Frederick City and County News of Interest
CRG is a grassroots coalition of Frederick residents who prioritize responsible growth, expanding infrastructure, and a functional natural environment. We advocate for development that accommodates projected population increases while fostering a strong and diverse community fabric and increasing economic opportunities. Our comprehensive approach emphasizes public safety, traffic mitigation, increasing school capacity, and housing for all members of our community.
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To our readers:
To
find more information on the topics discussed in the newsletter, and to
learn how to reach out to decision makers on issues to express your
thoughts, look for the subheading "WHAT YOU CAN DO" for useful links or suggestions throughout this newsletter.
The newsletter is organized with dynamic links so you can click the topics listed here, to connect to the specific topics below:
Schools
Moderately Priced Dwelling Units (MPDUs)
Brick Works
City Public Safety
City Charter Review
South Frederick Corridor
Data Centers
Upcoming Events
Schools
There
are multiple good news items regarding the City and County FINALLY
beginning to address insufficient schools for our children.
First, City Aldermen and County Council members held a
joint legislative session on Sept. 13, hopefully opening continuing
dialog on funding new school construction. Currently the City allows new
development construction (6,400 proposed units currently, Frederick News Post 9/23/23) with no obligation to provide land for schools and/or actual school construction, and only collection of minimal fees as school impact or mitigation fees.
There is no mandated notification procedure by the City to the Frederick
County Public School (FCPS) system on proposed new developments,
severely limiting FCPS staff from engaging a developer on land or actual
school construction. This lack of communication results in large areas
with unexpected increases in numbers of students and no schools for
their education. Aldermen and Council members agreed that this is a
major issue which requires continuing collaboration to resolve in future
quarterly meetings.
Second, as detailed in CRG's September newsletter, City
Aldermen severely criticized the lack of a City commitment to
appropriate previously collected fees from developers for land purchase,
school construction, or other practical means to increase schools
within the City. This led to the mayor committing to further exploration
of this issue in his current term.
Third, County Councilman Steve McKay has proposed a
moratorium on residential construction if school capacity is exceeded
within the County. He is hopeful that the City will similarly respond
revising the City’s current policy (see first paragraph above) of
permitted residential development regardless of inadequate school
capacity. McKay’s County ordinance remains a work-in-progress with only a
partial draft now available for staff review but this is a huge step
forward, i.e., recognition that adding new residential units and
accompanying children must include adequate educational facilities or
the construction should be delayed until the capacity is provided.
Fortunately, he has exempted construction of affordable housing and
senior facilities from the moratorium.
CRG eagerly awaits outcomes from these initial steps to ensure that
responsible growth must include adequate educational opportunities for
all new resident families. Residents will need to stand up to support
both City and County initiatives for new schools for our rapidly
expanding City and County population.
Moderately Priced Dwelling Units (MPDUs)
The current City ordinance (https://www.cityoffrederickmd.gov/documentcenter/view/11957)
allows developers to opt out of building MPDUs via payment of a fee per
unit not built (fee in-lieu). At this time, the MPDU fund is
approximately $6 million and is expected to increase to $16 million in a
few years. Following severe criticism from several City Aldermen in a
recent legislative session for City inaction on use of these collected
funds, the mayor has established a timetable for allocating the
collected funds for several social programs (e.g., homeless support,
rent assistance) but most important resources for actual construction of
affordable/workforce housing. The latter can be ‘gap’ funding to help
developers meet expenses between land purchase and permitting and
initiation of construction as well as low interest loans and possible
public–private partnerships.
In a second initiative, the City is considering adopting the new County
MPDU fee in-lieu program (FIL, $2/square foot, its affordability gap
calculation, local Annual Median Income adjustment) as an alternative to
the minimal FIL program it now employs ($16,000/unit) to increase the
revenues from developers who decline to build MPDUs (why not pay $16,000
instead of actually building units that might cost more than $50,000 to
build?). These higher fees might entice developers to actually build
the units now, to begin to fill the estimated gap of 400 units needed
each year.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
Again, CRG strongly supports these steps forward and encourages the
community to speak out in favor of providing housing for those working
2–3 jobs, our service staffs, teachers, seniors, firemen, police, and
first-time homeowners or renters. Our City should be for everyone, not
just those who can afford housing now exceeding $400,000 in base prices.
