The issue of open space fees remains important as it is likely that the Baltimore County Council will be introducing legislation in the next few weeks to establish an open space fee for development in the Towson area ("Planning Board passes open space issue, fee question to Baltimore Co. Council," April 3). This comes after the planning board decided to not recommend a fee amount but rather give this responsibility to the council.
It was recently announced that Towson will be getting two turf fields installed at Towson High School and Carver High School in the future. ("Towson to get two artificial turf fields, new urban park," April 8). While these are needed fields, the source of the funding of these fields is troubling. Instead of the money coming from open space fees, it will be coming largely from general tax receipts in Baltimore County. Developers are not paying their fair share for open space fees, and our representatives need to hear that they should be.
Caves Valley, the developer of Towson Row, stated that it would contribute $200,000 to building the turf fields, but this is far below what Caves Valley should pay in open space fees for its development of Towson Row. Applying an appropriate open space fee rate to the Towson Row project would mean that Caves Valley should pay $3.4 million in open space fees. I arrived at this open space fee amount by applying a rate that a Baltimore County administrative law judge established in a recent ruling on the 101 York development project. Thus, Caves Valley will be paying less than 6 percent of what an appropriate open space fee should be.
It is clear that the Towson community cares about having adequate fields for our kids as evidenced by the large turnout at the March planning board hearing. I encourage our local leaders to set an appropriate open space fee in line with what the administrative law judge issued in his ruling on the York 101 project. Otherwise, the Towson area will continue to lack adequate fields and open space for our residents.
Scott Heacock, Rodgers Forge