Kent Island Defense League

News
2000

Developer accused of misleading public to justify new homes
By MARGOT MOHSBERG, Staff Writer

The developer of a massive Kent Island housing project is misleading the public by using two community growth plans to justify inappropriate development, opponents charge.

These Kent Island residents blame county officials for not supporting the plans in Chester and Stevensville and giving them the strength they were intended to have.

Several members of the committees that compiled the plans even believe the county formed their groups for the sole purpose of facilitating huge developments like the 1,500-home Four Seasons project on Macum Creek.

"The county commissioners adopted the community plans. I say they should stand up and fight for them," said Peter Holland, chairman of Stevensville's 16-member Citizens Advisory Committee.

The three commissioners, however, say the plans are merely guidelines ones that they do take into consideration when they aprove or reject new developments.

"We wouldn't have asked the community for the involvement if we weren't going to use their advice," said Commissioner Marlene Davis, D-Queenstown.

County planners created six committees in the mid-1990s to guide development in designated growth areas on and near Kent Island. The committee members, whose appointments were approved by the Queen Anne's County Board of Commissioners, worked with county planners to make suggestions about how local growth should be directed.

Joseph A. Stevens, the Centreville attorney representing Four Seasons' developer, argues that the plans support the gated, agerestricted community on 561 acres straddling Chester and Stevensville on Castle Marina Road.

He said the two community plans designate the Four Seasons site as "master planned development," zoning which would permit the community proposed by his client, K. Hovnanian Cos. of Virginia.

Four Seasons "is as dense or less dense than the surrounding communities and that was what was recommended in the plan," he said. Peter Holland, a Stevensville resident and Annapolis attorney who served as chairman of the 16-member Stevensville Citizens Advisory Committee, disagreed.

"So what? We didn't want another Cloverfields. We specifically said we did not want cul-de-sacs, deadends and cookie-cutter type houses. The plan I've seen seems to be the epitome of a cookie-cutter layout," he said.

Daniel Mayes, a member of the Citizens Advisory Committee for the Stevensville Community Plan, said he always suspected that the group was formed in part to create a plan that would expedite the approval of Four Seasons. "Domain Builders, which was ultimately bought by K.Hovnanian, came to our first meeting and presented the plans for this project. I was just shocked to even think those plans were in the works," he said.

"In the back of my mind, I always thought we were being manipulated to sanction what they were trying to do. It was like they wanted us to create a blueprint that would facilitate their plans," he said.

Linda Collier, a member of the 11-member Citizens Advisory Group for the Chester Community Plan, said she became wary of the commissioners' motives when she noticed how many developers were appointed to the group.

"I just had this feeling that whatever the committee decided, someday there was going to be a project that we wouldn't like and the developers would say, 'But your very own citizens asked for some thing like this,"' Ms. Collier said.

Commissioner John McQueeney, R-Stevensville, said that Kent Island people are unfairly targeting county leaders and the plans for what they see as rapid development.

"A lot of people on the committee are saying that the plans aren't what they envisioned. But personally, I think they are," he said. "I think what the committee members thought would be a 20- to 30-year plan is being built out much faster because developers are buying out the farmlands."

He, along with Mrs. Davis and Commissioners President George O'Donnell, D-Queenstown, said they are trying to remain neutral on the Four Seasons issue.

"I'm the judge. I shouldn't really have an opinion until we have public hearings," Mr. O'Donnell said.

Mr. Holland thinks that Four Seasons violates enough of the Stevensville plan to warrant the county rejecting it.

"If nothing else, it fails to address the traffic and residential density concerns which were the primary focuses of the Stevensville Citizens Advisory Committee," he said.

But Mr. Stevens said K. Hovnanian will be providing money for additional roads, sewer and water facilities to offset the growth caused by the development.

"K. Hovnanian, especially with the new Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance that is about to be approved this month, is going to pay at least their fair share so that existing residents are not going to be burdened by the new development coming in," he said.

Mr. Mayes said his goal as a committee member was to stop "massive neighborhood projects" in Stevensville.

Now he thinks the committee failed.

"I really believe (the developers of Four Seasons) have achieved what they were trying to do," he said.

Kent Island Digest - Four Seasons petition

The Kent Island Defense League yesterday presented the county commissioners with a petition containing 2,198 signatures of residents opposed to the Four Seasons project.

The league, formed to fight the controversial 1,500-home development on Macum Creek, collected the signatures at the polls two weeks ago in an effort to show voters opposed the project.

County leaders "can't say these people are not from Kent Island and they can't say they don't vote," said Mike Koval, vice president of the Defense League.

