A long-dormant Planned Unit Development (PUD) across Route 235 from Wildewood is now moving forward. And the initial stages of the development of the Oak Crest Center have drawn criticism from some neighbors.

The PUD is quite different from the Wildewood PUD that sits directly across the street at the intersection of MD 235 and Wildewood Boulevard. Oak Crest has no residential development planned, only commercial, industrial and office. It sits next to a Chaney Enterprises concrete plant and will share an entrance with that facility.

When approved in 1990 by the St. Mary’s County Commissioners, Oak Crest was planned to be 1.3 million square feet of buildings on the 139.5 acre property. That has since been reduced to about 900,000 square feet by St. John Properties, which bought the land and development rights to the project in 2007.

The St. Mary’s County Planning Commission was given a briefing on the project last week, but the planners have no approval authority over the first phase which is wending its way through the technical process within the county Department of Land Use and Growth Management (LUGM).

A grading permit was recently issued for the first phase of a four-phase build out. That first phase has three commercial pad sites in the front of the property to the right of the access road and nearest to Route 235. To the rear of the pad sites will be a 122,000-square-foot big box store and 28,000-square-foot garden center which representatives of St. John have described as a building supply store. They say the tenant hasn’t been secured, but Home Depot has been oft mentioned as eventually coming to St. Mary’s County.,

At the planning commission briefing, representatives of the Stevens and Hewitt families, who own property adjacent to the development, complained about the storm-water management of the property being graded, and also from a timbering operation to the rear of the property. Michael Hewitt said the 15-acre pond on his family’s property is being silted in by the runoff. “The mud is getting deeper and deeper,” he said.

Kevin Stevens said his family would like to see a berm constructed along the property boundary as an added buffer.

The residents were informed by LUGM staff that the state is the enforcer of storm water management and sediment control devices and suggested the residents contact them. A week after the briefing, LUGM Director Phillip Shite said his office had not been informed by the state of any violations, although at the briefing he said the state had only one inspector for the Southern Maryland area.

At the briefing, Planning Commission member Shelby Guazzo said she had sent a letter to the county commissioners requesting they lo