Reducing the number of lots a developer can record in a two-year period may not be the answer to the county's growth problem, industry observers say.
The housing construction industry has marched out a small army of developers, real estate salespeople, bankers, owners of businesses that sell housing materials, surveyors and carpenters to fight the idea.
But planning commission members say it was the handiest answer they could propose for a county where the residents have become increasingly vocal about crowded schools, such as Sykesville Middle, where the 1,060 students overflow the school building into 12 portable classrooms.
Commission member Zeno M. Fisher Jr.'s reading of the public mood: "People are not against growth, but they want it controlled and directed."
The commission is scheduled to vote at its meeting tomorrow whether to recommend that county commissioners extend the time period in which a developer can record 50 lots in each subdivision from 12 to 24 months. Recording a lot is the final step before getting a building permit.
Fifty lots in 24 months rather than 12 was "an easy [tool] to move forward with while still looking at other ways to control growth," said Dennis P. Bowman, planning commission chairman.
The commission and county commissioners have been meeting privately to discuss a comprehensive growth management strategy, but he declined to say what techniques they've talked about.
Commissioner interest is new, Mr. Bowman said. "We haven't had that before."
Planning commission members said they wanted to stimulate public discussion when they proposed extending the 50-lot limit to 24 months in December. They succeeded.
At one public hearing on the proposal, people walked by a flatbed trailer with "No 50-25 rule" scrawled on a roof truss.
Inside, speakers predicted that the limit would cause job losses in the construction industry, weaken the local economy, force developers to assume untenable debt loads and undercut the county master plan by channeling development into small subdivisions in agricultural areas rather than into larger subdivisions around the towns.
County planning department files bulge with 201 letters of opposition, nearly all of them form letters distributed by the local chapter of the Home Builders Association of Maryland.
The business owners' form letters say losses of planning, water and sewer connection fees would spread through the economy.
"There go the jobs and the tax base. Then there goes the services the public has been demanding," the letters say.
Form letters for housing industry employees say they, too, are concerned about adequate facilities, but don't want to lose their jobs.
"Our family clips coupons now to save money, but feeding growing kids gets expensive," the letters say.
The files contain eight letters from people who favor extending the 50-lot limit.
Economic issues are paramount for many of the lot limit opponents.
"If you want to discourage developers such as myself from doing business in Carroll County, then this bill will do it," wrote James E. Matthews, developer of Oakmont Green in Hampstead, who said he had $12 million invested in the subdivision and golf course. "Another result of the bill will be the loss of homes such as those in Oakmont Green, i.e. 90 homes averaging $300,000 each and/or $27,000,000 plus the golf course value and revenue."
The lot recording limit has also been criticized as a tool that won't work as intended.
The limit will push subdivisions into the county's rural areas, said Gary R. Dowell, president of Reisterstown Federal Savings & Loan.
"If I live in Carroll County and I own a farm and my children can't build a house in Westminster [because of subdivision limits], I'm going to give them an acre off the farm. It's going to have the opposite effect of what the county wants."
The restriction is so strict that developers may try to circumvent it, a county planning staff assessment said. For example, a developer with a multiparcel deed could skirt the limit by breaking up the land into individual deeds and submitting a subdivision for each parcel.
Developers can do that now, said commission member Robert H. Lennon, author of the existing 50-lots-per-12-months limit. In a multiparcel deed, each parcel is treated separately, he said.
"That has been the case and will remain the case, no matter what lot limits you put on."
Mr. Lennon said a developer would not be able to get around the regulation by buying, for example, a 100-acre parcel and dividing it into four 25-lot subdivisions, not even under four separate corporate names. The 50-lot limit is imposed on the parcel, he said.
Another factor that would blunt the impact of the proposed change is that some towns won't join it. An average 32 percent of new use and occupancy permits have been inside the incorporated towns in the past 11 years.
Westminster's government sees potential "leapfrog" development in the restriction, as developers try to subdivide parcels to continue building.
Westminster controls the pace of growth by limiting building permits to 20 per quarter for each subdivision. In Mount Airy, developers are limited to 40 building permits in a construction year for each subdivision, said B. J. Dixon, a clerk with the town's planning and zoning commission.
Hampstead has adopted the 50-lots-per-12-months limit, which county commissioners approved in November. Manchester is still discussing it.
Commission member Robin B. Frazier said she generally opposes government regulation, but she leans toward voting for the extension to 50 lots in 24 months.
"I believe the larger developers in Carroll County are smart and have diversified," she said, adding that she agrees with other planning commission members that the limit is "not a fix-all."
Mr. Bowman said he expects the commission to compromise on perhaps 75 lots per 24 months. Fifty, he said, "may be too dramatic."