a lot of houses right now,” he said. “It’s dependent on economic factors that are out of our hands right now.”

Commissioner David Gray was the lone dissenting vote.

“Classic sprawl,” Gray said. “Look for problems to come.”

Friends of Frederick County — an activist group opposed to the annexation — filed a lawsuit against the city in 2010. The group alleged the city did not properly prepare for the potential growth and did not complete an appropriate plan. The case is still pending in court, Friends of Frederick County Executive Director Janice Wiles said Thursday.

“I still have the same concerns that I had before,” Wiles said, referring to the dangers of added congestion on U.S. 15 and other factors. “Taking good farmland out of production and sprawling out into the countryside is not a good idea.”

By Bethany Rodgers

Bumper-to-bumper traffic and tax increases could arise from a current effort to rewrite the county land-use plan, leaders of two local nonprofit groups said Tuesday.Estimating that more than 10,000 acres of farmland and open space could give way to housing if rezoned or reclassified under a new comprehensive plan, the organization Friends of Frederick County predicted the result would be an influx of cars on the roads and children in schools. The current comprehensive plan, adopted last year by the previous board of commissioners, doesn’t need an overhaul and offers ample space for growth, the nonprofit representatives said.

“This has everything to do with our quality of life,” Janice Wiles, executive director of Friends of Frederick County, said of the land-use plan. “Once things are rezoned É it just changes the whole nature of our county.”

The current effort by county commissioners to revisit the comprehensive plan began earlier this year.

Commissioners President Blaine Young said he wanted the rewrite because the 2010 land-use blueprint stripped value from a number of properties through “downzoning” them, increasing limitations on development of the land. Young has said he’s looking to restore the lost value as commissioners revise the plan.

While Young has said he’s not interested in rezoning properties left untouched by recent county comprehensive plans, all landowners were free to submit requests. The county reported receiving 196 applications for new zonings and land-use designations, with concentrations in the New Market, Urbana and Frederick regions.

Friends of Frederick County’s analysis of the applications showed that granting the requests could pave the way for construction of more than 23,000 homes, possibly translating into upwards of 12,700 school-aged children.

At a meeting Tuesday morning, Wiles and Kai Hagen — a former county commissioner and leader of the nonprofit organization Envision Frederick County — said the county doesn’t have the roads or schools to accommodate growth in all of the areas under consideration for rezoning or land-use designation changes. That means officials would have to raise taxes to fund infrastructure improvements, Wiles said.

The previous board’s 20-year growth plan allowed for the construction of about 36,000 new homes, covering what state population estimates indicate the county might need for that period.

Commissioner David Gray, who was the only board member to vote against a rewrite — although Commissioner Kirby Delauter was absent for the decision — said changing the document is unnecessary and happening too quickly. The current schedule has the board adopting changes in early 2012.

“I hope we will slow down,” he said at the Tuesday meeting with Hagen and Wiles, adding that there’s no pressing need to push through the revisions.

However, in a phone interview, Young said the previous comprehensive plan snatched money from landowners.

“They think it’s OK with a stroke of a pen to take away someone’s hard work and life savings, and they don’t think they should be compensated in any way, shape or form,” Young said of those who would stick with the 2010 document.

In addition, growth will inject money into the local economy by stimulating jobs. Far from worsening the problem of funding shortages for infrastructure, development can help provide a solution by generating money from fees and taxes, Young said.

Hagen takes issue with the claim that changing the comprehensive plan will encourage job growth. Just because a new plan would benefit developers doesn’t mean it is good for the entire business community, he said.

“Developing in the wrong place is not good job-creation,” Hagen said.