Conduit Street

As previously reported on Conduit Street, Governor Martin O’Malley has accepted the final version of PlanMaryland via Executive Order.  The final version of the Plan is 116 pages cover to cover.  MACo has prepared a 3-page summary of the Plan that provides an overview of each section of the Plan, including language and quotes that MACo believes are especially relevant to county officials.  Extra detail is provided for Chapter 4, which deals with the designation of new “planning areas” that will focus State funding and policies.  MACo believes this is potentially the most significant section of the Plan for county governments and it is also the section that has been changed the most since the original draft.

MACo will continue to work with the Administration and the Maryland Department of Planning to address our remaining concerns with the Plan and will consider any legislation introduced during the 2012 Session relating to PlanMaryland.

In a December 25 letter to the Baltimore Sun, Saint Mary’s County Commissioner Cindy Jones criticizes both the science behind PlanMaryland and the process used to vet the Plan with Maryland’s citizens.  Here is an excerpt:

The science supporting PlanMaryland employs tactics such as changing the parameters on a chart to produce a favorable result, omitting pertinent items from topical discussions (the ones that do not support the plan’s theses) and using unproven assumptions that are not based upon empirical data.

This explains why elected officials at both the county and state levels have met with months of stonewalling and evasiveness when querying Secretary Hall and his staff about PlanMaryland. Based upon its scientific merits, PlanMaryland is indefensible.

The Department of Planning engaged 3,000 citizens in its outreach efforts, including stakeholder meetings and open houses. This is not authentic consensus building, and not consistent with the workings of a representative form of government.

The threshold for ballot access for a referendum is 50,000 signatures. How can the input of a mere 3,000 people, comprised mostly of special interests, be said to be a legitimate consensus?

As previously reported on Conduit Street, MACo summarized its concerns regarding the PlanMaryland process and the potential impact on local land use authority in a letter to Governor Martin O’Malley in November.  Legislation will be introduced during the 2012 Session to restrict or clarify the parameters of the Plan and MACo will consider any legislation relating to the Plan.

Debate over PlanMaryland has continued after Governor Martin O’Malley’s acceptance of the Plan on December 19 and there will likely be legislation introduced during the 2012 Session to limit the Plan or add General Assembly oversight.  The Plan adopted by the Governor through Executive Order is essentially a framework and many details have to be filled in before the Plan can be implemented.  Here is a sampling from a variety of media sources:

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According to a state house press release this morning, Governor O’Malley has received and accepted the Maryland Department of Planning’s latest version of PlanMaryland.

From the Governor’s press release:

ANNAPOLIS, MD (December 19, 2010) – Governor Martin O’Malley today accepted “PlanMaryland,” the State’s first long-range plan for sustainable growth, from Secretary Richard Eberhart Hall of the Maryland Department of Planning (MDP) – achieving a vision first laid out by the General Assembly a half-century ago.

PlanMaryland is an executive policy plan that better coordinates the smart growth efforts and programs of state government. The Governor filed the Plan with the Secretary of State, as required by law. The Governor also filed an Executive Order to provide an overview of the process for implementation of the plan. During the coming year, state agencies will work to identify changes in strategy to achieve the goals of the plan and will work with local governments on delineating areas for future state investment, growth and preservation.

Click here to see the Executive Order.

The final version of the Plan is available online here:

Full Plan Document (pdf file), 108 pages
Executive Summary (pdf file), 16 pages

As the discussion and debate about both the process and substance of PlanMaryland has continued in recent weeks, an announcement at today’s Planning Directors’ Roundtable meeting appears to have answered one major lingering question.

At the roundtable meeting, Planning Secretary Rich Hall made a clear statement: “We will deliver PlanMaryland to the Governor next week.”

As of this writing, no details on this process are available, but the MDP PlanMaryland website has routinely kept up with public announcements, and MACo will also be tuned in for any further developments.

Click here for recent Conduit Street coverage of PlanMaryland.

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Edit, added Friday December 16:

The MDP website has a “timeline” feature that currently includes this entry:

Mid-December 2011

PlanMaryland Delivery to Governor O’Malley
Final PlanMaryland plan document will be delivered by Secretary Richard Hall to Governor Martin O’Malley.