Commissioners President George O'Donnell thanked the group for their hard work in polling the residents.

"It's good information to have. And you have to appreciate all the hard work they went to in getting the opinions of the residents," he said.

Four Seasons project opponents unite
By MARGOT MOHSBERG, Kent Island Staff Writer

Two groups formed to get the massive Four Seasons project booted off Kent Island have formed an alliance in the hope that their collective voice will be louder.

WeSayNo and Citizens Against Rezoning the Environment banded together earlier this month to form the Kent Island Defense League.

The group held an informational meeting at the American Legion Post in Stevensville Thursday night attended by more than 200 residents, including Queen Anne's County commissioners Marlene Davis and John McQueeney.

The group's immediate goal is to form a board of directors made up of representatives from the island's various groups and communities.

The league would like to have the board members named by Dec. 6, the deadline for the state Critical Area Commission to decide whether it will recommend giving a growth allocation to the developers of the Four Seasons project.

Half of the 1,300- to 1,400-home complex off Castle Marina Road is in the environmentally sensitive Critical Area. The developer, K. Hovanian Cos., needs that land redesignated from Resource Conservation Area, which allows one home per 20 acres, to Intense Development Area.

"We have to get together quickly so we can make a response to the decision," said Rick Moser, co-founder of WeSayNo.

So far, several community leaders have volunteered for the board including Jack Broderick, president of the Kent Island Civic Confederation, Stan Ruddie, head of the anti-Wal-Mart group Up Against the Wal, and Gene Ransom, a member of the Queen Anne's County Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors and head of the county Democratic Central Committee.

Several people, ranging from community leaders to national activists, offered suggestions at Thursday night's meeting of what residents can do to stop the project.

Richard Klein, head of a national group called Community and Environmental Defense Services, talked about how the Four Seasons development could cluster houses in the middle of the site and build less near the water to protect more of the habitat.

WeSayNo and CARE recently contacted the group for help in their fight against Four Seasons.

Mr. Klein's group helps communities identify how neighboring projects will impact their lives as well as help them gather the volunteers, the money, the facts and the political clout to "ensure that the project is not built until all impacts are resolved," according to its mission statement.

A revised plan by K. Hovanian calls for a 300-foot buffer from Macum Creek, a popular area for wildlife and nature enthusiasts. The first plan called for the project to sit only 100 feet back from the creek.

K. Hovanian also recently offered to slash a shopping center and assisted-living facility for seniors from the project and replace the apartments with homes, with all restricted to residents over age 55.

However, Mr. Moser said residents are still concerned about the number of homes proposed.

"I don't think they want the community to be as dense as he suggested," he said.

Our say: Fire department should be wary of developer's offer

By THE CAPITAL EDITORIAL BOARD

ANY VOLUNTEER fire department would be excited by the prospect of getting another half-million dollars to spend. That's easily another fire truck, or maybe a new station. So, when the developers of the planned Four Seasons project on Kent Island agreed to give the volunteers there $438,750, it was exciting for a department that squeaks through with a tight budget every year.

But the county and its struggling volunteers need to be wary of the offer.

We're sure it's a significant donation on the part of K. Hovnanian and we don't want to belittle its importance. Besides the one-time donation, each homeowner in the massive project would pay $7 a month for emergency services. That alone would generate $100,000 annually. So there's a lot of money at stake.

But we're not convinced it's enough money to support a paid firefighting force -- which will be needed if these 1,500 homes and other projects are eventually approved.

Let's examine some of the problems facing Kent Island residents and their emergency services:

The volunteers report they average two calls a day now and it is difficult getting volunteers to respond in the middle of the night when they have full-time jobs to go to the next morning.

The K. Hovnanian grant could be entirely spent on a new fire engine, leaving nothing from the grant for facilities, manpower or other apparatus.

The $100,000 generated from the per-home fee would pay for only two full-time firefighters.

Firefighters say they are hoping other developers with projects in the planning stage will make similar contributions, but it is unlikely these developers will be as large and as generous as K. Hovnanian.

The K. Hovnanian money is enticing, but the firefighters' newfound wealth could be short-lived. When these projects are finished, Kent Island will need a paid fire force of more than two people and one engine. There is no way volunteers, already stretched thin with just two calls a day, will be able to supplement a two-man paid force responding to more emergencies at a project housing thousands of senior citizens.

Let there be no doubt where the growth issue is headed: paid emergency services, higher costs and maybe higher taxes.

