Centreville-The Queen Anne's County Commissioners today took major action to address growth in the County by announcing adoption of the 2002 Comprehensive Plan Update, by moving forward with the expansion of the county's wastewater treatment plant, and by imposing a Moratorium on new and pending large-scale developments. The Moratorium will be in effect for six months and will allow the County time to adopt implementing tools to better affect future growth.

"The rate of future growth has emerged as a big issue in Queen Anne's County," said Commission President George O'Donnell. "The County Commissioners are convinced in the fundamental soundness of the county's long term growth management program. However, we have become increasingly convinced that current and anticipated development applications will cause the rate of growth to far exceed the capabilities of the county's current infrastructure, including but not limited to schools, roads, sewer and water facilities, and before we are able to prepare the necessary implementing tools (ordinances, plans and policies) to better effect the rate of new growth," he said.

"Therefore, today we are announcing a MORATORIUM on all new and pending large scale projects in QAC, as well as a residential Building Permit Cap for the remainder of 2002. We believe these steps are necessary to give staff time to develop the tools to better regulate the future rate of growth and to ensure that essential public facilities will be available," said Commission President O'Donnell.

1) The Moratorium will be in effect for six months and will prohibit the acceptance, processing and approval of all new and pending major subdivisions and site plans. The Moratorium will also affect all new minor subdivisions and site plans, as well as Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance (APFO) studies and plans, Master Water & Sewer Plan amendments, and Growth Allocation petitions. 2) the Moratorium will NOT affect new or pending administrative subdivisions, pending minor site plans and subdivisions, and the processing of applications for a public service use (such as the new skateboard park and the new school on Rt. 8.  3) The Building Permit Cap will limit the issuance of residential building permits to no more than 400 countywide with no more than 188 of those occurring on Kent Island for calendar year 2002. Those numbers represent our historical averages since 1990.

 "The County Commissioners are in full support of the county's overall strategy of preventing sprawl and preserving land by directing new growth into designated Growth Areas, as called for in our Comprehensive Plan," said Commissioner John T. McQueeney, Jr, who also sits as the Commissioner's representative on the QAC Planning Commission. "However, in recent months the County Commissioners have seen an alarming change in both the size and volume of projects being proposed in Queen Anne's County, and have become increasingly concerned about the rate of future growth. Today we have taken action to stop the flow of new and pending projects in Queen Anne's County."

Today the Commissioners took three major actions: 1) They affirmed their overall growth management strategy by adopting the 2002 QAC Comprehensive Plan Update. 2) They strengthened their commitment to the goals of the Comprehensive Plan by moving forward with the advertisement for expansion of the Kent Narrows/Stevensville/Grasonville(KNSG) Wastewater Treatment Plant. 3) Finally, they adopted the six-month Moratorium to pause development applications and allow time for implementing ordinances.

 "The Commissioners believe strongly in our Comprehensive Plan, " said Commissioner Marlene Davis. "By expanding our Wastewater Treatment Plant, our first step to benefit current residents is to direct staff to reserve sufficient sewer allocation to support our existing homes in Kent Island Estates and Romancoke on Route 8 South on Kent Island.  The engineering and planning to accomplish this is very complex, and will require significant time to accomplish. Our current plans are to serve these areas in 2009. We want existing residents to know we are making a commitment to provide them with the necessary infrastructure."

"Another reason to expand our Wastewater Treatment Plant is to continue our goals of preventing sprawl and preserving land," continued Commissioner Davis. "Our land preservation efforts are very strong and the majority of our growth is occurring in our designated growth areas. However, we do not want future growth to occur at an overwhelming rate so we are addressing this problem before it is on top of us," she said.

More details and an electronic jpeg version of graphics presented by the County Commissioners as justification for the Moratorium are available to the press.  Email publicinfo@qac.org <mailto:publicinfo@qac.org> or call Greg Nizza, Public Information Officer at (410) 758-4098 ext. 193. 

 Some notes from KIDL: 

1. The Commissioners passed a resolution (02-30) adopting the 2002 Comprehensive Plan;

2. The Commissioners imposed a TEMPORARY Moratorium on the processing, acceptance and approval of new and pending major subdivisions. As part of the Moratorium the Commissioners enacted residential building permit caps for the calendar year 2002 of 400 countywide, of which 188 may be issued for Kent Island (The Fourth Election District). The Moratorium expires on November 21, 2002 unless extended or terminated sooner. 

The Commissioners also agreed to move ahead with the 1,000,000 gallon expansion of the KNSG sewer plant.

Remarks:  KIDL was disappointed that the Commissioners adopted the 2002 Comp Plan because we feel it is a blueprint for sprawl from the Bay Bridge to Centreville. We had previously asked the Commissioners to reject the 2002 Plan and implement the 1993 Comprehensive Plan properly.

We are looking over the Moratorium (02-31) and have asked the Commissioners' office to answer a few questions regarding the status of specific projects. We have also asked if proposed actions (ordinances, resolutions, etc) are numbered sequentially and if so why there appears to us to be a gap in the numbers (02-10 through 02-29). (It is possible we missed something, we just want to be sure.) 

It is interesting that the Moratorium contains language the Kent Island Defense League has been preaching for quite some time (and that for the most part the County has been denying)!  It admits that "anticipated development proposals . . . total in excess of 5,700 new residential lots. . . . ", and that ". . .there are currently a number of projects either planned or in the process of review which will cause the rate of growth (especially the number of new residential building lots) to far exceed the capabilities of the County's current infrastructure, including schools, roads, and water and sewer facilities . . . .", and ". . . since 1990 Q. A. Co. has issued approximately 400 building permits a year county wide, 47% of which on average were issued in the Fourth Election District; and . . . present and anticipated development proposals could multiply this historic growth rate by many fold and would overwhelm, especially in the Fourth Election District, the existing roads, water and sewer facilities and schools . . . ."

We will give you more information on the Moratorium when we get our questions answered and have had a chance to study the documents and what they really mean to us.

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