Wednesday November 16th @ 6pm
Frederick County Planning Commission Public Hearing on the 43 proposals for land development in the New Market region
(sign up to speak at 5pm), Winchester Hall (12 E Church Street, downtown Frederick, 1st floor)

There is no need for additional residential or commercial zoning.

Frederick County’s 20-year growth plan (2010-2030) meets state growth projections with zoning for development of 36,264 homes and over 3000 acres for commercial build out. Existing land use plans are sufficient to build a robust economy while preserving the quality of life for Frederick County residents.

What you should know about these land use change requests:
• Total potential land conversion: 2,973 acres
• Potential number of homes: 4,994
• Number of kids added to FCPS in New Market: 2712 kids
• Number of car trips/day added to local roads: 47,793 car trips
• Area to be built on well and septic: 348 acres

Consider this…

• Cost of new schools will be paid in large part by taxpayers (you)
Elementary school construction cost: $25 million (700 student capacity)
Middle school construction cost: $45 million (900 student capacity)
High school construction cost: $70 million (1600 student capacity)

• Cost for new roads will be paid in large part by taxpayers (you). Frederick County needs $3.5 billion to resolve its current road crisis. The BOCC just zeroed the excise tax, a source for road and bridge maintenance and construction.

If you can’t make it to the public hearing, you can send a letter to Frederick County Planning Commissioners:

John McClurkin, Chair, samjbm@verizon.net
Richard Floyd, Vice-Chair, rmfloyd1@aol.com
Robert Lawrence, Secretary, Boblawrence5753@comcast.net
Catherine Forrence, 404westmain@comcast.net
Robert White Jr., bobwhitejr@mac.com
Audrey Wolfe, al_wolfe@verizon.net

Cc: Jim Gugel, Chief Planner jgugel@frederickcountymd.gov

Have a friend come to the hearing and read it in to the record!

Download letter as pdf file here.

Send us your thoughts and comments.

New Market plan doesn't detail how FCPS will handle an additional 450 children.

Originally published March 18, 2011

By Patti S. Borda

Photo by Sam Yu

New Market Mayor Winslow Burhans III talks Wednesday about one of the areas he would like to annex to be part of New Market. The area is east of Md. 75 and includes the McDonald’s and Food Lion.

New Market Mayor Winslow Burhans III is not threatened by a Friends of Frederick County lawsuit that accuses the town of failing to plan properly for growth, traffic and school capacity.

“We took the issues straight on,” he said in an e-mail. “We spent a lot of time with cost calculations, yields and financing, and growth staging mechanisms.”

Burhans said the town plans to make the most of its geographic fate along major metropolitan roads such as Md. 144 and I-70.

“It’s automatically going to have growth pressures,” he said.

When the first brick was laid in the Baltimore National Pike from the Port of Baltimore to head westward to Ohio, running through downtown New Market, “that meant change was coming,” Burhans said. “You have to be able to embrace the fact that change is coming.”

Janice Wiles, Friends of Frederick executive director, said in a telephone interview the New Market plan contains comments from state and county officials that indicate the plan is inadequate.

Wiles, who ran unsuccessfully for a seat on the county board last year, said the lawsuit is not politically motivated, and is based on deficiencies in the town’s plan.

“We are concerned about development when the community can’t afford it,” Wiles said. “We have to come up with a new way to grow.”

Burhans defends his plan as one with the town’s best interests in mind, but said it is “just a plan.” Details are worked out as studies are completed, he said.

“When you are seventh generation to a town, it is pretty clear that no one, not even FoFC, should underestimate the care one has about all aspects of the town, because whatever the town does wrong becomes a reflection of me,” he said.

Burhans’ vision includes a grid of roads to serve traffic in and around town and new employment bases to give residents a place to work without having to drive so far.

“We want people to be able to live here, work here,” Burhans said. “We want to create a community, a traditional neighborhood.”

He stresses that the town took worst-case scenarios to build its plan.

“We didn’t want to be accused of painting a favorable growth scenario,” he wrote. “We didn’t hide behind anything.”

Part of Burhans’ plan will depend on annexing land, some of which could yield 925 houses.

The residential component would cost more in infrastructure than it would bring in revenue, Wiles said, and “the jobs that they’re proposing do nothing to resurrect downtown.”

