Glade Valley, 804 acres, Kelly and Staley Properties, 302 acres and Kemp Lane Assemblage, 161 acres.  Read the letter here.

The problems associated with the “boom and bust” residential overbuilding in Frederick County have affected the lives of every school child and every motorist in Frederick County. 

Read the Truth about Residential Development, Our Taxes and Our Future.

Read the Truth about the Effects of Residential Development on our Schools.

Read the Truth about the Effects of Residential Development on our Roads.

They concluded that they need to talk more. Mayor Randy McClement made a list of topics to discuss at future meetings: the city’s adequate public facilities ordinance; the income tax projections from the prospective new residents of 10,000 houses; the phasing of development and road needs.

The two governing bodies agreed to collaborate on how to provide housing, schools and jobs for the people who are predicted to move to the city over the next 20 years.

The meeting was the state-mandated conference between the two bodies to discuss the municipal growth element section of the city’s updated comprehensive plan. The plan was approved in November as a guide to development over the next 20 years.

The municipal growth element section divides the development potential into two tiers: Tier 1 is for infill and redevelopment; tier 2 is for planned growth in the northeast and covered by the Potomac River Water Supply Agreement.

A swath of land in the county that borders on the city’s north and east boundary, designated as Tier 3, is shown on the land use map in the plan. Tier 3 land is not projected for city annexation or development for more than 30 years and is not part of the official growth element, said Joe Adkins, the city’s deputy director for planning.

County Commissioners President Jan Gardner disputed whether Tier 3 land could be included on the map if the city did not officially account for the cost of its potential development. A long-discussed but not officially planned north-south road lies in that swath.

Gardner said that if Tier 3 is included on the map the city must provide economic analyses of potential development of the land, as it had for Tiers 1 and 2.

Tiers 1 and 2 are predicted to be built out in 20 years. Over that time they are estimated to generate an average of 500 houses per year; 300,000 square feet of commercial development per year; 18,000 employees; two elementary schools, one middle school, and three-quarters of a high school; school impact fees worth $150 million, or 60 percent of the cost of those schools; a need for 54 police officers; an additional $4.5 million in revenue for the fire tax.

County commissioners David Gray, Kai Hagen, John L. Thompson Jr. and Gardner told city officials all taxpayers bear the burden of the cost to provide the schools, roads and fire-rescue services of development. City aldermen Michael O’Connor, Karen Young and Shelley Aloi said job growth would provide revenue that had not been included in the analysis.

“There’s no single-bullet answer to this,” O’Connor said.

“There’s a lot of minutiae to discuss,” Hagen said.

http://www.fredericknewspost.com/sections/news/display.htm?StoryID=106259

Originally published June 17, 2010

By Patti S. Borda

News-Post Staff

It’s the brainchild of Greensboro hotelier and restaurateur Dennis Quaintance, who has made his mark in the Triangle as owner of the Lucky 32 restaurant in Cary. Proximity opened in 2008 as the first hotel in America to earn the highest rating offered by the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design system. With water heated by 100 solar panels on the roof, a high-tech elevator that feeds energy back into the building’s electrical grid and an array of ultra-efficient materials, the Proximity uses 39 percent less energy and 33 percent less water than comparable hotels.

“The widely held notion that building and operating hotels with a commitment to sustainable practices is too expensive is a myth,” Quaintance said. “We wanted to get to the point where we’re not wasting energy and the guest is still very comfortable – and that’s where we ended up.”

But why aren’t more developers joining him? And what can they learn from Quaintance’s project that might serve both their bottom line and sustainable construction?

“Most property owners start with a calculator” – and often hastily decide green buildings cost too much, said Todd Mansfield, past chairman of the Urban Land Institute and current CEO of Charlotte real-estate developer Crosland.

Developers, for example, finance up to 90 percent of the money needed to build a hotel. With that high debt load, they focus on maximizing profits quickly by selling the hotel in three to five years. “There’s also been a long-standing misperception about the cost of green elements, that they add 20 to 25 percent to the cost of a project,” Mansfield said. In fact, he said, those costs more typically run less than 5 percent – and developers are gradually catching on.

Quaintance estimates the green elements of the Proximity added a net cost of about $800,000, or 3 percent, to his $29 million hotel. He expects to recoup it by 2012 through energy savings, state and federal tax credits and other incentives. He’s rooted in Greensboro, put considerable equity into the hotel with his investors and is willing to wait for his payoff – but many developers aren’t. Nor are they inclined to create more work for themselves by vetting the myriad green options that are available – from sensors that switch off the lights in empty rooms to high-tech drapes that retain heat more efficiently.