Added December 19:

The Daily Times reports that the presentation will be made today in Annapolis:

Former governors Harry Hughes and Parris Glendening will join O’Malley in Annapolis on Monday for the presentation of PlanMaryland.

As previously reported on Conduit Street, the adoption of PlanMaryland by Governor Martin O’Malley was placed on hold until after a December 12 briefing on the Plan by the Senate Education, Health, and Environmental Affairs Committee.  The briefing was held in response to concerns raised by Senator EJ Pipkin and other legislators during the 2011 Special Session.  The standing room only briefing was preceded by a rally of PlanMaryland opponents in front of the State Capitol Building.

Two panels of speakers testified at the briefing – one headed by Maryland Secretary of Planning Rich Hall and one headed by Senator Pipkin.

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As a follow-up to the October 31 event sponsored by Carroll County Government entitled “PlanMaryland:  At The Crossroads Forum,” the Carroll County website now hosts both video and printable presentations from the event.

To watch the presentations from the forum, or to download copies of the speaker presentations, click here.

County Commissioner Richard Rothschild, who served as a moderator for much of the forum’s discussions, offers this summary of the issues raised:

The PlanMaryland: At the Crossroads forum conducted on October 31st changed the narrative about PlanMaryland

• The forum challenged the scientific, environmental, economic, and quality of life premises in PlanMaryland. It was not about “global warming.”

• PlanMaryland’s enabling legislation, HB 807, clearly has language authorizing the state to trump local planning authority. Any attempt to claim otherwise is false.

• No cost/benefit analysis of global warming mitigation efforts was conducted by PlanMaryland. The state could spend trillions over the next forty years and the net change in global temperature would be less than 1/1000 of a degree.

• PlanMaryland claims sea level rise of 2 -10 feet over the next 100 years, but the Plan omitted newer satellite data that projects a rise of less than 2 inches.

• PlanMaryland exaggerated nitrate emissions from septic systems by adding fertilizer loads, and again appeared to exaggerate septic loads by comparing old-technology septic systems to new technology waste water treatment plants. In an apples-to-apples comparison, septic systems are comparable to Wastewater Treatment Plants. Furthermore, PlanMaryland estimated that septic contributions to Bay nitrates from all surrounding states totaled 4 percent. It failed to mention that Maryland’s contribution is less than 1.4 percent.

• PlanMaryland exaggerates the cost of automobile ownership while underestimating the cost of mass transit and overstating its efficacy. Within a 45 minute radius, a passenger can reach only 10 percent of available jobs with mass transit, versus 100 percent by car.

• Using the Plan’s actual examples, the forum demonstrated compact development was not as cost effective as suggested. On a per-household basis, assessed value of property would drop more than 50 percent – insufficient to fund public services.

As previously reported on Conduit Street, MACo has sent not only technical comments on PlanMaryland to the Maryland Department of Planning through the formal comment process, but by approval of its Board of Directors has also submitted a letter to the Governor identifying continued concerns with the proposed Plan and its implementation, and asking for a deferral of its final approval.

The Senate EHEA Committee is holding a public briefing to discuss PlanMaryland on Monday, and the Department of Planning has indicated that the final version of the plan will not be delivered to the Governor until after that time.

On December 8 WYPR ran the first part of a planned two-part series on PlanMaryland, entitled “PlanMaryland Has No Shortage of Critics”.  The first part summarizes the views of some of the Plan’s staunchest critics and supporters.

Senator E.J. Pipkin, a Cecil County Republican, says it creates a statewide “land czar” who will control local land use decisions.  …

And Carroll County Commissioner Richard Rothschild insists he has inside information that there is a secret plan to create a state land use board.  … 

Senator Ron Young, a Frederick County Democrat, dismisses those charges as just so much political palaver aimed at voters in the next election.  … “They made statements about things that aren’t there.”  …

Dru Schmidt Perkins, director of the advocacy group 1000 Friends of Maryland, says that doesn’t mean local governments can’t make their own land use decisions. It just means the state won’t pay for some decisions.  …”Local governments can plan stupid, the state’s not going to pay for it.”

The segment also notes that it is “hard to say” what exactly is contained in PlanMaryland.