Late in the summer of 2015, I learned that development plans, for land known by Crofton residents as the “front yard,” had been submitted, and were moving rather rapidly through the County Department of Planning and Zoning. The property abutted Route 3 North and was part of the original 1964 Crofton Planned Unit Development (PUD), the first in Anne Arundel County. The property was zoned Open Space and served through the years, among other uses, as an extra practice field for Crofton sports.
The owner of the property is also the owner of the Crofton Country Club, and Golf Course property and from time to time, he announced his intent to build townhouses and/or a hotel-conference center on the actual course and clubhouse properties. In an apparent attempt to show the power of land ownership and possible uses of the property, he used it to grow tobacco, then corn, and graze goats. All of these could be “enjoyed” from our kitchen window. Then, in 1988, during comprehensive rezoning and in an attempt to protect the golf course property and Crofton’s rapidly diminishing open space properties, a binding agreement was entered into between the Crofton Civic Association Board of Directors and the property owner. This was negotiated by longtime Crofton resident, Bob Duckworth, who at the time was president of the CCA board.
With strong county support, the agreement, as it is commonly called, was set to preserve the golf course open space for the next 50 years. In exchange, C3 zoning was given to the owner for the acreage known as our front yard and also for the property west of Route 3, now the site of the rapidly developing Riverwalk, which will soon have more than 200 housing and commercial units. The property abuts the Little Patuxent River, one of the Maryland state-designated Scenic Rivers and is thus guaranteed certain special protections under the Department of Natural Resources. The Hogan company is the developer of the Riverwalk property, as well as the applicant builder for the Enclave on Crofton’s front yard.
Residents’ first notice of what was going to happen “across the street” at Riverwalk came when acres of trees were cut down, the land flattened, and concrete poured. All this was done with virtually no public notification. Hogan had applied to the county for, and been granted, numerous modifications, some of which excused them from holding public information meetings. The approval of modifications had become a common practice by the Office of Planning and Zoning. From 2014 to 2018, developers were excused from 371 community meetings that should have happened but didn’t because of the granting of modifications. Route 3 residents had had no way of knowing what was happening to their neighborhood. Daily traffic generated from Riverwalk is estimated to be more than 2,000 cars that will use Route 3 and the failing state road intersections at Route 450, Crawford Boulevard, and Route 424.
When asked to comment about the high volume of modification approvals during that four-year period, the County’s Planning and Zoning Officer, Philip Hager, offered his take. “I have been with the county for 17 months and when I came onboard, I noticed there were a number of things that struck me as immediately problematic. One of those was the fact that we were giving modifications to skip community meetings and some of the engagement processes. So, it really was difficult for citizens to be fully engaged and to have a complete picture of what was going on with development proposals. And that’s one of the things that we changed immediately. Over the past 12 months, we’ve cut the modification applications in half. Just the applications. And we’ve cut the number of modifications granted in half.”
Prior to Hager’s appointment, however, Crofton residents had been lulled to sleep, believing that The Agreement would stop the perpetual threats of losing open space land. Residents believed that this open space was secure for the next 50 years because of the supposed protections of the County Code. As a former history teacher, I should have been more alert to the lessons historically learned by others in similar situations. In fact, the golf course and front yard properties were not secure.
My experience as Director of Planning and Zoning for the CCA led me to believe that the front yard site, which is a filled-in former gravel pit could not possibly be built on. As a FEMA designated floodplain, it also has wetlands and hydric soils. Fewer than seven buildable acres were not enough acreage for the previously pitched hotel and conference center.
The Development would also require land acquisition for a sewer easement. Thus, the owner applied to the county for a variance to permit only residential use on the site. At the variance hearing with the county’s zoning hearing officer, testimony was given that hotel development was not feasible and that residential units would be more reflective of Crofton. The variance was granted. Yet, once actual residential plans were put on paper, it was clear that there were insurmountable problems in such planned use of this property, including steep slopes, lack of adequate ingress, egress, parking, noise abatement, public safety issues, traffic and intersection difficulties, sewer easements, and destruction of specimen trees. It was simply too much development on too small a piece of property with too many environmental constraints. Yet, the plans had spent almost two years in county offices before any Route 3 corridor residents knew about them. Residents had been kept in the dark about what was happening at Riverwalk across the street, and now in the dark about the front yard.
The lesson learned was that communities couldn’t be complacent and uninvolved. County developers and elected officials had worked in tandem without public input.
In the early days of Crofton, we had had numerous ways to get information. We had newspaper coverage. At first it was on a monthly basis and then we had a weekly paper. The first being the Crofton News Courier and then the Crofton Blade. There was also the Annapolis Capital and Capital reporters regularly attended CCA Board meetings. Our communities were thus well-informed about what was planned in the western part of the county.
If we had legal “standing” on a piece of property, we got involved and spent countless hours listening to, doing research on, and testifying for or against development plans. Our issues focused on land conservation, wastewater treatment, school capacity, traffic and other quality of life issues. I well remember the mornings and evenings when CCA Board members sat in lawn chairs at the intersections of Route 3 with 450 and 424, counting car and truck traffic. During red light stops, we would ask drivers, if possible, what was their intended destination. Then, like now, we could not rely on a timely traffic study to be conducted by the state. We formed an advisory group to the Department of Public Works to ascertain the effect of any possible development that would overload our smelly sewage treatment plant. We attended Board of Education meetings when our schools were threatened. We went door to door, gathering school attendance information. We regularly invited elected officials to public meetings to answer our questions and explain their intentions. We did not wait for them to contact us. We did this as we joined with the Greater Odenton Improvement Association, The Forks of the Patuxent, the Davidsonville Civic Association [DACA], and organizations as far north on Route 3 as the Greater Severna Park Council. The idea was to join together, so that all communities that would be affected by Route 3 development would be made aware of existing or rumored plans. It worked. The impact was that there were moratoriums put on building until there was adherence to the Adequate Facilities Law, which tied development to the adequacy of public utilities, roads, and schools. Community needs and interests were finally becoming paramount to the plans of land developers.
