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CommunitySouthern Marylanders look at how to handle new jobs, homes
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
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Denis Canavan, left, St. Mary’s planning director, and St. Mary’s College of Maryland professor Zack Messite study a map at the Reality Check Plus exercise at the college last Thursday. Business, government and community leaders from Southern Maryland placed building blocks on maps to represent where job and household growth should occur in the region.
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Nearly 150 Southern Marylanders from business, government and the nonprofit community met at St. Mary’s College of Maryland last Thursday to debate where to put new jobs and new housing predicted for the region.
County commissioners, home builders and environmentalists faced off with maps and Lego toy blocks to come to grips with the effects of population growth on housing, jobs, transit, agriculture and open space. At the end of the day-long Reality Check Plus exercise, they recommended more regional cooperation and coordination, increased transit options and preservation of open spaces. They wanted growth focused away from rural and natural resources areas and the establishment of a regional park and planning commission.
‘‘The predicted growth rates for Southern Maryland are staggering,” said Maggie O’Brien, president of St. Mary’s College. Job growth is twice the state average and household growth numbers are nearly triple.
St. Mary’s planning director, Denis Canavan, said the exercise was especially useful ‘‘for the majority in attendance who don’t deal with land-use management on a daily or weekly basis.” He said that despite the diversity of the participants, each of the 15 groups came up with similar results during their independent discussions.
‘‘The question becomes, is it imperative that this region or this county grow according to these numbers? ... In reality it does not mean that amount of growth has to take place in that time frame,” he said.
Data from the Maryland Department of Planning Data Services was used by the Reality Check Plus planning team as they set up the day’s workshop. The amount of growth in each county seemed staggering to many of the participants.
‘‘Our goal was to have participants from the community in percentages that reflect the makeup of the region,” said Jason Sartori, statewide project manager of Reality Check Plus. ‘‘About 30 percent of the participants were from business, 30 percent from civic or nonprofit organizations and 40 percent from government agencies,” he said. Each table had a mix of participants from the different counties and stakeholder groups.
Before the participants started to set out the blocks, they were asked to identify a number of guiding principles for their table discussions. Their lists included goals to preserve environmentally sensitive and protected areas, to focus development around existing infrastructure and to encourage a balance of jobs to housing. They also wanted to protect agricultural land and to focus development inside the urban envelope. Also listed was a goal to encourage more choices in housing costs and types.
Each table had the same task and map. They were to use 150 Lego blocks to build job sites and 150 homes for the number of people expected to be in the region in 2030; planning was to be done for the entire region, not county by county. At the end of the exercise, each table had their own version of a Southern Maryland 2030 Legoland.
‘‘People collectively seemed to want to keep the countryside as countryside,” said Don Statter, who was there to represent the Lake Lariate Clam Project. ‘‘We seemed to want to keep new jobs in the town centers. But the map doesn’t tell us what is going to happen to road networks. There will be stress on roads and the bridges and we need to plan for that, too,” he said.
‘‘Charles and Calvert see people coming from Prince George’s and the face of St. Mary’s is changing drastically,” said Frank Jaklitsch, former planning director for Calvert County and co-chair of Southern Maryland Reality Check. ‘‘People are coming for the better school system, and the cost of living is another driving factor.”
There was contention about where to put worksites for the predicted 70,000 new jobs coming to the region. Currently, the jobs-to-household ratio in Calvert County is 1 to 1, meaning that if a household has more than one worker, only one works in the county and the other commutes out. In Charles County, a greater portion of workers stay in the county, with an average of 1.4 jobs for every household. In St. Mary’s County there are now 1.6 jobs per household.
Over the next 24 years the participants projected for 1.2 jobs per household in Calvert and Charles counties, and 1.4 jobs per household in St. Mary’s. During the placement of blocks representing future jobs, the Reality Check participates began to put the projected new jobs around all three counties, and some of the Calvert County participants balked, saying they wanted Calvert to remain a bedroom community.
‘‘The participants played the simulation game more regionally than the counties are now thinking,” said Sartori.
At the end of the exercise the participants came together and recommended five strategies.
First, they wanted regional cooperation and coordination, including more education about the importance of regionalism with elected officials.
Second, they wanted funding and phasing of infrastructure before growth takes place. Road capacity and broadband availability were of particular concern, and the group noted the need for revenue structures and incentives as well as more state assistance.
Third, was a call to increase transit options, including light rail, MARC trains, and possibly tunnels and ferries.
Fourth, preservation of open spaces was listed, focusing growth away from rural and resource areas, and establishing a regional park and planning commission.
Finally, greater focus on water resources, including capacity analysis and more planning, education, and conservation was recommended.
Reality Check Plus is a coalition of nonprofit, community and private sector organizations that has conducted four Maryland regional Reality Check Plus events this year.
