Charles County Board of Appeals Chairman Brendon Moon speaks before the Planning Commission Feb. 13.
La Plata, MD – A move to determine what the Charles County Board of Appeals can and can’t do when reviewing decisions by the Charles County Planning Commission took center stage at the planning commission’s Feb. 13 meeting in La Plata.
Some felt the decision was the direct result of the Board of Appeals ruling last year to overturn the planning commission’s approval of Guilford, a massive proposed development encompassing 183 acres and 438 units near the headwaters of Mattawoman Creek.
Charles County Attorney Rhonda Weaver dispelled that assertion. “This task force was not a response to Guilford,” Weaver insisted. “It was worked on for months before that. We’re trying to simplify the process, because we have so much process that these projects get bottlenecked.”
The new Zoning Text Amendments and the Subdivision Text Amendments clarifies language in the law, Weaver said. One of the stipulation is that the Board of Appeals would not hear appeals of decisions made by the Charles County Commissioners.
One area of the new amendment that seemed to garner the most attention was the definition of “aggrieved persons.” Some felt the new stipulation leaned heavily toward the developer whose project might have been denied and that average Citizen John Doe could not contest such a project.
“This legislation will have an extraordinary impact on the ability of how the Board of Appeals functions,” Board of Appeals Chairman Brendon Moon told planning commission members.
“When I think of what I do as volunteer work, I get a small stipend, but unlike the planning commission which recommends and decides policy issues, we essentially act in a quasi-judicial capacity,” he added. “All individuals must testify under oath. Any cases appealed beyond our decision would ultimately end up in court and any such case would be based on what was recorded throughout the appeals process.”
He said the Board of Appeals had to review two decisions made by the planning commission in 2016, something he said was “pretty unusual.”
Moon said his greatest concern is that the new amendment would limit who could file an appeal against a planning commission decision, but also would force any “aggrieved person” to go to court when most issues could be resolved by the Board of Appeals. The new amendment would also not allow a citizen to challenge a determination made by a zoning officer.
He offered as an example a farmer who processed deer in his barn, and when neighbors found out what a good job he was doing, brought their deer over as well. Then another neighbor complained and a zoning officer determined they would have to be classified as a slaughterhouse, which opened up a can of worms.
“The neighbor would have no recourse to the Board of Appeals, but to sue the county and go to court,” Moon explained. “The Board of Appeals could consider an appeal that would keep the neighbor, the farmer and the county out of court.”
“There is also the issue of a hearing,” he continued. “The new amendment indicates that there is no need for a public hearing for appeals. I don’t think that makes a lot of sense,” Moon said.
He suggested only three simple changes to the amendment: To use language from the Maryland land Use Manual in regards to “an aggrieved person,”; That the Board of Appeals should not hear appeals of decisions by the county commissioners; and to allow information that is already on the record as opposed to having to go through the entire process over again, called de novo, Latin for “starting over.”
Moon urged the commission to adopt his suggestions and post them on BoardDocs.
Ken Hastings, a member of the Mason Springs Conservancy, urged planning commission members to leave the Board of Appeals alone.
“If you make it so that the average person can’t come forward, that they can’t play in the sand box, so they can’t play in the game,” he said, “future Guilfords get a free pass.”
Contact Joseph Norris at joe.norris@thebaynet.com