Denis Canavan – The Bay Net Photo

Property line surveyor Jerry D. Nokleby feels the program is a total disaster recipe, no brainer, since day one, though he concedes there are some positive elements in the Transferable Development Rights (TDR) program.

An irate Nokleby, who operates the Nokleby Surveying Inc., took the podium after Land Use and Growth Management Director Denis Canavan made his presentation on the TDR program Tuesday afternoon.

St. Mary’s board of county commissioners heard from Nokleby that the cost of a single Transfer Development Right (TDR) has jumped to $33,000 and that it would push the cost of development in the county sky high.

“This is the fee in lieu, not the market price of a TDR,” Canavan explained to The Bay Net. He said the fee would logically be higher than the market price of a TDR.

Earlier in a July 2006 meeting St. Mary’s Board of County Commissioners held a public hearing on the TDR program where Canavan had listed the prevailing price of a TDR at something around nine to ten thousand dollars while Nokleby had quoted it stood at $12,000.

To a question from The Bay Net, Canavan said the TDR program would have no bearing on the encroachments around the base and that was the reason no civilian representatives of the base were included in the Task Force. “The base itself is federal territory where federal law applies,” Canavan said.

The majority of the other representatives of business, development and agriculture had arrived at what they called a compromise document to streamline the pace and direction of development in St. Mary’s County.

Many of the stakeholders seem semi-satisfied about the zoning text amendment TDR program but gave a nod top it for the common weal.

When Nokleby was reminded about the price he quoted and what he had said at the planning commission meeting six months ago, he said he had got the new price of a TDR from the land use department.

Though the zoning text amendment was unanimously adopted by the Planning Commission, and the St. Mary’s Board of County Commissioners also held a public hearing, no law was passed in the heat of the vote-bagging election season. And, since the time frame of 125 days had lapsed since the July 18 meeting, legislation on the issue can no longer be made.

Canavan in a letter on Feb. 23 requested the commissioners reintroduction of the text amendment pointing out the great deal of work community leaders had already put into the program.

The main aim of the new TDR program is to preserve at least 80,000 acres in St. Mary’s as open space, untouched by development.

The majority of the stake holders have put their weight behind the new TDR program, also called the People’s Document. They include former commissioner Robert Jarboe, community activist Linda Vallandingham, St. Mary’s Farm Bureau president Joseph Wood, Bubbly Norris and developer John Parlett.

Nokleby along with Kenneth Boothe, a former president of the Farm Bureau, are the two most vociferous opponents of the TDR program. On Tuesday, Nokleby promised the commissioners he will oppose the program at the public hearings.

The TDR program was first adopted in New York and made it incumbent on glib developers there to