St. Mary’s County commissioners spent a lengthy work session going chapter by chapter through the draft St. Mary’s 2050 Comprehensive Plan, directing dozens of wording changes before agreeing to send the document to a public hearing set for 6:30 p.m. Oct. 6 — a date the board confirmed in a separate announcement covered previously by the Chronicle.
The plan, which would replace the county’s 2010 comprehensive plan and guide land-use decisions through 2050, consolidates the county’s land-use categories from 23 down to nine and touches ten subject areas: growth management, housing, economic development, environment, transportation, public facilities, public health, hazards and resiliency, and implementation. Staff told commissioners the full draft contains 282 individual action items across all chapters.
Much of the session consisted of commissioners flagging outdated or misleading language — asking staff to change “will develop” to “will consider developing,” or “explore the use of” to “continue to use,” in policies describing things the county already does, such as intergovernmental agreements and farmers market support. Commissioners also directed staff to:
- Add references to the county’s EDU (equivalent dwelling unit) transfer program as a growth-management tool alongside the existing transferable development rights language, after a commissioner said the tool “should be referenced … as a tool that we have in our toolbox.”
- Strike a policy formally protecting the old railroad right-of-way for future light rail use, after commissioners said they didn’t foresee light rail coming to the county and wanted to preserve the county’s control over the corridor rather than commit to a specific future use.
- Remove a policy on maintaining fish and shellfish stocks, which commissioners said falls under state and federal — not county — authority.
- Add language recognizing homeownership as a tool for “intergenerational wealth building,” at one commissioner’s request, with a stated priority on single-family homeownership.
- Add a new goal directing the county to ensure zoning is in place for “new and emerging industries that do not fit” existing categories, citing cannabis and data centers as examples.
- Add policy language supporting passenger ferry and water transit options in the transportation chapter, to match similar language already added to the economic development chapter.
- Soften a proposed audit of public infrastructure in older neighborhoods from a hard commitment to language about exploring or planning the work, after a commissioner called the original wording “aspirational” and “very expensive” given the county’s existing infrastructure backlog.
The Leonardtown tension
The most pointed exchange of the session came when one commissioner raised what they called a structural gap in the plan: the county has little to no authority over growth inside the Town of Leonardtown, which the commissioner said has grown at 16% to 18% annually over the past six years, compared to roughly 1% to 1.5% countywide. Because Leonardtown can annex county land and change its development rights unilaterally — turning a rural preservation parcel with seven development rights into one with hundreds, in the commissioner’s telling — and because the town does not collect the county’s construction excise tax that helps fund school construction, the commissioner argued the resulting growth strains schools and infrastructure the county has limited ability to plan around. Staff acknowledged there is currently no formal coordination between the county’s land use office and Leonardtown’s planning department on such annexations, and no immediate fix was proposed; the commissioner asked staff to bring back options for closer coordination with the town.
Commissioners also questioned staff on several data points, including why a development-capacity table in the plan’s appendix showed a percentage staff could not immediately explain, and what mechanism would trigger a review of the plan if actual population growth outpaces the state’s projections. Staff said the plan is designed as an “accommodation,” not a fixed target, and that the county intends to check in on the plan’s assumptions every three years — sooner than the five-year cycle required by the Maryland Department of Planning.
What’s next
Commissioners voted unanimously to schedule the public hearing for Oct. 6 at 6:30 p.m. The public comment record will remain open through Oct. 13, with commissioners aiming to vote on final adoption around Oct. 20. Staff said a complete, consolidated draft incorporating Tuesday’s changes — along with four earlier rounds of revisions and any changes stemming from the public hearing — would be prepared for that final vote.