The result: In the two years since the Proximity opened, just one other hotel in the United States has achieved the platinum LEED rating. Quaintance finds that more disappointing than gratifying. He didn’t build the hotel to make a social statement; he did it because it made business sense.

The hotel’s energy efficiency will add hundreds of thousands of dollars to the bottom line in coming years. And, already, about 15 percent of the Proximity’s revenues come from clients who want to hold weddings, meetings and charitable events there precisely because it is a green hotel.

In the Triangle, there are several dozen LEED-certified office, university and public buildings under way or finished. Durham, in fact, is among the national leaders in LEED buildings per capita. Duke University sets the pace with 16 buildings completed and another 12 seeking certification. Scientific Properties and Trinity Design/Build have kept pace with their own LEED-certified buildings. Greenfire Development, one of the city’s largest developers, has several innovative projects using green technology.

To prod more developers in this direction, Quaintance offers a few modest proposals. For example, he said, what if developers received incentives for earning LEED certification? What if they got accelerated tax depreciation for new buildings with energy and water consumption that exceed efficiency thresholds? What if colleges, universities, school systems and government agencies required that all new buildings include an estimate for the first five years of utility costs in their capital expenditure items? The math would show where the long-term savings from green features, such as solar panels, exceeded upfront costs.

“My hope,” Quaintance said, “is that in just a short while our accomplishments with the Proximity will be overshadowed by other hotels and restaurants that surpass our performance.”

Christopher Gergen is on the founding team of Bull City Forward and Director of the Entrepreneurial Leadership Initiative at Duke University. Stephen Martin, a former business and education journalist, is a speechwriter at the nonprofit Center for Creative Leadership. They can be reached at authors@bullcityforward.org.

http://www.newsobserver.com/2010/06/06/515631/green-hotel-proves-saving-energy.html#ixzz0qXmNlEyz

in support of an Environmental and Natural Resource Reserve in Southern Frederick County – that will protect agricultural land, fragile sole-source aquifer and area wells and prohibit large scale industrial development in that area.

This proposal for an Environmental and Natural Resource Reservewould protect land east of the Monocacy, west of I-70 and North of the Montgomery County line. It would protect the Sugarloaf Mountain, the Monocacy Battlefield, hundreds of acres of farms, prohibit large institutional development, protect areas around the Monocacy River and foster the continuation of agricultural preservation contiguous with that in Montgomery County. Click here for a rough rendition of the proposed area (courtesy of Montgomery Countryside Alliance).

The Board of County Commissioners is poised to move ahead with the proposal by the end of June. Please send them letters expressing your support for the Environmental and Natural Resource Reserve as soon as possible:

Jan H. Gardner: jgardner@FrederickCountyMD.gov
David P. Gray: dgray@FrederickCountyMD.gov
Kai J. Hagen: khagen@FrederickCountyMD.gov
John L. Thompson, Jr.: lthompson@FrederickCountyMD.gov
Blaine R. Young: byoung@FrederickCountyMd.gov

Please send a copy of your letter to friends@friendsoffrederickcounty.org.

The recently ratified Frederick County 20-Year Comprehensive Plan mandates increased protection for environmentally sensitive areas, and those – like this – that are under pressure to change. This proposal is the first initiative to implement the action item NR-A-14 in Chapter 3 – Conserving Our Natural Resources and Green Infrastructure.

In his May 23 commentary, Thomas Lynch attempts to cast illusions, build straw men and further polarize growth and development issues — the very things he suggests we rise above.

Lynch unfairly characterized the recently adopted comprehensive plan, and Frederick County government in general, as being unfriendly toward the business community. As a business owner who moved to Frederick County specifically to start a business, I can tell you that nothing could be further from the truth.

The hundreds of properties that Lynch refers to as being “downgraded” constitute less than 1 percent of the properties covered under the comprehensive plan. In addition, within that 1 percent, a large number of the properties were reevaluated as a result of new, updated flood-zone maps issued by FEMA. Most reasonable people would agree that properties in a flood zone are not good candidates for development.

Furthermore, the county commissioners specifically acknowledged that some of the rezoned properties could still be developed if annexed by the adjacent municipalities as part of their growth plans. This ensures that new development can be serviced by adjacent municipal infrastructure.

In the end, there were only a handful of property owners out of the approximately 230,000 residents in Frederick County who were adversely affected. Little consolation for those individuals for sure, but not a bad track record for elected officials trying to balance the desire of individuals with the best interests of the community at large.