Your voices or written comments are needed!
Contact your City electeds here: https://www.cityoffrederickmd.gov/FormCenter/Ask-a-Question-5-5/Ask-Your-Aldermen-37-37
Brick Works
In
a 4 hour 59 minute Planning Commission hearing on Sept. 11, the
Greenberg Gibbons (GG) proposed development (1260 residential units,
130,000 square feet of commercial development, senior center, community
center) at South and East Street was discussed. Following a 35–40 min
planning staff presentation on the project, GG representatives addressed
the City’s Planning Commission (PC) on a slightly revised design for
the project, with their main driver that a major high-end grocery
corporation is interested in construction of a store on the site. GG
believes they can easily mitigate the soil contamination at the site
(approximately $4M), thereby eliminating resident concerns on future
exposures of new residents, seniors, and shoppers. They also proposed
that they would meet the City-required parkland and open space by
constructing a “passive” (i.e., no playgrounds or ballfields, just
walking paths and benches) park in a 7-acre linear lot on the west side
of East Street.
GG continues to seek approximately 10–11 modifications to the City’s
Land Management Code (LMC) on internal street designs (some public, many
private) and setbacks, low interconnectivity with streets likely in
future developments in adjacent current industrial lots, absence of
building designs along East Street that would complement current
multi-use architecture of the historic downtown, and no MPDU or school
acreage or construction to be provided. PC members challenged multiple
aspects of the GG plans including the apparent GG argument that the
high-end grocery warrants acceptance of the Master Plan as influenced by
the grocery chain’s demands rather than the character and needs of
Frederick residents. During the public comment portion of the hearing,
14 of the 15 public comments spoke on interest in a project but not the proposed
design. An additional 14 individuals who had signed up to speak left
before the public comment period which occurred 3 hours and 49 minutes
into the meeting. Staff, developer, and Commission member comments
totaled approximately 77% of the hearing while public comments consumed
approximately 23%. Questions have been raised about the purpose of a
public hearing if the “public” who were well-represented at the hearing
had only a ¼ of the allotted time to be “heard”.
CRG’s representative suggested that the PC members stand firm on
requiring that the corporation meet the existing LMC requirements by
denying developer-proposed modifications that would allow the proposed
elevated residential and commercial construction. Addressing GG
representatives directly, CRG asserted that community buy-in of GG
development at the site would be viewed much more favorably if this
gateway to the City included multi-use residential construction on both
sides of East Street, which would, in turn, free up space within the 64
acre parcel for an urban school and parkland, with MPDUs included in the
housing mix.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
The next hearing is planned for Oct. 17 at 6 PM and EVERYONE
interested in what will define the future of the City’s East Street
Corridor architecture and its schools, parkland/open space, and
affordable housing should attend and weigh in! The site should be
developed but in line with the City’s valued character and to meet its
expanding school and affordable housing needs.
City Public Safety
CRG
has written often over the past year about the lack of BYOB regulation
that has contributed to the mayhem on Market Street, which resulted in
two fatalities and several assaults since July 2022. It is important to
note that the most recent closing of Exhale Hookah Bar should go a long
way to temporarily lowering the late-night risks to the residents who
live in or frequent the Downtown area, especially on weekends.
We take no solace in the unfortunate events that contributed to the
closing of this establishment and want to thank all who made
considerable efforts to address this issue. State Senator Karen Lewis
Young and State Delegate Kris Fair worked diligently to try to advance
legislation that could have helped significantly, had it been supported
by the City. In addition, the Frederick Police Department took all
possible steps to have a positive impact despite having limited tools to
sustain a safe environment.
Yet it is critical to stress the importance of legislative solutions to
help prevent this type of mayhem from reoccurring. Our elected City
officials can't continue to close their eyes and hope the problem goes
away (or doesn't come back)! The saying “an ounce of prevention is worth
a pound of cure" is fitting, and we will continue to call on the people
whose primary responsibility is the protection of the City’s residents
to prioritize fair and effective BYOB regulations and follow through
with enforcement.
