At its April 24 meeting, the St. Mary's County Planning Commission reviewed proposed corrections to the Lexington Park Development District Master Plan maps and directed staff to leave one boundary unchanged and to change another map line to include an adjusted parcel around Cecil's Mill in the district.

The discussion centered on two specific map items from the commission's earlier review. The commission instructed staff to keep the boundary shown near Route 5 and Hermanville Road as drawn — the commission “will leave this yellow border as it is,” a commissioner said during the meeting. For a separate parcel (item 10 on the map) that had been combined by a 2016 boundary line adjustment, the commission directed staff to change the red line on the working map to yellow so the consolidated parcel would be inside the Lexington Park development district.

Bill Hunt, interim director for Land Use and Growth Management, framed the agenda items and explained the mapping work: the department and the county's information office have been collaborating to “redo” the maps and snap land‑use layers to parcel boundaries.

Bob Kelly, St. Mary's County chief information officer, demonstrated the map layers and said staff had identified two areas needing clarification: the Route 5/Hermanville Road border (item 4) and a parcel associated with Cecil's Mill (item 10). Kelly noted a 2016 boundary line adjustment had effectively combined two previously separate parcels and that the combined parcel now appeared split on the draft development‑district map.

Chris Longmore, an attorney who said he represented the Cecil family on a prior request to expand the development district, told the commission he recalled that a prior request to expand the district near the mill was denied by the Board of County Commissioners. “I was representing the Cecil family in relation to their request,” Longmore said, summarizing the earlier appeal and the commissioners' decision.

Several commissioners urged caution and requested better documentary evidence before making substantive map changes. Commissioner Harold Willard emphasized the mill property's historic context and argued that adjacent land historically related to the mill “is all part of the mill the way it historically was, and we ought not to change it.” Other commissioners noted the boundary change stemmed from a boundary line adjustment executed by the property owner and said the planning commission's role for the current session was to correct mapping errors that contradicted the commission's prior endorsement of the master plan, not to make new land‑use determinations.

Commission members also discussed how Accident Potential Zones (APZ) related to land‑use decisions in parts of Lexington Park. The commission reiterated that land‑use designations inside an APZ carry constraints and that the master‑plan map should reflect the planning decisions while recognizing site‑specific environmental or regulatory constraints would be addressed later during development review.

On mapping cleanup for the downtown focus area, staff described a broader problem: an earlier map layer showed detailed development concepts (stream buffers, clustered open space) as predominant green land‑use areas, which could conflict with the higher‑level land‑use categories commissioners intended. Hunt and Kelly told the commission they would remove conceptual development green layers from the primary land‑use map where those greens merely showed cluster layouts or environmental buffers rather than the parcel's designated land use. Commissioners asked staff to confirm several parcels are labeled correctly (for example, a county‑owned Flat Tops parcel shown as about 33.83 acres and a purple‑outlined parcel shown as about 17 acres) and to change the key to remove references to the old DMX category.

Staff said they would clean up parcel boundaries, remove development‑concept green overlays where they conflict with the intended land‑use category, correct the legend (including replacing the removed DMX designation), and provide updated maps for the commission to review at a future meeting. Kelly said staff planned to supply updated map links and printed maps for the commission.

The commission did not take a final, formal land‑use vote at the meeting. Instead, it gave staff direction: (1) keep the Route 5/Hermanville Road boundary as shown; (2) change the red map line to yellow for the combined Cecil's Mill parcel so that the parcel is within the Lexington Park Development District on the draft map; and (3) correct downtown focus area land‑use layers and the map legend and return with corrected maps for further review.

The commission set expectations for next steps: staff will research historical record and correspondence regarding the Cecil family requests and the Board of County Commissioners' prior decision, correct the maps to reflect the commission's direction, and circulate updated maps in advance of the commission's next meeting.