The business community in Frederick County is diverse and made up of more than just developers. For example, Frederick County has more farms than any other county in Maryland. The number of farms in Frederick County is also up 13 percent from 2002, unlike many other counties.

Those counties that focused on development as the main engine of growth have suffered the most as a result of the bust in the construction industry.

The industry was premised on people continually upgrading to the next most fashionable neighborhood or floor plan. Studies have shown that land zoned agricultural puts money in the bank for local governments. They pay more in taxes than they consume in services. The opposite is true for new development, which costs existing taxpayers more than it brings in.

The county commissioners spent two years and countless public meetings updating the comprehensive plan. The process was fair and open. All voices were heard. The final comprehensive plan does exactly what it is supposed to do. It accommodates the population growth that is projected to occur in Frederick County over the next 20 years. It aligns growth with existing infrastructure, minimizing the cost to existing residents and taxpayers.

If developers are looking for something to do, look no further than the Golden Mile or any other half dozen communities in Frederick County that are in desperate need of redevelopment.

William Morrow

writes from Whitmore Farm, Emmitsburg

http://www.fredericknewspost.com/sections/opinion/display_lte.htm?storyid=106102

“When the area of driveways, parking lots, streets and other impervious cover reaches 10 percent of a watershed area, many types of pollution sensitive aquatic insects decline by as much as one third, compared to streams in undeveloped forested watersheds,” said Tom Cuffney, USGS biologist. “We learned that there is no ‘safezone,’ meaning that even minimal or early stages of development can negatively affect aquatic life in urban streams.”

As a watershed becomes developed, the amount of pavement, sidewalks and other types of urban land cover increases. During storms, water is rapidly transported over these urban surfaces to streams. The rapid rise and fall of stream flow and changes in temperature can be detrimental to fish and aquatic insects. Stormwater from urban development can also contain fertilizers and insecticides used along roads and on lawns, parks and golf courses.

“Stream protection and management is a top priority of state and local officials, and these findings remind us of the unintended consequences that development can have on our aquatic resources,” said Tom Schueler, Chesapeake Stormwater Network coordinator. “The information has been useful in helping us to predict and manage the future impacts of urban development on streams and reinforces the importance of having green infrastructure to control stormwater runoff and protect aquatic life.”

USGS studies examine the effects of urbanization on algae, aquatic insects, fish, habitat and chemistry in urban streams in nine metropolitan areas across the country: Boston, Mass.; Raleigh, N.C.; Atlanta, Ga.; Birmingham, Ala.; Milwaukee-Green Bay, Wis.; Denver, Colo.; Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas; Salt Lake City, Utah; and Portland, Ore.

These USGS studies also show that land cover prior to urbanization can affect how aquatic insects and fish respond to urbanization. For example, aquatic communities in urban streams in Denver, Dallas-Fort Worth and Milwaukee did not decline in response to urbanization because the aquatic communities were already degraded by previous agricultural land-use activities. In contrast, aquatic communities declined in response to urbanization in metropolitan areas where forested land was converted to urban land, areas such as Boston and Atlanta.

Comparisons among the nine areas show that not all urban streams respond exactly the same. This is mostly because stream quality and aquatic health reflect a complex combination of land and chemical use, land and storm-water management, population density and watershed development, and natural features, such as soils, hydrology, and climate.

These USGS studies represent an integrated approach to understanding urban streams that includes physical, chemical and biological characteristics associated with urbanization. This is critical for prioritizing strategies for stream protection and restoration and in evaluating the effectiveness of those strategies over time.

For more information, listen to USGS Corecast Episode 127. The full report and extended video podcasts are available at the National Water Quality Assessment program urban studies website.

http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=2475&from=news_side

Wednesdays, 3pm in the old Carmack Jay’s parking lot, between 3rd and 4th streets on Market St. Cut flowers, berries, vegetables, herbs, fruit, beef, pork, eggs, baked goods, lamb, rabbit, wool, yarn, chocolates, and hand made knits.

All items raised, grown or made within 120 miles of Frederick.

This is a FREE club for kids of all ages who love our planet and want to learn about easy ways to make a difference.

Our next club meeting will be on June 15 at 4 PM at the C. Burr Artz Public Library in Frederick, MD.

Local farmer Bob Black, from the Catoctin Mountain Orchard, will be there to teach the kids about how buying locally-grown produce helps our environment. We will also sample some yummy homegrown treats and do some fun games and activities.

RSVP at EcoHeroes@friendsoffrederickcounty.org or to 240-529-1655 if you are planning to come. Drop-ins welcome too!

