Charles County’s Planning Commission held open a proposed overhaul of the county’s forest conservation ordinance Monday night, giving developers and environmental advocates until Oct. 22 to weigh in before commissioners take it up again.
The rewrite is the county’s first since 2004 and is required under state legislation — House Bill 723 and Senate Bill 526 — that ordered every Maryland jurisdiction to update its forest conservation rules by July 1, 2026. County planning staff told commissioners the draft folds in two rounds of state changes, one that took effect in 2024 and a second that kicked in this July, while also cleaning up language they said had grown confusing over two decades.
Among the changes: the county’s old conservation threshold, which set different tree-replacement expectations for commercial versus residential projects, is gone. The new default is a flat one-to-one ratio — one acre planted for every acre cleared — though afforestation thresholds requiring a minimum percentage of on-site forest still apply. Developers can meet up to half their mitigation requirement by buying credits from an off-site conservation bank, a share that could rise to 60% pending a separate public comment process already underway with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.
The draft also expands what counts as “priority forest” requiring extra protection and public notice before it can be cleared — adding forest-interior-dwelling species habitat, tier two and three watersheds, and urban forests to a list that already included wetlands, stream buffers and steep slopes. Planner Kyle Reden told commissioners that, layering those categories together, “much of Charles County’s forests are considered priority.”
Two industry representatives from the Maryland Building Industry Association’s Environmental Committee — Rob Swam and Steve Allison, both with Rogers Consulting — thanked staff for the multi-year drafting process but pushed back on specifics. Both noted the county has no established tree-planting banks, meaning developers who can’t meet requirements on-site are left buying conservation credits or paying into the county’s fee-in-lieu program — a fee that hasn’t been updated in more than 20 years and, under the draft, would move into the county’s regularly revised fee schedule rather than the ordinance itself. Allison argued the county’s proposed two-to-one replacement ratio for forest cleared below the afforestation threshold goes beyond what the state requires, and urged commissioners to hold off on exceeding state minimums until DNR completes an annual review that will establish the county’s baseline forest acreage — a number officials acknowledged they don’t yet have.
Commissioner Jeffrey Bossert pressed staff on that missing baseline, noting the county can’t measure progress toward “no net loss” of forest cover without knowing where it stands today. Staff said DNR is still compiling the figure, likely from aerial photography, and will notify the county if it falls short over two consecutive two-year review cycles, triggering a 90-day window to fix the shortfall.
The debate comes as the county has ramped up other conservation spending recently, including securing $3.2 million in state grant funding for conservation easements last year.
After closing the public hearing, the commission voted to move into a work session, then agreed to hold the record open for 30 days — through Oct. 22 at 4:30 p.m. — to weigh the written and verbal comments before revisiting the ordinance at a future meeting.
