Comp plan panel’s plea for ‘greenbelt’ too late
It remains to be seen whether the Ocean Pines Association Board of Directors will take a position on the draft comprehensive plan for Worcester County in time for a Nov. 29 public hearing. If the choice is doing nothing or going “green” in lockstep to the OPA’s comprehensive plan advisory committee’s recommendations, then doing nothing is the preferred course. It is better to remain silent than embrace the contradictions, inconsistencies and assault on property rights contained in the committee’s recommendations, unveiled during the directors’ Nov. 16 monthly meeting by it chairman, Art Sachs.

Preservation of green space outside the boundaries of Ocean Pines has superficial appeal, of course – who could oppose green space, after all – unless one considers that extensive development of one kind or another has already occurred or is planned on Ocean Pines’ outer edges.

To the east, there is the Isle of Wight Bay and the St. Martin River. Unless the comp plan committee intends on recommending a massive landfill project, or actions that will lead to a picturesque algae bloom, the eastern boundary of Ocean Pines will remain forever blue.

To the north, there’s Beauchamp Road, which has already been developed with a church, a golf course, two housing developments and a trailer park at its eastern terminus.

To the west, there’s Pennington Estates, a housing development in its early stages of construction, and Pennington Commons, a shopping center, also under construction. As proof that good development is not incompatible with green space, the Pennington developers recently planted a grove of trees to buffer development along Route 589.

Elsewhere on the west side of Route 589, there’s a bank, a fast food restaurant, another bank, a convenience store, the Pines Plaza shopping center and three office buildings off Route 589 just south of Route 90. North of Route 90, there are medical offices, a bank, convenience store, a church and a former golf driving range.

Developers Allen Skolnick and Charles Nichols own property zoned for agriculture on or near the western terminus of Route 589, both north and south of the highway, in the vicinity of recently dualized Route 113. On either side of the Ocean Pines North Gate, there’s the Burbage family acreage, zoned for neighborhood business, and the site of the former Ocean Pines pig farm, zoned for agriculture, owned by a Baltimore-based limited partnership. These sites are not particularly appealing aesthetically, choked as they are with many scrub pine trees.

To the south, there’s Gum Point Road, a single-family residential enclave, with developer Marvin Steen’s 60-lot housing subdivision slated to become part of Ocean Pines within the next several years, and Jack Burbage’s Baypoint Plantation housing development is on the books. There’s the old Wyatt farm on Ocean Pines’ southern boundary, also owned by Burbage, currently zoned for agriculture and used that way.

The undeveloped parcels on Route 589 are relatively few, and spread out in a patch quilt, hardly conducive to the creation of a greenbelt or anything like it. The most that could be accomplished if the committee’s recommendation is acted upon is to block the eventual development of these parcels by well-heeled and prominent property owners.

In the draft county comprehensive plan now under review, the Worcester County planning staff and planning commission take the view that there should be no new development along Route 589 until it’s dualized. The Ocean Pines comp plan committee supports a robust effort to encourage Maryland to dualize the road, a noble aspiration but essentially futile since the state isn’t interested and won’t be anytime soon. Having taken the cheap and easy route on Route 589 widening, the committee then takes a dim view of new development even if the road is dualized sometime later in the millennium.

In short, the Ocean Pines comp plan committee appears not to support the draft county plan’s identification of Route 589 as a contingent growth area, apparently out of some misplaced fear that the thoroughfare will turn into a mini-replica of Rockville Pike.

During board discussion of the committee’s recommendations, two directors pointed out inconsistencies or conflicts in the committee’s position.

Director Janet Kelley reminded Sachs of the committee’s strong endorsement of selling Sports Core parcels to finance construction of a new community center, at the same it endorsed building a new community center elsewhere on the Sports Core site.

While Kelley didn’t say so explicitly, in effect she exposed the hypocrisy of the committee’s position: It’s OK for neighboring property owners to keep their parcels in their natural states to please the refined, green sensibilities of certain Pines residents, but “open space” controlled by the OPA can be developed or even sold off for commercial purposes. Kelley was on the losing side in last summer’s community center/land sale debate, but that doesn’t mean she’s wrong in exposing the committee’s inconsistency in wanting to stifle development elsewhere.

