September 8th, 2006
In case you missed it – I had…and just found it… On August 27th, 2006 Justin Palk writing for the Carroll County Times wrote a piece on growth issues in the county.
Anecdotally, I have heard reports that some folks have grown tired of a discussion on growth issues in Carroll County. I have certainly not.
For those of us who were born and raised in Carroll County, we remember “quality of life” in Carroll County from long before it was a campaign issue.
When we were quite younger – growth was an issue for other reasons. Counties and communities after World War II were anxious to attract jobs and new folks to our communities as a matter promoting a continued quality of life. We needed the economic development and candidly we needed new blood.
Of course, Westminster was always a bit of an anomaly because of its history of attracting business because of its position on the routes west. New folks and businesses were attracted to Westminster in the early 1800s; after the Civil War; in the boom years of the 1890s after the “Panic of 1883,”, and in the very early 1900s.
Westminster has also always seen folks settle here as a result of Western Maryland College – McDaniel College.
New folks were a good thing until around when I-795 opened in 1985. At that point the paradigm began to change as agricultural land that had previously been handed down to the succeeding generation began to be more valuable growing houses that whatever economics it could generate as a farm.
It was in the 1980s and 1990s that we started to see a precipitous erosion of our quality of life. Growth and development brought about congestion, complexity, traffic problems and a lost sense of cohesiveness in the community.
Of course, this all came to a head in the election of 2002, when a grass-roots sea-change caused the voters to elect folks who would be aggressive about managing growth.
This aggressive approach to managing growth needs to be maintained as it will take awhile to get properties that have been purchased and zoned for growth to make their way through the system.
The property rights put in place prior to 2002 and purchased by a contract purchaser cannot be removed by plebiscite – whether we like the fact that all those houses are going to come there or not… We cannot deny someone their purchased legal rights because public opinion has changed.
However, we can learn from this lesson and be careful how we go about zoning property and designating appropriate residential growth areas in the future. Which is, as far as I am concerned – few and far between. We have the residential rooftops – what we need are local jobs.
Which bears out my point - now that the paradigm has changed, we need to see it through or the reasons why many of us call Carroll County home, will no longer exist.
The article is titled, “Candidates put forth policies to manage growth.”
It begins:
Between April of 2000 and July of 2005 - the latest date for which data is available - Carroll's population increased by 11.7 percent, from 150,897 to 168,541, according to the Maryland State Department of Planning.
That makes Carroll the ninth fastest-growing jurisdiction in the state in absolute terms, and seventh in terms of percentages.
MDP estimates that by 2010, the county's population will grow by another 11,000 residents.
That growth increases the pressure to improve infrastructure, such as roads - the state is studying how to increase the capacity of Md. 140 through Westminster, and improve Md. 26 between Md. 32 and Liberty Reservoir - and schools - such as a proposed high school in the northeastern part of the county.
The Times asked each candidate for Carroll's Board of Commissioners whether they think the county is doing enough, too much, or too little to manage growth in Carroll, and to explain why. What follows are the responses we received.
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