Planners stuck in Lexington Park’s ‘core’

The St. Mary’s County Planning Commission is bogged down on a key issue of the proposed Lexington Park Master Plan. They are having a difficult time addressing the plan’s call for the creation of a new retail ‘core.’ There seem to be as many ideas as there are members about if that is a viable idea and if so where it should be.

Since a public hearing in early September the commission has met almost every week. Yet they are still stuck in the plan’s first chapter. One of the delays was waiting to see what the Navy had to say about some of their key concerns. Patuxent River Naval Air Station Commanding Officer Capt. Ben Shevchuk met with them on December 16 and answering dozens of their questions.

The historic “downtown” of Lexington Park lies outside Gate Two, along Three Notch and Great Mills roads. Although its hours have been cut in deference to the newer Gate 1, Shevchuk said Gate Two would continue to play an important role and would not be shut down.

The county was one of the country’s early adopters of the Navy’s Air Installation Compatible Use Zone (AICUZ) initiative to protect bases from outside-the-base encroachment. The zones are designed to protect the Navy from noise complaints and to protect the community from the possibility of aircraft crashes. Both are designed to protect the Navy’s mission at Pax River.

The AICUZ zones have been incorporated into the zoning ordinance as an overlay of the underlying zoning categories for properties. The land just outside Gate Two, on both sides of Great Mills Road, has an AICUZ (APZ) overlay on a Downtown Mixed Use Zone (DMX) that elsewhere allows for high density development not compatible with the AICUZ concept, which seeks to limits densities of people in buildings.

The plan as presented at the September public hearing envisioned creation of a new retail core across from Nicolet Park on the property that is currently a massive, largely unused parking lot behind Millison Plaza. Envisioned, according to the plan, is “intensive mid-rise, mixed use development that offers regional level retail uses like a department store, restaurant, or a movie theater, and up to 100 residential units.”

The good news/bad news of that is that it would be strictly allowed by Navy guidelines, in that the land is just outside the AICUZ APZ-2 zone, the least-restrictive of the two zones. But does the Navy really want it? One of the questions that planners wanted to know from Shevchuk was whether the Navy preferred a buffer beyond that APZ-2 zone.

Shevchuk said at the December 16 meeting, “Areas beyond should be viewed as transitional.” He said the testing requirements into the future will remain pretty much static and the noise from the Joint Strike Fighter and other new platforms has been factored into the AICUZ. Of the buffer, he said, “I would support that if it represents assurance for future growth (on base) and a high regard for public safety.”

The county’s economic engine runs on the base, a fact that is universally accepted in the community and a fact that was recognized at the most recent planning commission meeting on January 27. There is a strong desire to do what the Navy wants. But there is also concern about taking away property rights.

Planning Commission member Merl Evans said of the ‘core’ issue: “My two cents is that the county/state/Navy should combine sources and buy out the land in the AICUZ and preserve all the land in the AICUZ.” He said existing properties should be relocated elsewhere in Lexington Park.