A crowd of Charlotte Hall residents from the area of Mohawk Drive showed up in force Monday night at the St. Mary’s Planning Commission meeting to reject a proposal that would cost them near $20,000 each.
The proposal was from the St. Mary’s Metropolitan Commission (METCOM) to build a $285,000 water main that could connect potentially 150-plus homes into the public water system in the “town center” of Charlotte Hall.
But the problem is that most of those potentially-serviceable properties don’t exist, and the approximately 35 affected landowners already have fully functional wells on their properties – and have no plans to subdivide and sell off part of their lots to pay for the proposal.
The project would allow planned housing developments to move ahead, but an environmental law would require the existing homeowners to abandon their wells and hook into the nearby public water system.
METCOM’s report rationalizes the “need” for the water line saying the acreage that can benefit from the project could serve 150 dwelling units.
Affected homeowners complained Monday that METCOM’s dwelling unit calculation relies on the fact that the entire section would be divided into lots a little larger that 1 acre, but the average lot size for the existing owners is now more than 4 acres.
Under the proposal, each landowner would have to pay their share of the total cost, the cost to install lateral line to connect their house to the system, the cost of capping and abandoning their wells and pay for the water meter. All told the average cost per property owner would be $18,000, but many properties would need much long lateral lines and their costs soar right past $20,000.
Michael Davis, a landowner on Mohawk Drive with 4.4 acres said his cost would exceed $25,000 because of how far he would be from the main.
“And I’m not even the farthest, not even close,” said Davis, who was one of a parade of speakers who requested the planning commission reject the idea. Nearly every speaker against the proposal received applause after from the packed meeting room.
Thomas Williams, also of Mohawk Drive, said he and his wife have been there for 26 years, and “I’d like to know how in the world I ever got in the ‘Town Center’.”
Williams says his house on nearly 17 acres has only 44 feet of road frontage.
“Now they’re telling us we can get 17 more houses on there,” Williams said.
Chester Frederick, an engineer for METCOM, acknowledged that the figures used to determine how many homes can be served do not consider if the topography actually allows for those homes to be built.
“I’m not ready to make a decision on this until I get a whole lot more information,” said planning commission member James Howard Thompson.
“A lot of people are concerned about not being able to split those lots,” member Merl Evans said.
“When I look at it, I see an area that’s already been developed,” Commission Chairman Steve Reeves said.
The planning commission unanimously agreed to “table” the issue until more information and answers can be received from METCOM.