The La Plata Town Council adopted a new ordinance Tuesday requiring developers to demonstrate adequate road capacity before building new projects, the second growth-management ordinance the council has approved this year as the town works to catch up with a development boom that has outpaced its existing regulations.
The Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance, or APFO, for roads follows a companion ordinance the council adopted in April covering water, sewer and school seating capacity. Together, the two measures replace a regulatory framework that, until this year, only required new residential development to show adequate school seating — leaving the town with no formal mechanism to evaluate whether roads, water or sewer systems could handle the pace of new construction.
“These ordinances give La Plata a clear roadmap for protecting the quality of life our residents expect by making sure our infrastructure keeps pace with our community,” Mayor Jeannine James said in a statement. “This was truly a team effort, and the credit belongs to our Planning Commission, Town staff, land use attorneys, developers, and our Town Manager, who dedicated the past year to researching, discussing, and crafting these ordinances to guide our Town forward.”
The push to overhaul the town’s growth rules began in earnest last summer, when the town’s water usage started approaching the limits of its state permit. La Plata’s wells can produce up to 3.6 million gallons of water per day, but the town is only permitted to withdraw an average of 1.144 million gallons daily — and up to 1.716 million gallons during peak months — under limits set by the Maryland Department of the Environment. Town staff told the Planning Commission last July that actual usage was closing in on those caps, prompting officials to begin drafting a broader APFO covering not just water but roads, drainage, fire and EMS response, police services and parks, with plans to phase in the additional categories over time. The Town Council held a public hearing on the roads component of the ordinance in June before Tuesday’s final adoption vote.
Under the new framework, development proposals are reviewed against the town’s public facilities capacity before they can proceed. If a project’s traffic impact analysis shows adequate road capacity, the development can move through standard review; if not, developers may be required to phase construction, fund road improvements, or take other mitigation steps to offset the impact before permits are issued. APFO findings are now incorporated directly into the town’s subdivision, site plan and permitting decisions.
Don Dooley, La Plata’s director of planning, said the ordinances are meant to give the town predictable, coordinated tools for managing growth rather than reacting to capacity problems after they emerge. “The ordinances ensure public infrastructure and services keep pace with new development, help maintain the Town’s quality of life by preventing overburdened schools, roads, utilities, and public safety systems, provide a predictable framework for evaluating development impacts and coordinating growth, and support the long-term planning and capital investment decisions, in coordination with Charles County and the State Highway Administration, when needed,” Dooley said.
Adequate public facilities ordinances have been available to Maryland local governments since 1978, when the General Assembly first authorized municipalities and non-charter counties to adopt them; the law was expanded in 1992 to let all Maryland jurisdictions, including charter counties, use similar growth-management tools. According to the Maryland Department of Planning, 14 counties and 34 municipalities statewide have adopted some form of APFO, with schools and roads the most commonly regulated categories among counties that use them. Charles County itself has long maintained its own countywide APFO covering schools, water and transportation, meaning La Plata’s new ordinance brings the town’s regulatory approach more in line with the county framework that governs unincorporated areas nearby.
The updated regulations are codified in Chapter 191 of the La Plata Town Code, which governs the town’s zoning ordinances. Town officials have not announced a specific timeline for extending the APFO framework to the remaining infrastructure categories — drainage, fire and EMS, police, and parks — that were identified as part of the broader planning process launched last year, though officials have indicated those categories may be added in future phases as capacity studies are completed.
