Dorchester officials back concurrency tools as state bill moves through legislature

Dorchester County Council spent substantial time April 21 discussing concurrency, growth boundaries and the county’s planning-and-zoning tools, and council members said they are monitoring related state legislation.

Chairman David Chinis introduced the item and said he would attend a House subcommittee hearing on House Bill 4050; he and other council members referenced Senate Bill 227 as a companion measure. "This 1 gives us the opportunity ... it gives us some level of coverage because it does give us a state backing of that concurrency," Chinis said, arguing the bills would support the county’s existing local requirements for traffic studies, water and sewer capacity and other development conditions.

Council members described concurrency—requiring infrastructure capacity to match growth—and an existing Dorchester urban growth boundary adopted years earlier. The administration said the county already imposes turn-lane and traffic-study requirements on new development and has required water and sewer capacity upgrades in recent years. Chinis said older development approvals do not contain those conditions because the ordinances were adopted later.

Council and staff discussed the policy tools as interlocking: concurrency, growth boundaries and planning-and-zoning ordinances. Several council members urged pragmatic use of the state bill rather than waiting for a perfect legislative solution. "If you are looking for perfect out of the legislature, you will get nothing," Chinis said. He encouraged staff to draft a county concurrency ordinance to consolidate existing requirements.

No formal council action was taken on the bills during the meeting; Chinis said he would pursue outreach to legislators and encouraged residents to contact lawmakers if they wished to support the measures.