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Planning Commission holds hearing on Dunkirk Town Center master plan update, keeps record open for more data
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Summary
Staff updated the Dunkirk Town Center master plan draft to reflect public and agency comments including maps, housing-affordability revisions, stormwater and impervious-surface thresholds, and transit recommendations; commissioners directed staff to provide additional information and kept the record open for the next meeting.
Planning staff presented revisions to the Dunkirk Town Center Master Plan (December 2025 draft) and took public comment on Feb. 18, after which the Planning Commission directed staff to provide additional data before proceeding.
Tay Harris, a long-range planner with the Department of Planning & Zoning, summarized edits made during the 60-day comment period: updates to planning principles, inclusion of census-designated places and maps, adjustments to the housing-affordability assessment and Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing language, new guidance for electric vehicle charger hookups for single-family construction, and updates to broadband infrastructure. Revisions to Chapter 3 included revised impervious-surface and riparian-buffer percentages, a recommended threshold for impervious cover, and a recommendation to coordinate with the Maryland Transit Administration (MTA) on commuter bus service to Annapolis, New Carrollton and College Park.
Residents asked whether proposed town-center boundary realignments would add developable land. Staff said the parcels proposed for inclusion are contiguous and largely already developed county lands; Dunkirk District Park and the MTA park-and-ride were proposed for inclusion to recognize civic uses rather than to signal imminent development. Commissioners pressed staff on population-estimate methodologies and traffic and parking capacity near the park-and-ride; staff acknowledged limitations in interim population estimates and agreed to follow up with clearer footnotes and further analysis.
After discussion, a commissioner moved to direct staff to compile the information requested during testimony and to keep the administrative record open until the next Planning Commission meeting; that motion passed by voice vote.
Next steps: Staff will provide the requested analysis and the Planning Commission will reconvene the record at its next meeting before making a final consistency recommendation to the Board of County Commissioners.
