LEONARDTOWN — St. Mary’s County has a new blueprint for the next 25 years. The Commissioners of St. Mary’s County voted 4-1 on Tuesday to adopt the St. Mary’s 2050 Comprehensive Plan, the long-range guide for where the county will grow, what it will preserve and where it will spend.
Before the final vote, the board ruled on the property owners who had asked for their land to be placed in a different land use category. Four requests were denied, including two that would have opened rural land near Hollywood to new homes. Two requests to switch rural land to commercial use were approved. A designation change sought for Piney Point got no action.
For homeowners, the plan does not change anyone’s zoning today. It sets the map and policies the county will use to rewrite its zoning ordinance, a job commissioners said will fall to the board seated after the Nov. 3 election and could take a couple of years.
How the land use requests went
Property owners had until March 31 to ask for a different designation than the draft plan proposed. The county said at the time that a change was generally possible when the requested category matched surrounding properties, and that a land use designation is not the same as zoning. The largest request, from builder Stanley Martin for land next to the Wildwood neighborhood, was withdrawn before Tuesday’s meeting, Commissioner Eric Colvin wrote in his public meeting summary.
The board voted on each remaining request separately:
- Denied: Bumpy Oak Corp. Retirement Plan Trust, rural preservation to residential low density and an expanded Hollywood Town Center boundary.
- Denied: LMZ LLC, Sandy Bottom Road, rural preservation to residential low density and an expanded Hollywood Town Center boundary.
- Denied: Medina Partnership, Oakville area, mixed use low intensity to mixed use moderate intensity.
- Approved: Family Tree Ventures 2 LLC, Notch Road, rural preservation to rural commerce.
- Denied: Sherry G. Lloyd, Point Lookout Road, rural preservation to residential use and an expanded Lexington Park Development District boundary into Park Hall.
- Approved: Tommy’s Truck Service 2 Inc., rural preservation to rural commerce.
Explaining the first denial, one commissioner said the board had heard overwhelmingly from residents that growth is happening too fast. He said the Bumpy Oak trust made a good argument, but adding that number of houses in that area was not what constituents wanted.
On the Tommy’s Truck Service request, a commissioner said he had spoken with the owner and the site will be a repair shop for heavy equipment trucks, not a trucking company. He said a rumor had spread that tractor-trailers and dump trucks would be coming and going constantly.
The Piney Point request was left without a vote. A commissioner said residents’ concerns about growth there were well founded, but he was not sure how a change would affect the Harry Lundeberg School in Piney Point. Comparing the two designations also turned up a possible problem for private homeowners: the alternative category could keep waterfront owners from building piers on their own property. Officials said the issue could come back to the board later.
‘Time to move this plan on’
Some residents had urged the board to leave the plan to the commissioners elected next month. Commissioner Mike Hewitt raised that point before the vote, asking Jessica Andritz, director of the Department of Land Use and Growth Management, whether a new board would be bound by Tuesday’s decision.
Andritz said a future board can amend the plan, though some changes may require another public hearing, and that her department has brought amendments to the board before. Hewitt said staff held 13 to 15 public engagement events, including going into grocery stores to ask shoppers for input. He called the plan a “30,000-foot view,” with the ground-level detail to come in the zoning rewrite.
“I believe it’s time to move this plan on,” Hewitt said. A second commissioner said he agreed exactly, noting the next board can make whatever changes it likes.
Andritz told the board that 18 people spoke at the Oct. 6 public hearing and 22 written comments came in before the comment period closed Oct. 13. She said a technical review committee of more than 26 county leaders and state agency partners recommended the plan for adoption.
The lone no vote came from Commissioner Scott Ostrow, based on the order of commissioner comments later in the meeting. He said he still had concerns about the plan. “I think there’s some ambiguities that we needed to further iron out,” he said, adding that there were too many open questions for him to support it.
How we got here
St. Mary’s 2050, subtitled “Charting Our Tomorrow,” replaces the 2010 Comprehensive Plan. The update launched in fall 2024. The draft released in February cut the county’s land use categories from 23 to nine. Maryland law requires local governments to review their comprehensive plans every 10 years.
The Chronicle examined the plan closely ahead of the vote. Reporting found the plan rests on growth projections the state has since lowered, and that it leaves sewer, school and cost questions unanswered. It also sets no clear staffing benchmark for sheriff’s deputies.
Commissioners told residents earlier this month that data centers are not coming to St. Mary’s, a worry that surfaced repeatedly during the comment period. Separately, the Chronicle looked at how Leonardtown’s growth compares with the rest of the county.
What comes next
The adopted plan now guides the comprehensive zoning ordinance rewrite. That is the step that will decide what can actually be built on individual properties. Hewitt said that work will likely take another couple of years.
Colvin wrote that the next board of commissioners will have “the daunting task” of revising the zoning ordinance. The county keeps plan documents and updates on its St. Mary’s 2050 website. Questions can go to the Department of Land Use and Growth Management at 301-475-4200, ext. 1500.
