Growth, traffic, affordable housing

From Emmitsburg to Brunswick, Burkittsville to New Market, residents have a variety of concerns about Frederick County and plan to take those issues into consideration at the polls this fall

Thursday, July 6, 2006

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As campaigning heats up this summer, the county’s 123,786 registered voters will be watching.

Many county residents say they don’t keep up with the daily politics and decisions made by the current five-member Board of County Commissioners, but it is clear residents have plenty of concerns they want county leaders to address.

The Gazette interviewed roughly 30 people who live throughout Frederick County to find out what bothers them and what they love about living in the area. Growth, clogged highways, overcrowded schools and affordable housing topped the list of issues that came up in most conversations with these residents.

The county’s population explosion has greatly impacted quality of life, many residents say. Growth in the county dramatically increased in the 1980s and has continued to climb during the last two decades.

In 1980, the county’s population was 114,792, representing a 35 percent jump from 1970, according to the county’s planning department. The latest numbers show that as of January, the county’s population was roughly 226,476 — an increase of 111,684 residents since 1980.

By 2011, the county’s population is estimated to climb to 245,000.

Many county residents to whom The Gazette spoke said fighting heavy traffic on a daily basis weighs on their minds.

Though county commissioners have only a small role in improving state roads and federal interstates, voters are looking to them for help, nonetheless.

‘‘They need to do something about the road system here,” said Sylvia Goodnough, 72, of Thurmont. ‘‘I’m one of the few seniors that travel down the road and the county is at least 10 to 20 years behind in new road construction.”

According to Denis Superczynski, transportation planner with the county’s Division of Planning, the county partners with the state and federal governments to improve many of the major interstates that run through the area. They include Interstates 70 and 270, U.S. Route 15 and Md. Route 85 (Buckeystown Pike).

‘‘We often partner with the state to kick off the planning, which defines the scope of the [highway] project,” Superczynski said

The county has contributed funding to improve Route 85 and build a new ramp from Md. Route 26 to Route 15.

Each year Superczynski and the county commissioners develop a list of secondary and primary roadways they consider to be in need of improvements.

Primary roads are federal interstates that include Interstates 70 and 270, Route 15 and U.S. Route 340. Secondary highways are state-owned and include Route 26 and Route 85.

Convincing the state to provide money to improve highways that run through the county is not easy. Each year, officials here find themselves competing with other counties around the state for highway money.

‘‘There’s a very limited pool of funding,” Superczynski said. ‘‘Everybody is competing for federal and state resources for these types of projects.”

With limited money, planning, designing and constructing highway improvements can take years. For residents, this means that traveling around the county will continue to be frustrating as road improvements move at a snail’s pace.

The endless building of new homes and school crowding as a result concern Donna and Ben Tucker of Woodsboro.

‘‘Homes just keep going up,” Donna Tucker said.

Many residents said they think elected officials will make decisions on growth regardless of residents’ concerns.

Jim Gugel, chief planner with the county’s Division of Planning, insists residents must continue to offer input to each region plan update because their participation does make a difference. Region plans detail the use of land and designate areas of future growth over the next 20 years. The plans identify where development will occur and what type of growth will take place.

‘‘We’ve always encouraged people to participate whether by attending a public hearing or open house,” Gugel said. ‘‘Throughout the process we send out two or three mailings to residents in the particular region and at the beginning of the process. It’s become our standard practice for a number of years.”

The county is divided into eight different planning regions. The Urbana and New Market Region Plans were both recently updated and adopted by the county.

Gugel said the county is now in the middle of updating the Walkersville Region Plan and beginning preliminary work on the Thurmont plan. Middletown and Brunswick will follow.

Many people The Gazette spoke to said though the county has its faults, it also has many benefits.

For 48-year-old Yvonne Ison, a housewife who lives in Frederick, life here is just fine.

‘‘I think it’s a lot better than Montgomery County,” said Ison, who moved to Frederick in January.