City Charter Review
The
City Charter Review Committee has begun initial drafting of
recommendations for charter revisions that will be submitted to the
Board of Aldermen and Mayor in the next month. Several recommendations
were voted on and accepted by members with a likely completion of the
recommendation language and votes at the next meeting, Oct. 5 at City
Hall at 1 PM. The draft report/recommendations will be distributed to
City officials and the public for comment and possible revision. As
recommendations, all, some, or none of the proposed changes will
necessarily be adopted.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
Read and comment on the City Charter Review Committee's recommendations
when they're published. Here is the link to the Committee's webpage: https://www.cityoffrederickmd.gov/1626/Ad-Hoc-Charter-Review-Committee. Your comments can be emailed to: charterreview@cityoffrederickmd.gov
South Frederick Corridor
On
Sept. 20, County Planning staff made another presentation to the County
Planning Commission re: the South Frederick Corridor small area plan.
The focus was the proposed gridded street network that would
characterize the area, providing transportation connectivity throughout.
Unfortunately, the illustrative network would bisect some existing
properties. PC members and several legal representatives from a suite of
parcels in the corridor discussed ‘flexibility’ in the network to
minimize private property impacts. Planning staff indicated portions of
some of the network have been and could be redrawn but they could not
acquiesce to every request if desired connectivity within the area was
jeopardized or the desired future multi-modal transportation and,
therefore, overall approach to the corridor would be lost (the Euclidean
zoning status quo would be maintained, with no change in future urbanization patterns of a walkable, tree-lined, multi-use urban environment).
Data Centers
In
August, the state’s Public Service Commission (PSC) rejected the first
data center corporation’s initial plan for use of diesel-powered
generators as a backup energy supply for its proposed centers at the
Quantum Loophole Eastalco site north of Adamstown. Since then, the PSC
has been besieged by multiple elected officials, Chambers of Commerce
leaders, and industry representatives to reverse that decision and allow
use of the diesel generators and Aligned Data Centers' plans for their
site. This pressure ignores the cumulative impact of this type of
generator across the entire 2,100 acres of the Eastalco site: if the PSC
reverses its position, it sets a precedent for similar decisions on all
future applications thereby circumventing the state’s own commitment to
reducing greenhouse gas emissions — hypocrisy in the extreme.
Justification for the reversal by the multiple challengers focuses on
the potential revenue loss that is to be garnered from the data centers
in the coming decades if we make corporations reconsider center
construction and operations in the County, hardly likely with the
purchase of land in the area approximating $1 million per acre.
The revenue claim referenced by the Aligned supporters should be
addressed by the County Executive, providing a detailed breakdown of
revenues to be collected and her plans for use of those funds through
time. Certainly, school construction is a high priority (see above) but
is that the primary use of data center revenues?
CRG and several other organizations (Sugarloaf Alliance, Fellowship of
Scientists and Engineers, Envision Frederick County, Clean Water Action)
strongly oppose any PSC reversal and are encouraging local officials to
provide similar support for the PSC in its new deliberations in
Aligned’s request for a rehearing.
Upcoming Events
City Charter Review Committee Meeting, Oct. 5, 1 PM, City Hall.
County Planning Commission Meeting, Oct. 11, Winchester Hall, 9:30 AM: Sugarloaf, South Frederick Corridor, Child Care Zoning, and 4 Development Review plans.
City Planning Commission Hearing, Oct. 17, 6 PM, City Hall: Brick Works.
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See the CRG blog at: responsiblegrowthfrederick.com
Contributors: P. Gallagher, S. Jakubczyk, M. Rosensweig, K. Sellner
Many
Frederick residents want to know — but cannot find — information about
how to participate in discussions of important local issues. The City
and County generally hold meetings from 3–10 p.m., making it impossible
for most of us to attend meetings or weigh in on issues of interest. Our
mission with this monthly newsletter is to highlight City and County
activities so you can learn more and, with your limited time, weigh in
on areas of growth and development, City and County policies, and other
local activities. Occasionally, opinions or longer stories will be
offered by knowledgeable experts/readers. We welcome suggestions for
articles focused on specific topics. Contact Kevin Sellner (kgsellner@gmail.com), Marge Rosensweig (marjorierosensweig@gmail.com), or Steve Jakubczyk (jakubczyksteven@gmail.com) for consideration of your issue.
