Richard E. Hall, secretary for the Maryland Department of Planning and a member of the Septic Tier Work Group tasked with establishing development parameters for a future Charles County, wrote a letter to the county commissioners March 27 asking that the board reconsider 9,000 acres close to the Mattawoman Creek watershed be placed back under the protection of the county. The acreage in question was placed in Tier II of the county’s Tier Map during commissioner approval of the map, a designation that puts the land in an area planned for public sewer and mapped as locally designated growth areas.
Hall’s letter asked that the commissioners reconsider the designation and return the 9,000 acres to a Tier 4 designation.
Hall’s letter stated, “The map raises concerns about the oversupply of land needed to accommodate future growth in the county. In fact,” Hall explained, “there is almost twice as much land designated for growth than what is needed to satisfy countywide land to 2040.”
Hall noted that 62,032 acres of land has been mapped within Tiers 1 and II on the county’s adopted map. Baltimore City and Washington, D.C. are both comprised of less land and more than four times the population, he argued.
Commissioner Ken Robinson [D-District I] raised a question about the 9,000 acres during the commissioners’ March 11 meeting, asking how would the future development of the acreage effect the Mattawoman Creek Watershed. At that meeting, despite Robinson’s protests, the acreage was removed from Tier IV and added to Tier II in the version of the map adopted by the county at that meeting.
Hall is asking the commissioners to revisit the Tier II designation,
