Plan Maryland Edges Toward Completion, Conflict with Counties

A state effort to unify planning and development policies has some local governments crying foul.

At the heart of the conflict is a map that is part of Plan Maryland.

State officials including Gov. Martin O'Malley say the unified development policy is needed to focus growth in specific areas while protecting farmland and open space from sprawl.

But leaders of the state's 23 counties attending the annual Maryland Association of Counties conference in Ocean City say Plan Maryland is another attempt by the state to diminish local land use authority.

"This is really what we do," said Howard County Executive Ken Ulman, who is also president of the association of counties. "We do local land decisions."

The state has been required to come up with a unified development policy for more than 40 years. During that time, counties have successfully turned back those efforts, which are seen as a usurpation of its authority.

"We need to find a smaller, more sustainable way to grow," O'Malley told more than 100 attendees of the summer conference.

"We need to rebalance our relationship not only with one another, but with nature," O'Malley said.

The dispute heats up again this fall as the commenting period on an initial draft of Plan Maryland ends in the next week.

State officials said Friday the comments will be used to refine the draft plan. Some county officials told O'Malley they would like as much as a year to review the state's efforts.

"Why the rush?" asked J. Douglas Howard, president of the Carroll County Commissioners.

The Republican said his county would like six months to pore over the proposed plan.

"This is a fundamental issue of property rights," Howard told O'Malley.

Everyone is clear, however, on how the state will use the plan to attempt to influence county development decisions.

"This is not going to prevent the counties from making stupid land use decisions," O'Malley said. "They're still free to do that. We're not going to subsidize it."

That could mean reductions in state aid for roads and other infrastructure projects needed to open up areas to development.

Using the maps to decide what projects the state will help fund could save the state as much as $1.5 billion annually, O'Malley said.

Ulman told reporters after a more than one-hour presentation by O'Malley that many counties are concerned about losing control of zoning and development decisions.

In Baltimore County, land use is the sole purview of the County Council.

The refined draft plan could come out just as council begins its quadrennial Comprehensive Zoning Map Process, which will guide development for the next four years.

County Executive Kevin Kamenetz, who is attending the conference, was not immediately available for comment.

County officials speaking on background said the plan, as drafted, will affect rural counties more than Baltimore County, which O'Malley singled out during his presentation as a model for the rest of the state.

O'Malley showed the audience maps projecting future growth. Those maps showed how the county's Urban Rural Demarcation Line continues to keep development out of the more rural northern portions of the the county.

O'Malley repeatedly told county leaders Friday that the intent was not to cross that line even though he believed their authority ultimately came from the state itself.

"There would be no counties without the state giving permission to those counties to exist," O'Malley said.

O'Malley told county leaders he is wary of placing specific language in the plan that could limit the state's efforts to control sprawl.

"I'm not willing to put in language that says, 'This far shall the state go and no further,'" he said.

Ulman said most counties can't yet know how this will affect them.

"It's too early to know how Plan Maryland will be used," Ulman said. "The question is: When does the hammer come out?"