A public hearing to correct a mistake in a zoning map didn’t figure to take very long. As it turns out the March 19 joint public hearing of the Calvert County Commissioners and county planning commissioners never really got going.
The session was held to present findings of an investigation into a mapping error made by county officials. The land depicted in the map is the location of the Cove Point Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) Plant in Lusby.
According to Department of Community Planning and Building staff, “Dominion Cove Point LNG LP has submitted a boundary survey which documents an error in the current zoning map. A zoning map amendment is proposed to correct the zoning boundaries within their property, to match the June 1970 boundary survey. The change would result in rezoning of 73.87-plus acres from Light Industrial to Farm and Forest District.”
While the issue has been discussed by both panels during work sessions and legal notifications—including two newspaper advertisements—took place, County Attorney John Norris was made aware of a problem with the county web site link on the legal notice and information about the zoning of the land that was not included.
As the meeting was called to order by Commissioners President Pat Nutter [R], the floor was yielded to Norris who referred to the problem as “a technical difficulty. There seems to be a question about the sufficiency of the advertising.”
The attorney recommended the hearing not take place but be rescheduled and re-advertised.
The county commissioners and planning commission members were in agreement. “It seems like we made a technical difficulty in trying to fix a technical difficulty,” Commissioner Evan K. Slaughenhoupt Jr. [R] quipped.
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