St. Mary's Planning Commission asks county commissioners to begin 2010 comprehensive plan update

St. Mary's County Planning Commission members voted to ask the Commissioners of St. Mary's County to authorize a formal review and update of the county's 2010 comprehensive plan.

The vote follows a presentation by Bill Hunt, director of the Department of Land Use and Growth Management, who outlined a revised scope of work that would place the Planning Commission as overall oversight body and the department as project manager for an estimated 24-month process.

Hunt said the process would begin with a trends and development-capacity report, proceed through public outreach tied to Maryland' Department of Planning''s 12 statewide visions, then move into a nine-element series of planning committees (water resources; sensitive areas; priority preservation areas; land use and growth management; transportation; public facilities; housing; human services; economic development). Each element group would draft written recommendations and language for the revised plan, staff would craft draft plan language, and the Planning Commission would schedule public hearings and work sessions before transmitting a final draft to the county commissioners.

Hunt presented a proposed schedule that calls for a vision exercise (roughly two to three weeks per vision), then approximately nine months of element-group work (one element per month in the initial chart), followed by drafting, public hearings and multi-session work sessions. He described the timeline as a guide that could be adjusted: "If we need to give you more time for the work sessions at the end, this would potentially stretch out a little bit longer," he said.

Commissioners and staff discussed how to staff and structure the element groups. Commissioners were told each element group would have a chair (typically a county director or subject-matter official), a small controlled working group of experts and volunteers, and open meetings available to the public, while avoiding quorum issues among Planning Commission members. Hunt and staff said committees would make presentations at regular Planning Commission meetings; the presentations would not automatically substitute for later work sessions on the full draft plan.

Several commissioners raised concerns about the proposed schedule's aggressiveness and about how the commission would review elements in enough depth. Commissioner Van Kirk asked whether the commission would be expected to accept element reports presented in a single meeting; Hunt said materials would be provided to commissioners in advance and that the commission would have opportunities for follow-up discussion and to request additional time. Commissioners agreed the end-stage work sessions on the assembled draft would require substantially more time and could be extended if needed.

The Planning Commission moved and seconded a formal request that the county commissioners provide a directive to proceed with revisions of the 2010 comprehensive plan. The motion carried on roll call with recorded ayes from Kim Summers, Betty Robrecht, Joe Van Kirk, Merle Evans and BJ (PJ) Hall.

The process as described will include online surveys, virtual participation options, and outreach managed through the county's public information office. Staff said parts of the mapping and baseline analysis will be done in-house with assistance from the Maryland Department of Planning, GIS and IT; some elements may also rely on external experts or university partners for specialized tasks.

Next steps: with the Planning Commission's motion, Land Use and Growth Management will ask the county commissioners for formal directive to begin the work plan and to authorize the staffing and outreach described by Hunt. If approved by the county commissioners, staff will begin assembling element committees, publish schedules and post comparison maps and project materials on the county website for public input.

The Planning Commission emphasized the work will be iterative: elements can be revisited during drafting and public-review stages and the schedule is a guideline rather than an immutable deadline.