County commissioners took another step toward managing local growth yesterday by adopting an Annual Growth Policy and approving amendments to zoning ordinances.
The idea is to plan the growth of subdivisions and single residences so public facilities, especially school, water and sewage, are not stressed, said Jeff Jackman, senior planner for the Department of Land Use and Growth Management.
By adopting the Annual Growth Policy, commissioners have set the annual residential growth in St. Mary’s County to 1.9 percent, which translates to 795 dwellings. At the same time, by amending zoning ordinances, they have established where growth can occur: minimum 70 percent in high growth areas like Leonardtown and Lexington Park, 30 percent in rural areas, 40 percent for minor subdivisions and 60 percent major subdivisions. Allocations will be made from July 1 to June 30 of any given year.
In order to guarantee that public facilities like schools, water and sewage are adequate, amended ordinances now stipulate that growth in any given subdivision must be phased in. For instance, if a builder is seeking to develop 100 lots, 40 would be approved for one year, 40 for the next, etc. Information regarding allocations will be available to the public. The county will be responsible for seeing that lot allocations are fairly awarded throughout the county, including Leonardtown.
Phase-in is critical to guaranteeing that county schools do not become over crowded, an important point, since school capacity must reach a certain threshold before a new school can be built. “The idea is to keep our schools from overcrowding, but they must be somewhat crowded to justify building a new school,” Jackman said.
The assumption is that if no more than 795 lots are added annually, school capacity will be okay. “If we go over 795 lots, the county doesn’t feel it can assure schools, water and sewage will be adequate,” Jackman said.
To also support governance of school capacity, amended ordinances will allow mitigation regarding the donation of property for the building of new schools under narrow guidelines. A single attendance zone has been created for high and middle schools. Elementary school attendance zones will be reduced from three to two, with the dividing line being state Route 4.
During the past 10 years the county’s growth rate has been 2.5 annually. By setting the new rate slightly lower at 1.9 percent, “We’re not saying no, we’re managing growth,” Jackman said.