Burhans said the town has traffic problems already because previous Boards of County Commissioners blocked all corridors. Roads north of Md. 144 and south of Gas House Pike funnel east-west traffic through New Market, and the town would like to do something about it, Burhans said.

“The previous board made it a thoroughfare for commuters,” he said. “I think this board will talk roads. They are unlike any other Board of County Commissioners” in their willingness to work with municipalities, he said.

Commissioners President Blaine Young said the board will have a meeting with Burhans to discuss his concerns and the county’s disapproval of the town plan.

“We will address it,” Young said by telephone.

In place of the official town planning, Friends of Frederick implemented a community-driven process called the New Market Tomorrow initiative, which will culminate in a comprehensive vision for the town of New Market.

“We have the best interest of the greater Frederick community at heart,” Wiles said.

Updates about the initiative will be available at www.friendsoffrederickcounty.org.

More than a dozen landowners and the Audubon Society of Central Maryland Inc. joined Friends as plaintiffs in the lawsuit. A proposed bypass and development on the Delaplaine and Smith/Cline properties would harm the adjacent Fred J. Archibald Audubon Sanctuary, according to a Friends statement.

The issue in New Market is not the activities of Friends of Frederick County, but the town’s sprawling growth plan that will, in some form or another, ultimately impact every resident of Frederick County through crowded schools, traffic gridlock and higher taxes to subsidize the services and infrastructure needed to support growth.

Everyone can agree that economic vitality is needed, and now. But with over 5,300 vacant houses sitting on the market in Frederick County, annexing farmland to build even more is a road to nowhere.

Friends of Frederick County is a coalition of concerned citizens, farmers and business people who have brought a refreshing mandate of accountability to locally elected officials which is simply this: Follow the law. The sprawling, costly, unhealthy, environmentally and socially destructive growth planned for New Market is not only contradictory to the town’s own stated objectives but also out of compliance with state law.

Town leaders did not analyze and plan, as required by law, for the costs of services and infrastructure, such as roads, schools, emergency services, water and sewer service, and the impact of growth on environmentally sensitive areas. The law requires this assessment for a good reason: because taxpayers are often left footing the bill for future costs of residential and commercial sprawl. Unfunded mandates are routinely foisted on the public by many developers in Frederick County, where for years citizens have unwittingly paid higher taxes to cover the cost of more schools, more roads, sewer and water services, and more pollution.

Compliance with the law is something we should demand of all elected officials, along with a healthy dose of fiscal common sense. New Market’s plan throws that all overboard and reaches far beyond their own growth projections of 468 houses by the year 2030. The Smith Cline annexation alone plans for 925 homes. With 5,300 vacant homes in the county, you have to wonder why.

The “if you build it they will come” mentality of the past is simply not viable in the wreckage of vacant subdivisions dotting the countryside. But reality has not yet reached the leaders of New Market who cling to the notion that bulldozing and building creates jobs, even if no one happens to be buying. The New Market plan is not about progress or smart growth, it is a desperate attempt by developers and special interests to go back to the bubble economy days when real estate speculators could turn a profit selling futures in massive, budget-busting subdivisions — the public interest be damned.

Moving the county economy beyond its dependence on real estate speculation is why Friends of Frederick County came into existence more than seven years ago. That is why Friends is supporting a citizens initiative to prepare a plan for New Market that will meet New Market’s stated objective for “orderly, compact, phased and compatible growth as an alternative to suburban sprawl, automobile-dependent development that has consumed hundreds of thousands of acres of valuable land across our county” (see p. 5 New Market Municipal Growth Element addendum June 9, 2010).

The consequences of land-use decisions almost always fall on the shoulders of citizens. It is reasonable for them to have a voice in these affairs. That’s not demagoguery, or “meddling,” as Mr. Koehler puts it, it’s democracy.

