Several environmental groups presented a new study yesterday on the failures of Maryland's Critical Area law and pledged support for the O'Malley administration's efforts to strengthen it.
The report, written by Environment Maryland, includes seven examples of high-profile violations of either the letter or the spirit of the 1984 law, which was designed to protect Maryland's shoreline from development. Environmentalists have long complained that waterfront property owners often violate the law and in other cases receive permission to do so from local governments.
"This is the whole story, told plainly. It's not just violations, but the things that are allowed by the law," said Brad Heavner, state director of Environment Maryland. "We're trying to demonstrate that it's very widespread."
Some of the report's examples have become famous, including the Wicomico County homeowner who built a hunting lodge without permits and is now required to tear it down, and the Anne Arundel County builder who constructed a home on a Magothy River island without a permit. But several cases are not as well known.
They include the Belvoir Farms development in Crownsville, where Anne Arundel County granted the developer variances to build a pier much larger than the law allowed; the case of Richard Roeser, who built a home in the no-development buffer zone despite the county's objections; The Villages at Swan Point, a Charles County development that was approved even though it would encroach on the buffer and destroy bird-nesting habitat, and GlenRiddle in Berlin, former training grounds of the horse Man O' War, where the developer also got permission to build in the buffer.
Environment Maryland presented the report at a news conference near the GlenRiddle development, along with the Assateague Coastal Trust and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. The property is near Isle of Wight Bay.
This month, the O'Malley administration introduced legislation to strengthen the law, expanding the shoreline buffer from 100 feet to 300 feet and giving the state authority to overrule exemptions by local governments. Heavner commended the administration for taking on the effort.
"There is more that needs to be done. Even the administration recognizes that," he said. "The bill this year is step one."
rona.kobell@baltsun.com