Growth cannot be stopped on Kent Island, but it must be slow and planned. We hope that residents and elected officials are not lured by the additional tax money development will bring or the incentives offered by developers. What looks attractive today may be pretty ugly in years to come.

See aerial photo with conceptual overlay of Kent Commons pad site.
Copyright by Digital Design & Imaging Service.

Wal-Mart pays $5M for parcel
By MARGOT MOHSBERG, Kent Island Staff Writer, The Capital

An ongoing court battle to develop a Wal-Mart on Kent Island at the foot of the Bay Bridge hasn't stopped the national corporation from forking over nearly $5 million for the property.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. last week purchased the property from PVD Ltd. Partnership, said county commissioners President George O'Donnell at the group's meeting yesterday.

"I doubt they are planning to plant wildflowers," he said.

Joseph A. Stevens, attorney for the Petrie Dierman Kuhn of McLean, Va., the developer contracted to build the Wal-Mart, confirmed the announcement.

Wal-Mart officials could not be reached for comment.

Petrie Dierman Kuhn is planning to build a 154,000-square-foot Wal-Mart on the south side of Route 50 between the Bay Bridge and Route 8.

John Wilson, of the Beach Club Partnership on Kent Island, owns an adjoining piece of property and plans to build a 123-room hotel, conference center and sports bar.

The entire 285,000-square-foot project, if developed, will be called Kent Commons.

The commissioners have been fighting it through the courts, and won the latest round on Sept. 18, when county Circuit Court Judge John Sauseruled the commissioners, acting as the Sanitary Commission, were correct in denying the developers utility service to develop the plaza.

On May 23, the three-member Board of Commissioners reasoned that the traffic generated by the development would endanger public safety in Stevensville.

The decision reversed the commissioners' preliminary approval in November for sewer and water service to Kent Commons, much to the delight of resident activists.

Petrie Dierman Kuhn, without partner John Wilson, filed a request to overturn that decision, arguing that the commissioners unfairly ruled against the project because of concerns about traffic, not the amount of available sewer service.

But Judge Sause ruled in favor of the commissioners, saying that the project would use too much of the island's dwindling sewer service.

Mr. Stevens said his client is waiting for the county Circuit Court judge to release a written version of his judgment. After that, Mr. Stevens has 30 days to appeal the decision to the state Court of Special Appeals or reopen negotiations with the county.

Kent Island soon will need paid fire department

By THE CAPITAL EDITORIAL BOARD

KENT ISLAND volunteer firefighters will have their hands full when developers finish several projects that will bring more than 2,000 new homes to protect.

Several large-scale projects are planned for the island after several farms and large tracts have been recently purchased by developers. Although Queen Anne's County officials argue that the projects are far from being approved, it is clear that the island's future will be much different once this land, now in the hands of developers, is occupied by homes instead of crops.

Last week we reported that the fire department, staffed entirely by volunteers, is very concerned about its ability to respond to any more emergencies. In fact, fire officials say it is hard rousting volunteers to staff an ambulance. Like other jurisdictions, Kent Island has a hard time recruiting fire volunteers. The fire department gets only $100,000 a year from the county and $15,000 from the state.

Although these developments are several years away from opening, it is clear that among the island's changes will be the need for a full-time, paid fire department. How is the county going to pay for it?

County commissioners say they have been asking the developers to contribute to local fire departments. In fact, one developer donated a ladder truck to a Grasonville fire department. The developer of the proposed Four Seasons says it intends to make a "significant contribution" for the county to use however it sees fit. But neither side is saying how big "significant" is because the amount is still being negotiated.

The question of a paid fire department is just one area that will be greatly affected by the arrival of new homes. The county commissioners have much to think about as they plan the future of a county that is developing -- well or not so well -- as Anne Arundel County did decades ago. Caution and foresight are needed. Are they up to the task?

The influx of these developments and their impact on Kent Island residents are matters of great importance for the community's future. Above all, the commissioners must ensure residents that these developers will pay for additional services. Development cannot be stopped, but it must come with adequate services that are in place BEFORE a life is lost because of inadequate emergency service or inadequate roads.

Anger rises over boom in building

Kent Island residents oppose 1,500-unit development plan; A threat to lifestyle; Planners say project prevents unplanned, harmful sprawl...

By Chris Guy Sun Staff

Originally published Sep 18 2000

CHESTER - As the state's Chesapeake Bay Critical Area Commission prepares to weigh the fate of the largest development ever proposed in fast-growing Queen Anne's County, tensions are rising among residents who contend that a construction boom is threatening the slower lifestyle they thought they were getting when they moved east of the bay.

