The St. Mary’s County Commissioners on Tuesday held public hearings on two proposed zoning text amendments. Only one person testified

One of the amendments would allow the Department of Land Use and Growth Management (LUGM) to create a new lot around an existing home in situations where two homes (or more) legally sit on one lot. Those situations occurred legally before the zoning ordinance was adopted and in some cases the homes are hundreds of years old.

The other text amendment extends the deadline to complete projects already in the pipeline until May of 2017 and grandfathers projects whose deadlines have expired since the first of the year.

The President of the St. Mary’s County Farm Bureau Jamie Raley testified on the administrative creation of lots around existing homes. Raley argued for his organization that TDRs (Transfer of Development Rights) should be purchased in such situations. He said the program helps preserve open space in the county. “The Farm Bureau is very sensitive to any exemptions to the TDR program,” he said.

Planning staff had argued that the homes already existed so the creation of the lot around them was not adding any additional infrastructure burden. They also recommended the change because County Attorney George Sparling ruled that the previous remedy of going to the Board of Appeals was not really legal according to state law. The new lots are in some cases necessary to obtain bank financing for improvements or to sell the house.

There was considerable discussion about that issue in the planning commission and they delayed a decision while they grappled with it. Raley also testified in favor of requiring TDRs at the planning commission hearing. In the end the planners agreed with staff that the homes already existed and their impact was already accounted for so that TDRs were not necessary.

The planning commission also recommended approval of the extension of time to complete projects already in the pipeline. The amendment was proposed by staff due to the hardships on developers from the recession. Developer John Parlett, in speaking in support of the proposal before the planning commission, said the development community is now just digging itself out from those economic effects of the r