The Charles County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously to pass both the Blossom Point Joint Land Use Study recommendations and the Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plan on Tuesday morning. Both plans were recommended for approval by the Charles County Planning Commission and have gone through the public hearing process.
The Blossom Point Joint Land Use Study recommends changes to the 2012 comprehensive plan, reviews of Special Exception applications, updates to real estate disclosures so the military has adequate advance notice of new housing being developed, acquisition of target properties by the military, reviews of zoning ordinances for compatibility with the study, further monitoring of activities at Blossom Point and future development, updates to the study and updates to implementation strategies.
55 of the 62 employees at Blossom Point are Charles County employees. Blossom Point is located off MD-6 around Welcome.
The purpose of the Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plan is to create safer routes for bicyclists and pedestrians and to promote tourism. The plan presented by Charles County Government Planning & Growth Management also notes that they hope to decrease the amount of vehicle traffic over the years.
However, the planning commission did raise concerns about the logistics of connecting areas and creating paths to the Indian Head Rail Trail during their meetings on the plan. Issues were also brought up about widening roads, something that simply cannot be done on commonly used rural roads such as Mitchell Road in La Plata or MD-224 which runs from Nanjemoy to Bryan’s Road. However, the commission did recommend approval of the plan.