A summer of discontent for disgruntled residents of Kent Island and other growth-control advocates came to a head last week. Nearly 600 people crammed a high school auditorium to urge the commission, which oversees development near the bay and its tributaries, to reject plans to reclassify nearly 300 acres for a large residential and commercial project called Four Seasons.

The 1,500-unit Four Seasons community would include an age-restricted enclave for senior citizens, an assisted-living center, apartments, condominiums and a major shopping center on a 560-acre parcel - much of it environmentally sensitive property along the Chester River and Cox Creek.

But hundreds of Kent Island residents who have spent much of the last three months opposing the project say Four Seasons is only the most jarring piece of a development boom that threatens to overwhelm schools, roads, and police and fire services. All over the island, well-organized slow-growth activists are tangling with developers and corporations who see opportunity on the gateway to the Eastern Shore. Many residents contend that the county's zoning plan, designed to funnel most growth along the U.S. 50 corridor, is a recipe for the sort of suburban gridlock they left behind.

County planners argue that Queen Anne's comprehensive plan, which designates Stevensville, Chester and the eastern side of Kent Narrows as growth areas, is the best tool to prevent the kind of sprawl that is all too familiar to transplants from the western shore.

With the island divided by U.S. 50 and more than 40 percent of the county's 42,000 people living on the spit of land between Kent Narrows and the bay, residents worry that more development will cause traffic jams on an elaborate net- work of service roads and overpasses they use to navigate scattered commercial areas that have been built in recent years. Others wonder how the island's volunteer fire and ambulance service can keep pace.

Schools, for years a draw for families moving here, are already strained by an additional 1,000 students who've enrolled in the last five years, says Queen Anne's school Superintendent Bernard J. Sadusky.

With 17 portable classrooms in use at two island elementary schools, the county is planning a new elementary and a new middle school. Built to hold 1,200 students three years ago, Kent Island High School has 1,100 students this fall, Sadusky says.

"We understand that development is going to happen, that it should happen if the county is going to grow, that even [Four Seasons] could legally be done," community activist Bob Foley says. "But there's no way this is sane development."

County planners and Centreville attorney Joseph A. Stevens, who represents the New Jersey-based developer K. Hovanian Companies, say a project like Four Seasons allows for planned development. Without pushing development into designated growth areas, the county likely would experience similar growth, they say, but it would be scattered in areas without access to a planned $22 million wastewater treatment plant and other services.

More sprawl development, Stevens says, would also mean the county would miss out on millions of dollars for roads and other infrastructure improvements the Hovanian company has agreed to provide for Four Seasons, not to mention an estimated $50 million in taxes during the next 20 years.

"The irony is that you're going to get that growth over time; you just don't have control over it," Stevens says. "Typically, you have a 20- or 30- or 80-unit development that sails through the planning process with very little attention. Change is scary. This is a big, important project, regardless of how it comes out. The implications are huge for the county."

The 27-member critical area commission is expected to make a decision on the project Nov. 1. If approved, county officials, who accepted preliminary plans this summer, would begin another round of scrutiny to work out the specifics.

"There is a perception that this is all a done deal," County Commissioner George M. O'Donnell says. "There have been no assurances given to anybody. We understand that people are coming here looking for quality of life, less traffic, cornfields. High density is not something we're used to on the Eastern Shore."

At last week's meeting, speaker after speaker denounced the plan, complaining that the Four Seasons project, which has sparked tentative plans from two other developers for 700- and 300-unit projects nearby, would ruin sensitive marshland that provides habitat for bald eagles, migratory waterfowl and other animals.

Development stretches services

By MARGOT MOHSBERG, Kent Island Staff Writer

Plans for three new communities that would put 2,500 more homes on Kent Island have sparked yet another debate, this one in the county's fire stations. County officials are wondering how the Kent Island Volunteer Fire Department and the United Communities Fire Department, the only two providers of emergency services on the island, would stretch their already limited resources for a population that could swell by 40 percent.

"There seems to be an evolutionary track," said Philmont Taylor, head of the county's Emergency Operations Center. "Compared to Montgomery County and Anne Arundel County, we're starting to encounter the same circumstances they did several years ago. These are services which the government eventually just has to provide."

Almost all rural areas start out with volunteer emergency service, Mr. Taylor said. But with fire trucks going for up to half a million dollars these days, it is getting harder for volunteer fire departments to cover such a fast-growing area as Kent Island on a purely donation and volunteer basis.

"A lot of the people who move over here come from places where it is included in their tax dollars. But here, we survive mostly on donations," said Tracy T. Schulz, chief of the Kent Island Volunteer Fire Department.