All children must be accompanied by an adult.

John Burgeson, Staff Writer

Published: 11:49 p.m., Sunday, June 6, 2010

The forests of southern New England are being chopped down to make room for subdivisions, strip malls and highways, and this loss of natural landscape has been particularly rapid in the last 30 years, according to the report, “Wildlands and Woodlands,” the work of nearly 20 pre-eminent professors from Yale, Harvard, Brandeis, Cornell and other prominent schools in the Northeast.

Released last week, “Wildlands and Woodlands” is intended to be a “vision for the New England landscape,” which advocates that at least 70 percent of New England remain forested, while at the same time, some development would actually be encouraged.

“Sprawl has become even more of a factor than it was even in the 1950s because of our appetite for larger home lots, bigger malls and wider highways,” said Yale professor Lloyd Irland, a senior research scientist with the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. Strip malls, parking lots, big box stores and other features of our motor vehicle-centered society have taken their toll on the landscape, too, he said.

“This is not an anti-development proposal — rather, it’s in favor of rational development,” said Irland, who said that he hopes that the Wildland and Woodlands report will be seen as a “manifesto’ that guides future land use decisions.

He notes that development that has taken place since the 1950s has been mostly in the form of high-cost housing that was built with little regard for mass transit routes and existing infrastructure, resulting in a huge cost to society for many decades to come. “Roads, sewer lines, water lines and other utilities were extended largely to benefit the wealthy,” he notes. “Development has taken big gouges out of the forest. We have huge lots for rich people and slums for poor ones,” Irland said.

The authors said that, unlike the development seen in the mid-1800s, in which thousands of acres were cleared for farms, today’s sprawl is “hard” development, meaning it won’t revert to woodland anytime soon.

“A lot of the pastures in the 1800s were turning back into forest even before the cows left,” notes Brandeis professor Brian Donohue.

Forestry experts note that there is, in fact, more forested lands in the state than there was in mid-19th century. In 1600, when European colonists first began arriving, it’s estimated that about 90 percent of the state was carpeted with trees. By 1860, only about 30 percent of Connecticut had forest cover, as land was cleared for farms, and timber was needed for construction and iron smelting operations.

But by 1950, as agriculture and timber operations moved to the West and Midwest, the forests rebounded — with about 70 percent of the state covered by woodlands in the mid-20th century.

Since then, sprawl and development has taken its toll, and now just about 50 percent of the state is forested.

“We were given a second chance,” said Bill Toomey, director of the Redding woodland preserve Highstead. “But now, it will be a lot harder for forests to recover from the loss that we’re seeing today.”

There’s also been a meteoric rise in the number of people. New England’s population in 1800 was a little more than 1 million; now it’s 14 million.

Experts note that the hardwood and conifer forests of the Northeast are of global importance, as they act as a “sink” for carbon — converting the global-warming gas carbon dioxide in the atmosphere into cellulose — the long-chain sugar molecule that wood is made out of — and also free oxygen, which is a cooling gas.

“If current trends continue, the effectiveness of that carbon sink will gradually decline,” saidCornell University’s Timothy J. Fahey. “The Northeastern forest is a stronger sink for carbon than most other forests, such as the mature forests of the Northwest.”

The authors note that development can take place without taking down stands of trees. Instead, construction can take place on so-called brownfields — previously developed land that has been abandoned.

“Brownfield development is more costly, but maybe society needs to think about `buying down’ the cost of close-in brownfield development as opposed to extending sewer and water lines for greenfield development,” Irland said. “When you think about it, planning and zoning laws have made efficient use of land illegal.”

Harvard’s Davis Foster, one of the report’s principal authors, said that one solution is to take a second look at New England’s post-industrial landscape. “A lot of old industrial towns are actually very attractive because rivers run through them.”

All of the authors stress that some woodland development is advantageous. Logging, for example, can have some real ecological benefits if it’s done properly.

“When you realize that 95 percent of the lumber we use comes from other parts of the world, and also that it’s harvested in such a way that’s much more destructive than the way we would do it here,” Foster said. “You really have to look at the big picture. And, if people see the forest as a valuable resource, there’ll be a greater incentive to take care of it.”

There are aesthetic considerations, too.

“Another thing that won’t come back is the long tradition of being able to freely walk across undeveloped land,” Irland said. “As Connecticut loses its forest, the opportunity to take that walk in the woods — which is a big part of the quality of life — will disappear. It’s a heritage that we shouldn’t just fritter away.”