The Queen Anne's Board of County Commissioners yesterday partially lifted a building moratorium, saying it will soon have new tools to control growth. 

On Aug. 16, county officials will resume processing and approving applications for commercial building permits. 

They also will approve an additional 25 residential building permits a month until they can adopt regulations for controlling growth or lift the moratorium entirely. 

"Moratoriums are blatantly unfair because some people are greatly affected but a larger group are affected very little," said Commissioners President George O'Donnell, D-Queenstown. "We obviously don't want the moratorium to last a day longer than it has to." 

On May 21, the county put a six-month freeze on the controversial 1,350-home Four Seasons and other projects in hopes that it would give county Planning and Zoning officials time to recommend regulations to control growth. 

Since January, county officials have received or been in the process of reviewing permit applications for 5,700 lots. Those include the 2,800 homes proposed on Kent Island as Four Seasons, Gibson's Grant and Ellendale. 

That's 1,178 more lots than the total number proposed in the past 22 years. 

The moratorium included a 400-home cap on the number of residential building applications the county can process this year. The county has already reached that amount. 

Commissioner John McQueeney, R-Stevensville, said the county has already processed 400 applications for residential building permits for two reasons -- developers wanted to apply before higher impact fees went into effect earlier this summer and they wanted to beat the cap. 

"It's like announcing a gas shortage. Everyone runs out and fills up their tanks," he said. 

Representatives of the business community, which has criticized the moratorium as hurting economic development, were thrilled by the news. 

"It's a lot sooner than Nov. 21 and we feel that is a major accomplishment," said Wayne Gardner, chairman of the new business-advocacy group Business Queen Anne's. 

Not everyone was impressed by the decision, however. 

Kent Island resident Ben Cassell shook his head during the announcement in Centreville, later saying that commercial development should never have been included in the moratorium in the first place. 

"It's not like they had an overwhelming number of applications for commercial projects," said Mr. Cassell, a Republican running for the at-large commissioners seat in the Sept. 10 primary. "The county had no applications. Including commercial development only hurt business." 

Steven Kaii-Ziegler, county director of planning and zoning, said his office should be able to present a proposed regulations to help control growth by the end of this month
 

mmohsberg@capitalgazette.com

Published August 07, 2002, The Capital, Annapolis, Md. 
Copyright © 2002 The The Capital, Annapolis, Md.