People are less likely these days to open their wallets, he said, and fewer still are volunteering.

Nowadays, the 70-person department has a hard time getting enough people to even get the ambulance out the door.

"We have an average of two calls a day. If they are both at night and the volunteers have to get up early in the morning to go to work, they are not as eager to go to both calls. Each call can take at least two hours," Chief Schulz said.

"It would work much better if we could afford to pay two people to man the ambulances. But that would cost $100,000 a year."

Each department gets about $100,000 from the county and $15,000 from the state each year. But most of that money goes directly to maintaining the department's equipment, Chief Schulz said.

A new tanker that the department is getting later this month to replace its old one will cost the department $365,000.

County officials are not blind to the department's plight.

"At some point, the number of volunteers is going to start to drop off as the demand gets greater. It hasn't gotten to that point yet, but it is headed in that direction," said George M. O'Donnell, president of the Queen Anne's County Board of Commissioners.

He said the county has no plans to start supporting its fire departments financially at least for the next four or five years.

"We have no immediate plans to change. That's a major step. There are very few paid fire departments on the Eastern Shore," Mr. O'Donnell said.

Mr. Taylor said he expects the county will need "some form of paid service" within five years. And he expects that it will first be located in Kent Island where new development is being targeted.

In 1990, the county started paying for some emergency medical service. However, the service is still mostly supported by volunteers.

Mr. O'Donnell said the county has recently been forcing developers to make donations to the local departments to help them cover the cost of serving the incoming residents.

For example, when the Oyster Cove community was built near Grasonville, the developers donated a ladder truck to the Grasonville Fire Department.

"That's the way a number of these communities are doing things. We certainly aren't going to be bashful with these developers about working these things out," Mr. O'Donnell said.

K. Hovnanian of Kent Island Inc., the developers planning the 1,504-home Four Seasons at Kent Island project to be built over the next decade, plans to make a "significant contribution" to the county for officials to decide "how it will be distributed," said the company's attorney, Joseph Stevens, of Centreville.

With county money to pay for some full-time staff, Chief Schulz said he thinks the volunteer department could supply sufficient service to a more heavily populated island.

"They are increasing the number of homes on the island without increasing the amount of money they are giving us. If they could do it evenly, we would probably be OK," he said.

The two other projects also planned for Kent Island could bring as many as 1,000 homes.

Near the Four Seasons property, White's Heritage Partners of Kent Island is considering building 720 homes and Owings Mills-based Chesterhaven Beach Partnership is looking at building as many as 300 homes. Neither developer has submitted formal plans yet.

Kent Island residents must mobilize against overdevelopment

By THE CAPITAL EDITORIAL BOARD

If Kent Island developers have their way, people who moved there to escape growth issues will soon find themselves drowning in congestion. That's the ugly picture painted by eager developers who want to convert the island's remaining open space into 2,500 new homes in the next decade. The developments, if approved, would increase Kent Island's population of 20,000 by 50 percent.

Anyone who thinks Queen Anne's County officials have a good grasp of the impact of this growth should think again. The county planning director, Steven Kaii-Ziegler, says the projects should come as no surprise -- Kent Island has been targeted for intensive growth all along. So three proposed projects -- one for 1,500 homes, one for 700 homes and a third for 300 homes, within a mile of each other -- are within guidelines.

To be fair, the commissioners haven't yet given their approval to these proposed projects. But we aren't hearing any of them raising concerns -- and that scares us.

What will the impact be? Officials say another overpass will have to be added over Route 50, two-lane pastoral roads will have to be widened to four lanes, a traffic circle will have to be enlarged, utility service will have to be expanded and at least two new schools will have to be built. And this is in a county that has to raise taxes -- which are already higher than those in Anne Arundel County -- just to fund one new school. How is a county that can't even afford to pay for trash collection going to pay for this infrastructure?

If the county's three commissioners or any of its residents want a glimpse of the impact of such rapid growth, all they need to do is look west. Anne Arundel County is a good example of how rapid growth leads to traffic congestion and overcrowded schools. Is this what Kent Island really wants?

County officials apparently say it is. In fact, four of the county's six targeted areas for dense growth are on Kent Island, even though it represents only a fifth of the county's geographical area. Imagine how residents feel: Kent Island is the most populous region in the county, the most congested, pays the most in taxes -- and gets all the growth so the rest of the county can live in peace.

Kent Island needs better representation in government. Short of moving the county seat to the island, where officials could constantly experience congestion firsthand, the best protection may be in the hands of Kent Island's residents. In numbers alone they should wield significant power. We encourage them to show it.

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