The St. Mary’s County Planning Commission for a second time has delayed a decision on a proposal that would make it easier for some community organizations to expand. The planners are still grappling with how to give relief to some without opening up a flood gate of requests.

The proposal as presented by the Office of Land Use and Growth Management (LUGM) would exempt “public and semi-public” uses from having to buy TDR’s (transfer of development rights) in order to expand up to the maximum allowed in their zoning category. The proposal was prompted by a request by Faith Bible Church in Oakville to expand to meet the requirements of a burgeoning number of parishioners.

LUGM Director Phillip Shire said exempting just churches would create legal problems, so they tried to come up with a broad category yet one that was not too broad. He said in the past ten years only three churches have applied for an expansion that required the purchase of Transfer of Development Rights because they exceeded the allowable floor area ratio (FAR) without purchasing the TDRs. He said other uses within the public and semi-public category, such as schools, usually have enough land to avoid TDR purchase.

At the end of more than an hour of discussion and further public testimony on Monday, the planners decided they needed to schedule a work session sometime after the first of the year to hammer out the concerns with the current proposal. That proposal was developed by LUGM after the county commissioners expressed concern with a previous proposal that exempted non-profits. The commissioners felt that was too broad so LUGN staff came up with the public and semi-public exemption, which are terms used by the existing ordinance to cover 16 categories of uses, including churches, schools, libraries and medical facilities.

Commission member Meryl Evans said he was more comfortable with the term “non-commercial” rather than “public or semi-public.” He said there are currently 517 non-profit organizations (501-c-3s) in the county that generate $222 million in revenue every year and have $301 million in assets. “Unless you can make a profit you are not going to be around very long,” he said. It was Evan