Speaking as the president of Friends of Harford, Morita Bruce made the following recommendations to the Harford County Council regarding the draft 2012 Master Plan at a public hearing held February 7, 2012. The text below was provided for publication.
Bill 12-01, Master Plan and Land Use Element Plan. Friends of Harford believes:
1. The Master Plan (MP) should not be approved until the County Executive provides detailed maps that clearly show where all boundary lines are with respect to property lines and roads, and these new maps have been reviewed by this Council and incorporated into this legislation.
Both the public and this Council are being asked to evaluate critical Land Use and Community Area maps with inadequate detail. These maps are unclear, imprecise, easily misunderstood and subject to differing interpretations by everyone involved. Land Use maps should be delineated like the Water & Sewer maps which already exist.
Also, the Existing Use maps have significant errors that must be corrected or the maps removed from the MP.
2. The MP should be amended to require legislation with specific, enforceable limits on lighting, dust, fumes and visual pollution.
We believe all owners have the right to the peaceful use and enjoyment of their own property. This right is violated when nearby properties shine bright lights in our eyes, when man-made dust or fumes assault our lungs, when we are forced to view “visual pollution” (like an unscreened trash dump). Communities fight otherwise acceptable new neighbors because they rightly fear they are not protected from these undesirable intrusions.
3. The MP should be amended to require legislation disallowing sewage pumping stations and stormwater ponds in Natural Resource Districts (NRDs).
We support the MP’s call to protect areas around our streams, wetlands and rivers which comprise our watersheds. The most cost-effective way to do this is to keep unnatural construction a safe distance away from them. This safe distance is the NRD. The most destructive activities still allowed within NRDs are stormwater ponds and sewage pumping stations, both of which can fail disastrously. By keeping these out of NRDs, we protect the watershed and enable the NRD to become the “back up system” which reduces damage when a sewage or other overflow occurs.
4. The MP should be amended to keep all current Development Envelope (DE) boundaries.
Expansion of the DE is unnecessary: Independent land use studies done for the County confirm that Harford’s DE has 60 years worth of undeveloped land zoned for Business, 60 years worth of Industrial land and 28 years worth of residential land.
Expansion of the DE is counterproductive: The cost of new infrastructure (roads, schools, libraries, etc.) falls on the taxpayer not the developer. Expanding the DE discourages developing where infrastructure already exists. Spending tax money on infrastructure for new areas increases the burden on taxpayers. In addition, expansion hurts property values in older areas by making revitalization of these areas financially less appealing.
The MP calls for a small DE expansion in the Fallston area specifically to solve septic problems for a neighborhood built before the DE existed. This is a unique case to address a problem that was not foreseen back in the 1950’s when these homes were built. If these homeowners are surveyed and most agree that they want and can afford sewer hookups, then FOH will support this minor expansion of the DE. Until then we do not support expansion because it could become the “camel’s nose in the tent” to develop this area.
Please, for the sake of all county residents, will you guys finally support pushing our elected officials to widen route 22 from I-95 to route 543; and route 543 from I95 to route 22. Both of these roads are woefully inadequate and must be widened to accomodate the growth that has already occurred.
thanks.
I agree that the traffic is bad through here, but the problem we encounter by avoiding action until now is that we must now pay BILLIONS of dollars in order to buy easements along 22. We do need to act, and hopefully we can get the council to act.
When it comes to traffic issues, ‘Friends of Harford’ is no friend of yours or mine. Their solution is to keep roads as they are to prevent any further development (called ‘progress’ by some of us), probably as a attempt to force us to live where they think we should, in a similar manner as the governor’s recent attack on rural residency.
I look at the name ‘Friends of Harford’ much as I do ‘The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’ (North Korea). You can call a cow a dog all you want, but it will still moo.
At least someone is looking out for the better future of Harford County. Good job Friends of Harford! Now it’s up to our “elected” officials to follow through with the requests of its citizens. Everyone should take a look at the new Master Plan proposal along with the Land Use Map and then send your councilperson any questions or comments. We can’t continue to SPREAD the Development Envelope further without causing more wreckless planning and TRAFFIC PROBLEMS. These 2 issues are already deteriorating the quality of life that many communities must suffer. Can’t our government do a better job?!
APG traffic is driving traffic congestion, but Route 22 north of I-95 isn’t the issue. As reported in the Aegis, “Harford County’s BRAC coordinator, Steven Overbay, told the Harford County Council in November that the nine-minute trip between I-95 and Route 715, the main public access to APG, is projected to take 47.6 minutes during rush hour by 2015.” That’s 3 years from now.
So the problem to fix is that bottleneck between I-95 and APG, so those 8,200 new Army employees and thousands of new and incoming contractors can get to work. Might help relieve the rest of Route 22 too.