One date on a calendar may decide whether a 183-lot subdivision gets to keep its approval. On Oct. 5, the Charles County Planning Commission closed a work session on Subdivision Regulations Amendment SRA 26-01 and sent the revised text back for a second public hearing, which staff say they are aiming to hold at the commission’s Nov. 2 meeting.
What the amendment does
The amendment concerns what Charles County calls preliminary subdivision plan completion conditions. Under county code, a preliminary plan is valid for four years from Planning Commission approval and can be extended up to twice, in four-year increments, for a maximum of eight years; extensions past eight years require a conformity review. A plan can avoid extensions altogether if it has started construction, completed substantial physical improvements beyond excavation, grading and filling, and recorded at least 25% of its lots. Qualifying improvements include roads, stormwater facilities or water and sewer facilities covering at least 25% of the project or a full phase.
Staff originally recommended denial of the amendment. After public testimony, commissioners saw merit in studying it and asked staff to work with the applicant. The compromise keeps the existing 25%-and-25% path and adds two ways to vest a plan: completing at least 50% of the physical improvements on its own, or recording at least 50% of the lots on its own. Planning Director Charles Rice said the applicant agreed to the added language.
The date that decides it
While drafting, staff found that an applicability section had dropped out between versions, even though the applicant’s letters showed it was intended: the change would apply to projects with an approved preliminary plan on Jan. 1, 2026. Staff recommended restoring it. Because the revisions are substantial and raise questions about when the change takes effect, staff recommended a second public hearing, and members approved that without objection.
Steve Scott, the attorney for the applicant, said the Jan. 1 date was chosen as a simple transition, or grandfathering, point and that the amendment was meant to benefit Falcon Ridge. “If the effectiveness of this change is the date that it’s adopted, it doesn’t help that project,” Scott said; a Jan. 1 date would. Scott said his research found two projects the date would cover, Falcon Ridge and Brookwood, though he said Brookwood is not his client and he got that information from a local civil engineer. Rice said all projects in effect on that date would benefit from the two new options going forward, and that Brookwood had already benefited from an earlier change to grandfathering rules. Another developer’s representative said Potomac Chase received a § 104 extension from the commission and would be fine under it.
Measuring completion
Scott said recording lots is straightforward, but measuring physical completion is harder, combining improvements and financial investment, typically anchored to the county’s bonding figures. He said there is no codified method and staff analyze it case by case. Asked how other counties compare, he said regulations in Prince George’s, St. Mary’s, Calvert and Anne Arundel counties vary too widely for a clean comparison.
Falcon Ridge’s separate fight
The Planning Commission’s decision on Falcon Ridge is under appeal. At the same meeting, Rice answered a resident’s earlier question: while that appeal is pending, the developer cannot record 25% of its lots or do substantial improvements, because the county cannot issue approvals for those steps even as it continues reviewing parts of the plan. That timing is why the amendment’s effective date matters to the project, and the commission’s final vote on SRA 26-01 would still need a second hearing and, as a subdivision regulation change, further county approval steps.
