With several of Carroll's prime growth areas coping with water shortages, crowded schools and inadequate roads, many municipal officials are calling for a halt to development until infrastructure catches up to new housing.

The county commissioners have limited development in South Carroll until new water resources are located and are curtailing development in Mount Airy because of crowded classrooms.

The planning department will ask for that cap to be extended to several other areas within the next few weeks, Jeanne S. Joiner, Carroll's director of planning, told municipal officials at a meeting yesterday.

The county commissioners, who did not participate in the discussion, asked towns for help controlling growth and organized the first of what will be quarterly meetings on growth management.

"We want to make sure that infrastructure is there before we proceed with approvals," said Richard A. Owings, chief of the county's Bureau of Development Review. "We recognize we have a problem. This meeting today is to try to get us on track, to get to where the system does work."

Carroll's eight municipalities and county staff agreed to share information and create a database to ensure that infrastructure meets the demands of growth. The database would provide information on proposed road and school construction and frequent updates on development.

"Just having information is only part of the solution," said Matthew Candland, Sykesville town manager. "If we can't do anything with it, what good is it? Our big objective is not a database. It is managed growth."

Now in the fifth year of a six-year adequate-facilities policy, the county has exceeded its self-imposed ceiling of 1,000 new houses annually and has issued building permits for 6,154 houses throughout the area. About 75 percent of those houses have been or will be built in the county, outside incorporated towns. Rescinding permits would leave the county open to lawsuits.

"If the county strongly supports managed growth, why doesn't it decide before properties are subdivided?" asked Ken Decker, Hampstead town manager.

Decker added that Carroll's subdivision laws are favorable to development. "We have to shift the balance," he said. "There are a number of things we can do on the administrative level to slow growth."

Clay Black, county development review coordinator, said, "We should be in a position to know where schools should be 10 years in advance. We should plan and have a school site."

The database could help with that.

"We are looking to keep infrastructure ahead of development, not looking to stop development," Owings said. "Everything we do as a county, [the towns] should know about. Everything you do as towns, we would like to know about."

If the commissioners impose a building limit, it would not be countywide, planners said.

"It is unfair to penalize one area because another area does not have adequate facilities," Owings said.

Union Bridge has had little growth in 50 years. The town of 1,000 is poised to add nearly 700 houses in two subdivisions, development it has planned for years.

Sykesville Councilwoman Jeannie Nichols, who is running for county commissioner, said, "Collecting data is not long-range planning. The county's plan does not work because it is not being implemented the way it is supposed to."