Janice Wiles is the executive director of Friends of Frederick County; Amy Farber is a member of the board of directors of FoFC

Originally published March 13, 2011

Cline Farm, New Market (Harry Richardson, artist)

This letter is in response to Mark Koehler’s Feb. 28 letter titled “Not Friends …” in which he takes to task Friends of Frederick County’s involvement in the politics of New Market. I, too, have a New Market mailing address, albeit not in the Town of New Market; however, I live very close to the town and have had the opportunity to attend their Town Council and planning and zoning meetings. I have followed very closely many discussions and decisions by the New Market elected officials as they pertain to the surrounding environment in which the residents of New Market live.I am a concerned citizen who is writing to factually rebut Koehler’s accusations against Friends of Frederick County. HB 1141 is a clearly defined law that outlines how municipalities are to address their Municipal Growth Element (MGE). After the town submitted their MGE, the Maryland Planning Department’s, as well as the State Highway Administration’s, response to the town’s submittal outlined in very clear terms how poorly this document was executed and provided very distinct recommendations for aligning the town’s MGE with HB 1141.

Town officials chose to ignore the majority of these recommendations. During their Nov. 17, 2010 meeting an individual who was providing guidance to the town officials stated that “if the Maryland Planning Department doesn’t write their response in bold then we don’t need to worry about it.” Perhaps it would have been more helpful to suggest that the Maryland Planning Department, as well as the State Highway Administration, were much more versed in the requirements of HB 1141 and as such their comments should be taken seriously.

Friends of Frederick County has not been “frequently meddling in New Market’s affairs” as stated by Koehler, but rather became involved once it became apparent New Market town officials chose to ignore the recommendations made by the Maryland Planning Department with regard to their MGE.

The fact of the matter is, had town officials worked with the State Planning Commission, as well as the State Highway Administration, to design their MGE to meet the requirements of HB 1141, the Town of New Market would not now find themselves in the position of being sued. I would also venture a guess that if town officials would be willing to reconsider the wording of their MGE so that it unequivocally met the requirements of HB 1141, no monies would be have to be spent defending a plan that appears to be fallible.

I would invite all concerned citizens to visit the Maryland Planning Department’s website to gain factual insight into this situation.

Vitriolic rhetoric accomplishes nothing. I believe if everyone comes to the table with an open mind we would understand that everyone is seeking quality of life. This is not about stopping development but rather about developing our community in a smart, well-thought-out way that does not force us to live in an extended Montgomery County. If we all try to work together I believe we can all achieve that which matters most to us.

Brenda Harlow lives near New Market.

Originally published March 05, 2011

By Patti S. Borda The Frederick County Commissioners voted 4-1 Tuesday to repeal the ordinance that has applied the county adequate public facilities schools test to certain properties in municipalities since November 2009.The ordinance was not applied in practice before several municipalities challenged its legality in December 2009. Petitions for judicial review of the ordinance were filed by the municipalities of Frederick, Thurmont, Brunswick, Emmitsburg and Myersville, the burgess and commissioners of Middletown, Woodsboro, Summers Farm LLP and Crum Commercial Farm Development LLC.

The county’s stated purpose for adopting the ordinance was to ensure that schools would be built before development could overburden them in areas the City of Frederick annexed — the Summers and Crum farms among them. Municipal leaders balked at the suggestion that they do not plan for school needs when approving development, presented arguments that the county had overcrowded schools in unincorporated areas before 2009, and that the county may have no legal right to impose the ordinance.

On Tuesday, many municipal leaders and builders told commissioners that the previous Board of County Commissioners had soured the relationship between the county and municipalities, and the ordinance worsened the situation. Mayors, burgesses, builders and land-development lawyers assured commissioners that they would work cooperatively with the county to plan for school capacity and would withdraw the legal action if the county would rescind the ordinance.

That order of events is wrong, said Commissioner David Gray. He advocated ideas from speakers who urged commissioners not to repeal the ordinance until something was written to replace it, a memorandum of understanding or an agreement to set certain standards that limit development according to school capacity.

Opponents of the repeal said Gray is the only one who is thinking of the effect that overcrowded schools would have on children. Commissioners President Blaine Young and Commissioner Paul Smith said they have children in public school, and they are taking into account the effect the repeal will have.

Lawyer Rand Weinberg said the commissioners should repeal the ordinance because it did not foster cooperation but represented an attempt to negotiate with a hammer over the heads of municipalities.

“The least productive way to negotiate a good solution … is with a threat,” he said.

Frederick Mayor Randy McClement, whose municipality was at the heart of the original matter before he took office, said he would work closely with the county on a solution. He said he was not speaking for the city aldermen, but believed they would be willing to work with the county to set an adequate public facilities ordinance for the city that would meet county approval.

The ordinance repeal went into effect Tuesday.