Maryland Community Newspapers Online
The county's 2002 General Plan of development contains many proposals to enhance smart growth and revitalization in the established communities. Many of these proposals are intended to lower costs for developers or subsidize their projects with tax dollars to foster growth near Metro stations and in blighted areas. Some of these General Plan proposals have been implemented, but a lot of work needs to be done. Too little has been accomplished since the county gave away most of the zoning rights around our Metro stations in the 1980s.
Instead of Metro stations like Silver Spring or Bethesda, we have watched developers consume farm after farm throughout the county, throwing up cookie-cutter housing projects that overcrowd our schools, congest our roads and foul our waters. Ironically, many of those fed up with this state of development followed the same developers to Charles, Calvert and St. Mary's counties and helped further the pace of sprawl. These former residents now clog Routes 4, 5 and 210 trying to get to their jobs in D.C.
And where are we today? In addition to revitalization, the 2002 General Plan also says to preserve our remaining rural areas so that we will not dig a bigger hole for ourselves. Unfortunately, the development community (few of whom live here) that seeks to benefit from all of the pro-development policies of urban redevelopment has also lobbied like mad to keep the county from implementing rural preservation programs. The developers want it both ways. They want to develop everything and leave nothing.
Most other counties have strong rural preservation policies and they have preserved tens of thousands of acres of land. These developers live in those counties, not ours. These counties have tough rural zoning laws. They use state funds to place agricultural preservation easements on prime farmland. They have enacted "Transfer Development Rights" (TDR) programs to allow farmers to sell their right to develop to someone else. Under a TDR program, a farmer places a preservation easement on his farm and keeps it in production, but he gets to sell the right to develop houses to a developer whom is allowed to build additional houses elsewhere. This way, a TDR program controls sprawl, lessens congestion, pollution and infrastructure costs, while promoting reasonable development near transit stations. The County Council will consider (again) enacting its first Transfer Development Rights law (CB-80-2008) on Nov. 18.
Unfortunately, developers are used to having it easy in Prince George's County. For years, they have been allowed to plow down forests and plow farmland with impunity. For years, they have been given all the density they want — at Metro stations or virtually anywhere they ask — without any expectation that they contribute to the greater good or to lessening sprawl. Therefore, they have killed every prior TDR law effort and they are fighting CB-80-2008 furiously. Why pay to build density if the government will give it to you for free?
Being savvy, the developers are trying to scare local community leaders by telling them TDRs will kill Metro development and TDRs will bring massive density increases to overwhelm your community. Of course, the developers have been getting all the density they want for years (in case you had not noticed). CB-80-2008 would make them contribute to controlling sprawl if they want more density, and it lets them off set cost by allowing a slight increase in density near Metro stations where they are already getting a lot of density. So, the fear of additional density is illusory since the developers already have it. Similarly, since CB-80-2008 provides for means to offset additional costs of development, the claim that TDR costs will kill Metro development is another scare tactic to keep the county from reining in sprawl and improving our environment. In the five years that I have been working on a TDR bill, through dozens of meetings with out-of-county developers, they profess to support TDRs ("if done right") but they have never offered one constructive comment to make a bill work.
What the developers won't tell you is that the sprawl that they have given county taxpayers has left us with about $4 billion of deferred maintenance on schools, roads, water and sewer facilities, storm water facilities and more. There are also billions of dollars of new planned infrastructure that has been left unfunded. So, while they cry to your community leaders about how controlling sprawl through Transfer Development Rights will stop good transit-oriented development, ask those community leaders who is going to pay for the billions of dollars of sprawl debt. You know the answer. So tell your community leaders not to believe the scare tactics but to support CB-80-2008 to get sprawl (and its costs) under control.
Thomas E. Dernoga (D-Dist. 1) of Laurel is chairman of the Transportation, Housing and Environment Committee.