In 2019, we are facing these same issues as we did in the last quarter of the previous century. What have we learned and what can be done that can help us now? Is it too late? No, it is not. I do not believe so.
Business pressures and the change of ownership of the Capital-Gazette newspapers has brought limited local news coverage by our only local newspaper. Combine this with a lack of transparency by the county on development issues, and it is now challenging to get information to West County residents.
Committed local environmental organizations were born in the 1970s and ’80s and were quite effective in keeping us informed while working with county and state officials. Elected leaders such as State Senator Gerry Winegrad and County Council Member Virginia Clagett were effective stewards of the environment and they, with the newly energized environmental groups, kept communities involved and educated. In the ’70s, counties south of Anne Arundel and Howard sued us for the pollution of the Patuxent River by our poorly designed wastewater treatment plants. They won the suit. We learned that what we do in our homes, on our properties, on our roads, and our public lands affect others up and down the Chesapeake Bay watershed.
What is possible in 2019 and in the years to come? The Anne Arundel County Code is designed to be our protector. If is it not working for us it as it should, we must urge its change through County Council action. What we have learned is that the Code is clear in its requirements to protect our quality of life, yet developers request relief from its provisions.
Anne Arundel County is now in the middle of its 10-year update and revision process for its Master Plan—a county-wide general development plan that addresses residential, recreational, commercial, and environmental land uses and quality of life issues. Hager says public input is of utmost importance to the process. “In our early phases of the planning kick off, we did aggressive listening sessions and public outreach. And in that process alone, we did more public engagement than we did during the entire phase of the 2009 plan. We had an opportunity for the public to let us know what they liked, what they didn’t like, what was making them concerned, what was making them happy.
“We have a Citizens Advisory Committee that’s been meeting roughly every two weeks for several months. And they’re going to continue to meet and provide us with input. They’ll help us frame certain pieces of the plan. They’ll also comment on and edit pieces of the plan as staff drafts the plan. They are going to be our advocates as well, when we take it to the Planning Advisory Board, and then, when we take it to the County Council, we would expect the Citizens Advisory Committee to also be championing the plan at that particular phase.”
Hager does want to clarify, though, that the Master Plan is not a zoning plan per se. “People often mistake that the plan is about zoning. And they sometimes misname the plan as a zoning plan. In fact, that’s not the case. Zoning isn’t even mentioned in the plan. What is mentioned is land use. Land use is critically important. There’s a number of different analyses that take place as part of the development of the plan. And we develop carrying capacities and holding capacities. We then indicate what sort of land use impacts some of these land use designations are going to have on things like water and sewer or transportation or public schools or things like that.
“When we’re finished, we’ll end up with a map that will identify our existing land use and our future designated land use, which is what our plan would be moving forward for the next couple of decades. And then, what happens during the implementation phase, after the plan is adopted, is that the land use map gets compared to our existing zoning map. And where there’s a delta between the land use and the zoning, then that becomes the nexus for a bill that the Council will take under consideration and we will change our official zoning map to come into conformance with the land use map that we designate.
“And the whole idea is, do we have enough industrial land? Do we have enough commercial land? Do we have enough residentially zoned land? And, do we have the type of residentially zoned land that we need in the right quantities in the right locations? So that’s the purpose of all these different analyses that take place as part of the development of a countywide development plan.”
In addition to following this plan’s progress, I suggest that community organizations—whether it is homeowner associations, service groups like Kiwanis and Rotary, local chambers of commerce, communities of faith, or, even garden clubs—focus on organizing so that someone is responsible for keeping the group informed of possible changes in development in their neighborhood, which could negatively or positively have an effect on their interests and quality of life. Issues run the gamut from small stream preservation to portable classrooms at our schools. The power of a coalition of residents who represent these groups would be impressive and useful. Unlike the ’60s and ’70s when we had to go to the basement of the Arundel Center and stand for a painful amount of time to get information, a simple click of a home computer to the Anne Arundel County web site will give daily information on plans that have been submitted and their status.
What we have learned in our opposition to the planned development of our front yard applies to the entire county. This is not just a West County issue. Our work has exposed problems that are not unique to Crofton. These problems apply to Pasadena, Shady Side, Mayo, Russet, and the Annapolis Neck. These are County-wide issues.
Change can only happen if we stay informed and active. County residents share common concerns. Two of the state’s nine scenic rivers flow through our County on their way to the Bay. The environment can’t vote. It can’t write letters nor can it make phone calls to elected officials, nor be a witness, nor testify at County Council or Board of Education meetings. For the good of the entire county we have no excuse for not exploring the information available to us and when necessary do something about it…whatever that might be.
The newly-elected County Council and County Executive are said to be stewards of the environment. Hopefully, they ensure that the Code protects our quality of life and will reflect and protect our needs. Campaign contributions from developers cannot be prohibited, but they can be exposed and limited when they have development issues pending. I am sorry that public meetings might be a burden on developers, but their developments are a permanent burden to us when they destroy our landscapes.
We the people are the stewards of our county. The more we do together, the better for all of us.
