St. Mary’s County planning commission approves staff zoning assignments for public lands in Lexington Park master plan

The St. Mary’s County Planning Commission on Jan. 28 approved a series of staff-recommended zoning assignments that map county-owned and nonprofit properties in the Lexington Park Development District to new zoning districts under the draft master plan.

The commission’s votes covered multiple land-use categories — industrial, office/business park, commercial, mixed-use and a range of residential intensities — and applied staff-suggested zoning to parcels the county and several public agencies own. Commissioners also approved one targeted change: one county-owned parcel identified as wetlands mitigation was removed from mixed-use medium intensity and directed to be zoned rural preservation (RPD-2).

Why it matters: the master plan replaces older land-use and zoning categories in Lexington Park, and the mapping of public lands and nonprofit properties into the new districts affects how those parcels would be treated if they were later sold or redeveloped. Commissioners and staff said the goal was to select zoning that aligns with each parcel’s surroundings so that any future transfer would not require immediate rezoning.

Staff presentation and public-agency input

Bill Hunt, director of Land Use and Growth Management, opened the discussion by telling the commission, “We’re here tonight to finish the examination of the zoning districts that have to be assigned to the land use categories.” Kathleen Easley (deputy director) and planner Laura Kay guided commissioners through online maps and a linked spreadsheet that lists the affected parcels.

Sabrina Hector, a representative from Patuxent River Naval Air Station, spoke about a 23-acre county parcel near Gate 3 and told the commission, “We don’t have a problem with it being industrial. But you were mentioning cell phone towers, there is a height restriction because it is pretty close to the airfield. So those type of things come into play, but that’s an FAA requirement.” Planning staff noted FAA height limits would still apply where relevant.

Commission deliberations and a wetlands exception

Staff explained its approach: for county-owned public lands the recommendation was usually to match the parcel’s existing zoning or the character of surrounding parcels so a hypothetical purchaser would not need to rezone. Commissioners reviewed maps and the staff spreadsheet parcel by parcel. Where the posted motion counts on the agenda differed from the live map view, staff and the county IT representative (Eric Benson) corrected the counts during the meeting.

Commissioners debated one parcel that county staff and a speaker identified as permanently reserved for wetlands mitigation (acquired through a REPI-related transaction). Several commissioners said keeping that parcel coded as a mix-use medium intensity parcel would overstate the county’s developable mixed-use acreage. After discussion the commission approved staff recommendations for mixed-use medium intensity parcels with one exception: tax account ID 1908130086 (the mitigation parcel) was removed from the mixed-use medium list and instructed to be zoned RPD-2.

Votes at a glance

- Howard Thompson elected chair — motion approved by voice vote. - Joe Van Kirk elected vice chair — motion approved by voice vote. - Accept staff zoning for 7 public-lands parcels to industrial — motion approved by voice vote (mover: Mr. Seabert; second: Clark Guy). - Accept staff zoning for 10 public-lands parcels to Office/Business Park (OBP) — motion approved by voice vote (second by Joe Van Kirk). - Accept staff zoning for 6 public-lands parcels to Limited Commercial/Industrial — motion approved by voice vote. - Accept staff zoning for 8 public-lands parcels to Mixed-Use High Intensity (MXH) — motion approved by voice vote. - Accept staff zoning for mixed-use medium intensity parcels, excluding account 1908130086 (to be zoned RPD-2) — motion approved by voice vote (motion moved by Martin Sievert; second not specified). - Accept staff zoning for 6 public-lands parcels to Mixed-Use Low Intensity (MXL) — motion approved by voice vote. - Accept staff zoning for 11 public-lands parcels to Residential High Density — motion approved by voice vote. - Accept staff zoning for 32 public-lands parcels to Residential Medium Density — motion approved by voice vote. - Accept staff zoning for 35 public-lands parcels to Residential Low Density — motion approved by voice vote. - Accept staff zoning for 21 public-lands parcels to Residential Neighborhood Conservation, with exclusion of account 1908036497 (federal property) — motion approved by voice vote. - Accept staff zoning for 8 public-lands parcels to Rural Preservation — motion approved by voice vote. - Nonprofit/institutional parcels: staff zoning accepted for 1 industrial-area nonprofit parcel (Hollywood Volunteer Fire Department) — motion approved by voice vote. - Nonprofit/institutional parcels: staff zoning accepted for 3 limited-commercial-industrial nonprofit parcels (Bay District Volunteer Fire Department and similar) — motion approved by voice vote. - Nonprofit/institutional parcels: staff zoning accepted for 8 mixed-use high-intensity nonprofit parcels — motion approved by voice vote. - Nonprofit/institutional parcels: staff zoning accepted for 2 mixed-use medium-intensity nonprofit parcels (after a duplicate-parcel correction) — motion approved by voice vote. - Nonprofit/institutional parcels: staff zoning accepted for 6 mixed-use low-intensity nonprofit parcels — motion approved by voice vote. - Nonprofit/institutional parcels: staff zoning accepted for 6 residential-medium nonprofit parcels — motion approved by voice vote. - Nonprofit/institutional parcels: staff zoning accepted for 10 residential-low nonprofit parcels — motion approved by voice vote. - Nonprofit/institutional parcels: staff zoning accepted for 1 residential-low transitional nonprofit parcel — motion approved by voice vote. - Nonprofit/institutional parcels: staff zoning accepted for 3 residential-neighborhood-conservation nonprofit parcels — motion approved by voice vote.

What the votes do and what comes next

Commissioners and staff said the votes now align the county-owned and nonprofit parcels with proposed land-use categories in the draft Lexington Park master plan. Staff and IT will finalize the parcel lists and correct duplicate entries identified during the session; the commission asked staff to run a full duplicate check across all tabs and provide an amended spreadsheet for the February meeting. Bill Hunt told commissioners the corrected parcel lists would be circulated to make sure motion counts and the map legend match.

The commission recessed its review after completing the nonprofit and public-lands mapping and closed the meeting with instructions that staff send the updated parcel spreadsheet and that commissioners continue to review the proposed zoning before the next session.