The Maryland Court of Appeals' decision this week to allow construction of a 4,300-home development in a remote area of Western Maryland dealt a dangerous blow to citizens' efforts to manage growth by giving local officials free reign to ignore guidelines and master plans for development in their areas.
The case involving the Terrapin Run development in Allegany County offers frightening evidence of the need for new legislation that would give real muscle to efforts to control growth.
State officials recognize that need, and a task force is at work on a study of current land-use practices across Maryland. The group also has been asked to recommend possible statewide development, transportation and housing plans and describe how they could guide local efforts. The task force's report, expected in December, could provide the basis for stronger rules in this area.
The current planning process is clearly broken. For all of the effort that citizens and planners put into comprehensive plans for their communities, local officials can and do cast their work aside when an attractive development deal is offered. Four times in recent years, Maryland appeals courts have upheld the rights of local officials to ignore citizen-framed master plans.
The conflict is likely to intensify because demographers predict that this small state will add 1.25 million residents over the next 25 years, and housing them without significant damage to the environment will be a daunting challenge. Local governments already are struggling with an array of development problems - congested roads, failing water and sewage systems, a continuing loss of green space and an increasingly polluted Chesapeake Bay.
The answer is to aggressively pursue a Smart Growth strategy - focusing development in ways that will revitalize older urban areas, provide easy access to transportation and make best use of existing infrastructure.
At the same time, the planning effort should be rethought to ensure a more careful assessment of the issues and to forge a real partnership between local and state officials that would lead to better implementation of comprehensive plans. There also should be sharp limits on zoning exceptions.
Without such reforms, uncontrolled development will degrade the quality of life in Maryland.