Commentary
As Small Area Plans Take Shape, Remember the Big Plan
by Bill Papian

Unless you've been on the moon the last year or so, you know that words and banners have been flying, both for and against development and growth in Southern Anne Arundel County. The newly appointed members of the Shady Side/Deale and South County small area planning committees have just begun their year's work to draw a "blueprint to guide the county in land use and zoning that will be used for the next 20 years."

These small plans are not just the committee's work. They're your work, your future, too.

Lend your voice to either forum - or both - at any time between 4:30 and 8pm for roundtable discussions of about one hour. The South County Committee meets May 11 at Southern High School. The Deale/Shady Side meets May 18 at the West River United Methodist Church Camp.

-M.L. Faunce
NBT Contributing Editor Faunce is a member of the Shady Side/Deale Small Area Planning Committee.

This County has many peninsulas where limited road capacity and sensitive environmental features will restrict development. In preparing Small Area Plans involving peninsulas, careful consideration must be given to the peninsula's infrastructure and its limits, the environmental implications of growth and the impact of development on the quality of life.

These words come from Anne Arundel County's 1997 General Development Plan, which I studied looking for passages particularly relevant to the Deale-Shady Side Peninsula, where I make my home. Presently my list contains 33 such passages, too many and too repetitious to reproduce here. However, a smaller list is reprinted below.

Why the interest at this point? Because the members of the Small Area Planning Committee for the Deale-Shady Side Peninsula (which includes mostly Deale, Churchton, West River, Galesville and Shady Side) are now starting work. The General Development Plan is the bible whose stated policies and goals are the guidelines for their work. In fact, it is the General Development Plan wherein this enlightened and forward-looking small area planning is mandated.

Here are the remaining passages from my short list:

• A major goal of the Plan is to concentrate development in areas where there are existing and planned public facilities and to protect rural, agricultural and sensitive environmental resources.
• In areas where public sewer and/or water is provided, areas may be designated as low residential due to environmental features such as critical areas or wetlands. In these areas, new residential growth will be discouraged.
• Anne Arundel County will protect and preserve the Bay and its tributaries, improve water and air quality, achieve environmentally sensitive land use.
• Goal - Promote conservation of water resources and protection of aquifers.
• Identify and develop incentives for achieving net gain of tidal and nontidal wetlands.
• In shoreline and other environmentally sensitive areas, the location of homes, jobs and services will be restricted by lower densities, the Critical Area requirements and State and Federal wetlands regulations.
• Sensitive Areas: Streams and their buffers, 100-year floodplains, habitats of threatened and endangered species, steep slopes, tidal and nontidal wetlands.

Months ago in this paper, I and our local civic associations urged all to apply for the Small Area Planning Committee, and many did. The result was that the Deale/Shady Side Peninsula yielded the highest number of applicants. We now have a good committee with an excellent chairman, Ron Wolfe. Now, I urge you to study the General Development Plan and stay in touch with the committee.

Bill Papian is president of the Shady Side Peninsula Association and a trustee of the Chesapeake Environmental Protection Association.

| Issue 17 |

Volume VII Number 17
April 29 - May 5, 1999
New Bay Times

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