Director Wally Coleburn also pointed out the inherent conflict between road improvements, which the committee supports, and the fact that landowners almost inevitably seek to develop their properties after road improvements are made.

After the meeting, several other directors made somewhat critical observations of Sach’s greenbelt recommendation. Pro-growth advocate Dan Stachurski, the former OPA president who has made many positive statements about the development potential of what he calls the “golden triangle,” said in his view this particular committee recommendation will not be endorsed by the OPA board.

Director Mark Venit made the observation that those “last in” sometimes want to close the doors to others.

In remarks to this columnist the day after the board meeting, OPA President Glenn Duffy said he thought Sachs’ report was well done, with the exception of the greenbelt recommendation. He said he would be giving the directors an opportunity to comment via e-mail on the recommendations, since there’s no scheduled board meeting before the 29th.

But he said it’s possible that he will present the committee’s recommendations in their entirety at the Nov. 29 public hearing.

“It depends on what I hear from the other directors,” he said.

Given on-the-record expressions of skepticism by several directors, it may not be too much to hope that the board will delete the reference to a greenbelt in the official OPA position to be delivered by Duffy.

Another spin on Route 589

Larry Devlin, a member of the Worcester County Planning Commission from Ocean Pines, has an interesting spin on Route 589 dualization that an advisory committee might usefully have considered before adopting its “no growth” position.

Devlin, husband of OPA director Heather Cook, told this columnist that, given the state’s stated reluctance to fund Route 589 dualization anytime in the next several decades, the best way to get the job done is to ask developers to pay for it.

It so happens that the landowners who might contribute to Route 589 dualization are very wealthy, and, if asked, might be willing to finance a portion of dualization costs, at least the portion that reflect their properties’ frontage on Route 589. Of course, in return the OPA and the county will have to support zoning changes and accommodations on water and wastewater treatment issues. Quid pro quos make the world go ‘round.

OPA President Duffy said he thinks Devlin’s ideas are interesting and worthy of discussion. At the very least, it could result in dualization from Route 113 to the Ocean Pines North Gate, he said.

Another possibility that ought to be on the table is an OPA contribution to a dualization project, since Pines’ residents are the ones who presumably would benefit most from extra travel lanes on Route 589. Dualization of Route 589 from the South Gate to Route 90 shouldn’t be very expensive; the Pennington Commons developer has already gotten a good start on that with the South Gate intersection project now well under way.

Marina referendum Position consistent With bylaws’ spirit

Although criticized in some quarters as a violation of the OPA bylaws, the directors’ recent letter to the group opposing the expansion of the Swim and Racquet Club Marina is consistent with the spirit of the bylaws pertaining to referendums, and maybe even the letter.

The bylaws set out a precise timetable of public hearings and balloting that is supposed to follow the submission of valid signatures petitioning for a referendum. The recent letter from the OPA to anti-marina expansion leader Charlie Herpen explains that a referendum of property owners will be scheduled once an actual marina expansion plan is devised, as opposed to the timetable set out in the bylaws. The OPA is awaiting word from the state on permitting issues, particularly as to the number and location of boat slips and ways to eliminate or reduce adverse environmental impacts, before the directors vote on a specific marina expansion plan.
 A narrow interpretation and application of the bylaws yields a possible conclusion that the OPA directors are willfully ignoring the precise terms of the bylaws in their response to the submission of about 1,600 validated names opposing “any expenditure” of OPA funds for marina expansion.

The directors’ letter to Herpen appears reasonable because, pending state permitting decisions, no OPA money is being spent on marina expansion and so there is no “damage” to the interests of expansion opponents in the interim. Indeed, the opponents’ petition language opposing the expenditure of money for marina expansion is being observed in the interim.

It’s not possible to “enjoin” something that is not occurring, so it’s difficult to see what grounds exist for legal action should Herpen and his group decide to take the matter of a supposed bylaws violation to court.

