St. Mary’s County officials hold joint public hearing on broad zoning ordinance rewrite; residents urge retention of RLT protections in critical area

St. Mary’s County leaders and residents met at a joint public hearing of the Board of County Commissioners and the Planning Commission on May 18, 2010, to review a staff draft of a comprehensive revision to the county—s zoning ordinance and maps.

Derek Burrage, director of the Department of Land Use and Growth Management, described the draft as an implementation step for the county—s recently adopted 2010 comprehensive land use plan and said the document is a working draft "subject to changes both by the planning commission and by the county commissioners." He outlined two principal tasks: rezoning map changes to match the new plan and revisions to zoning text to clarify allowable uses, approval criteria and processing.

The staff presentation highlighted several major proposals. The draft would create a new residential low-density transition (RLT) zone proposed for large areas of the Lexington Park Development District; set a maximum density in that new zone at three units per acre and, for land in the county—s designated critical area, require lots of at least two acres (effectively limiting critical-area density to roughly one house per two acres). Staff also proposed reducing a current 50% open-space requirement in some growth-area zones in exchange for stronger design standards, active recreational space or affordable-housing commitments. Other significant changes described by staff include revised residential…