It's not surprising that changes to the Harford County Charter suggested by a 15-member board appointed to review the county's de facto constitution would contain elements related to residential development policy.
The charter review board formally released its report last week and it includes, among its proposals, a suggestion that the county's land use plan have a housing element and an agriculture element so as to direct residential development into appropriate areas. Also included is a provision that would change the public notice requirements for hearings on proposed government action.
These two matters are related insofar as many aspects of land use and development policy are subject to public hearings of one kind or another. Sometimes the hearings are contentious, often they are little more than formalities that give people the chance to have their voices heard on new developments proposed in places near where they live.
Including charter directives regarding land use for the two key land uses of agriculture and housing — food and shelter, if you will — is an idea that has some merit, given the importance of the two uses. As a practical matter, however, the agricultural revolution that took place several thousand years ago is credited with making possible the rise of human culture, society and government. It's a bit late in the game, from this perspective, to start directing what parts of the county should be in crops. More relevant, however, is the issue of housing policy.
In Harford County, as in much of suburban America, houses have sprouted up on land once used for agriculture. Sometimes this has been by design, with new housing developments being directed to farmland that is close to the amenities needed by a relatively large community. More often, however, residential development has cropped up on former farmland because the property owner, developer and builder stand to make money on the development.
Though not a terrible thing, residential development driven strictly by financial considerations often has not included the basic infrastructure needed to support the communities that take shape in the new neighborhoods. Thus, there is need for stores, schools, churches, roads and the other amenities of modern civilization. The result, too often, has been a development is built on former farmland with the houses marketed as being in a rural setting. As the various amenities are built to serve the new residents, the surrounding area grows in a somewhat haphazard way into a suburban or even urban area.
From this perspective, having a more detailed policy on housing and agriculture written into the county's charter would have been a great thing 40 years ago when the charter was first adopted and residential development had only just begun to change the county from rural to suburban. Possibly, such a set of policies would be good even at this late date, as a substantial amount of agricultural land remains, especially in the northern tier.
It's hard to imagine how any development policy devised and enacted in Harford County would be particularly restrictive, however, given the political dynamics of the county and the related matter of public hearings.
The development industry and its related components contribute heavily to political campaigns in Harford County, and has regardless of which party has dominated. As a result, Democrats and Republicans have been fairly accommodating to the home building industry. This is no easy feat. Many of the people who vote moved into new houses to get away from the crowds closer to Baltimore. A lot of these folks aren't warm to new development, even as they are even colder to the prospect of government regulation.
The result is land use policy that has the patina of a land preservation document even as it is fairly lenient in terms of what kinds of development is allowed. These policies, invariably, are enacted after a round of well-advertised and ill-attended public hearings. Only when a particularly offending development or project is on the agenda — or already under shovel — do public hearings turn crowded, but often by then, it's too late.
Writing land use policy into the charter that seeks to direct housing to appropriate areas while preserving agricultural land will probably serve largely as window dressing, and the more detailed zoning classifications and water and sewer plans will be the documents that really call the dance. Still, it wouldn't hurt to have something on the books that sets a tone for the big picture.