Pedestrian-friendly plan for future nearing finish

Waldorf Urban Design Study gets commission OK

Friday, Dec. 11, 2009

An urban design study that supporters say was created to transform Waldorf into a city with two- to 10-story buildings, lots of sidewalks and open space for parks where folks can easily walk to businesses, restaurants and retail shops is slowly nearing implementation.

The Charles County Planning Commission recommended Monday that the Charles County commissioners approve most of the Waldorf Urban Design Study implementation package that has been under way for more than a year.

The plan includes proposals to create two new zones and revise a handful of others, a vision document that outlines how to develop the Waldorf subarea and specific design guidelines on how to develop a "downtown" portion of the city that stretches roughly just north of Acton Lane to south of Leonardtown Road and between the railroad tracks on Leonardtown Road and U.S. 301, according to the plan.

Businesses located along Route 925 and the business section of Leonardtown Road will be most impacted when the implementation of the study begins, county planners said.

The planning commission held a public hearing on the implementation package in October.

The only portions of the plan that were not included in the recommendation for approval to the county commissioners Monday were the proposed revisions to the county's planned development zones located within the study area.

The planning commission has scheduled a work session on those revisions Jan. 25 after the record closes Dec. 18, said Amy Blessinger, county planner.

Planning commission member Joseph Richard said he had a few concerns about how already established businesses in the study area will be impacted when the county begins to revise some of the zoning criteria.

"The area of development is pretty significant; I'm concerned about smaller businesses in the study area," he said during the work session.

Planner Shelley Wagner said that those properties will be grandfathered in to their current zoning status as legal nonconforming uses.

"Once the business changes its use it will have to conform to the new regulations," she said.

The new zones that will be created once the plan moves forward are the Waldorf central zone and the Acton urban center zone, according to county planners. The Waldorf central zone would allow two- to five-story buildings in the subarea and the Acton urban center zone would allow two- to 10-story structures.

The core retail residential and core employment residential zones would be refined to make them more consistent with the goals of the Waldorf subarea plan by requiring an emphasis on streetscaping and landscaping amenities, county planners said.

The vision for Waldorf includes shared stormwater management and parking facilities, public and private parks and greenways, on- and off-street public parking and public transit stations that would include local and regional bus stops and a future light rail station, according to the plan.

The county commissioners will hold a public hearing and work session on the proposals before rendering a decision on the matter.

Housing size revision recommended for approval

The planning commission is recommending that the county commissioners approve a proposed zoning text amendment that would reduce the minimum square footage requirements for single-family homes and townhouses from 1,650 square feet to 1,250 square feet.

The decision to recommend approval of the proposal followed a brief work session Monday evening.

The county commissioners proposed the reduction in housing size to provide developers a way to build more affordable housing in the county, said commissioners' President F. Wayne Cooper in an earlier interview.

If the amendment is adopted by the county commissioners it would impact housing units that would be built in the development district in Waldorf and White Plains, Cooper (D) said.

The proposal reverses a decision made by the county commissioners in the late 1990s to address the declining property values of a glut of poorly constructed townhouses that were sprouting up throughout the development district. The units didn't sell and many of them were rented out, causing property values to plummet because many tenants did not take care of the homes.

No other county standards related to the construction of houses and townhomes will be impacted by the amendment.

The county commissioners will hold a public hearing and a work session before rendering a decision on the matter.

nmcconaty@somdnews.com