The directors’ letter makes clear that the OPA will conduct a referendum on the marina expansion once a specific project is devised. At that time, there can be a reasoned and civil debate over environmental impacts, financing methods, and perhaps the benefits of an overall sprucing up of the Swim and Racquet Club amenity.

Then all property owners can decide the merits of marina expansion armed with all the facts they need to make an intelligent decision.

A flexible application of the rules

It’s clear on the marina expansion issue that the OPA directors are taking a flexible approach to the bylaws and their applicability to the board with respect to conducting a referendum.

It will be interesting to see whether they adopt a similar expansive, flexible approach to OPA rules when they resolve a pending dispute between the Architecture Review Committee and an ad hoc committee on ARC reform over the standards to be used in the enforcement of restrictive covenants and ARC guidelines on height and lot coverage.

This pending disagreement materialized last month with the release of dueling position statements by the ARC and the ad hoc committee. While there are certain areas of agreement between the two groups, ARC Chairman Walter Boge endorsed a policy of strict guidelines and covenant enforcement, using the standard of “need, not want” or hardship.
The ad hoc committee, which spent a painstaking several months of reviewing and revising ARC guidelines, prefers a more relaxed approach of taking into account many years of precedent and assessing whether a particular variance request “harms” the neighborhood if it’s granted.
At some point, it will be up to the OPA directors to referee the dueling standards and to decide between them. The board, if it chooses to do so, can influence how the ARC does its job. The board has the power to appoint (and fire) ARC members and can decide to fund (or not) enforcement actions targeting property owners. Through long precedent, the directors pass judgment on the current set of ARC guidelines applied by ARC and the enforcement staff.

Taking credit where none is deserved

It’s always fun to watch the county commissioners from Ocean Pines vie with one another in taking credit for the actions of county government. Commissioner Tom Cetola seems less inclined to indulge in shameless self-promotion than Judy Boggs does. She used the occasion of the Nov. 16 OPA board meeting to bask in the expenditure of funds from a developer’s contribution to the county that, had it been up to her, never would have been available for the commissioners to spend.

Boggs, it should be recalled, opposed the $1.2 million contribution from the Pennington Commons developer to the county in exchange for access to the Ocean Pines water and wastewater treatment system. But that doesn’t prevent her – nor should it – from making decisions on how to spend the money now that it’s available. Cetola voted to take the developer’s money precisely because he saw the potential to using it for the benefit of Ocean Pines ratepayers. Boggs was willing to forgo the contribution for reasons she can explain to voters if she runs for re-election next year.

There’s been some skirmishing in Snow Hill on whether the Pennington money should be used for operating expenses or capital expenditures, with an apparent consensus that the money should be spent on capital projects. This being Worcester County, there inevitably is an argument over what constitutes operational versus capital spending.

Not long ago, Cetola lost an argument over whether to use Pennington money for repainting the south side water tower. Cetola regarded it as a capital project, while the county attorney regarded it as operational. As a result, apparently no Pennington money will be used to repaint the tower.

On Nov. 15, Cetola lost another vote on the use of the Pennington money, this time to finance water system improvements on the north side of Ocean Pines, a project started several years ago but stopped because the service area’s capital improvement funds lacked sufficient resources to finish the job.

This is clearly a capital project, and long overdue. To complete the job will require about $2.5 million or more. The $500,000 remaining from the original Pennington contribution is well short of what’s needed to complete these water system improvements. In Cetola’s view, it’s smarter fiscally to find a source of funding that can complete the job all at once rather than piecemeal.
So, for reasons that are a bit difficult to explain in 25 words or less, Cetola at the Nov. 15 commissioners’ meeting voted against using any Pennington money to continue water system improvements, including additional fire hydrants and larger water lines on the north side. He was joined in the vote by colleague Bud Church.

Neither opposes completion of the water system improvements, of course. Cetola says another funding source will have to be found to finish the job. Cetola disagrees with Boggs’ position on the use of the dwindling pot of Pennington money, not on the merits of completing needed water system improvements.

You’d never know any of this listening to Boggs’ remarks Nov. 16.