Smart Growth

Delegates evaluate Smart Growth By LAURA ERNDE / Staff Writer ANNAPOLIS - Maryland's anti-sprawl Smart Growth policy has been in place for nearly four years, but local officials say it has been difficult to determine its effect in Washington County. The biggest impact has been in downtown Hagerstown, where the state built a new District Court building and is about to renovate another building for a satellite campus of the University System of Maryland. The location of both projects resulted largely from the Smart Growth policy.

Smart growth touted at forum By BOB PARTLOW / Staff Writer, Martinsburg MARTINSBURG, W.Va. - People in communities can work together to achieve "smart growth" instead of passively letting sprawl eat up their land and increase their government budgets, Steve Lerner, an author who has studied growth-related issues, said Monday at a forum on growth. continued Lerner, who works in Washington, D.C., for the Commonwealth Sustainable Futures Project, said smart growth is putting development where systems such as sewer, water and roads already exist to handle it. Providing areas of open space while growth is occurring is another way in which growth can be handled wisely, as is clustering development around undeveloped land, he said.

In early 2001, as the stock market bubble was collapsing and companies such as Pets.com, e-Toys and Webvan were fading into oblivion, a money management firm launched an ad campaign about "the new New Economy. " In the new New Economy, the ads said, investors won't be charmed by 20-somethings on scooters who put made-up words in front of ".com. " Investors won't smile favorably on proposals that lack well-developed business plans. In the new New Economy, investors will make decisions based on serious analysis of market conditions and the likelihood of success.

'Smart Growth' good policy, but will next gov think so? Even if Maryland's next governor is more of a road-builder than Parris Glendening, we still don't expect his successor to reject the idea known as "Smart Growth. " It may be called something else, but there are too many reasons to like it to dump it after only four years in effect. Smart Growth in effects restricts growth to those areas where the infrastructure - water, sewer and roads - are already in place to handle it. Instead of development further from the urban centers, Smart Growth trims expenses by using what's already there.

Here's a dilemma if you're the Washington County School Board administration: Do you stay in hideously cramped and outdated and ugly quarters on Commonwealth Avenue in offices that have been patched together like Legos in the hands of Calvin and Hobbes where the roof leaks, the floor gives beneath your feet and you're ashamed to bring even the most low-level job prospect? Or do you move to downtown Hagerstown? Hold on, we're thinking. To move downtown, immediately you have to figure they better offer some plush digs with all kinds of amenities including - oh, I don't know, maybe a whirlpool.

Realtors group outlines plan for city The Pen-Mar Regional Association of REALTORS Inc. shared its plans for strengthening and revitalizing Hagerstown at the City Council meeting Tuesday. The city's revitalization is the association's public policy focus for 2007, officials said. One need the association has identified is that Realtors should be educated about the benefits of city living, said Jeff Matthews, association president. Housing within the city preserves open space and takes advantage of existing infrastructure, he said.

What does Maryland Gov. Parris Glendening's "smart growth" plan mean for Washington County? It's probably too early to tell now, but if local officials can quickly line up some quality projects, they might be able to define the bill's role in development across the state. The "smart growth" bill was Glendening's attempt to deal with what he's come to believe is unaffordable sprawl development. His predecessor, Gov. William D. Schaefer, tried to do much the same thing with the 2020 growth plan, but lawmakers rejected its attempt to give the state planners veto power over all local land-use decisions.

New courthouse seen as 'smart' By LAURA ERNDE / Staff Writer photo: RICHARD T. MEAGHER / staff photographer As Gov. Parris Glendening officially dedicated the J. Louis Boublitz District Court Building in downtown Hagerstown Tuesday, he offered a glimpse of the city's future. continued Glendening said he wants the state to help pay for improvements such as lighting and sidewalks in downtown Hagerstown and in other urban centers across Maryland.

A downtown location for the University System of Maryland Hagerstown Center is still under consideration, despite recommendations to the contrary by local and university officials. [cont. from front page ] "It isn't as cut and dried as some people think," said Ronald N. Young, deputy director of the Maryland Office of Planning. The news was an aside to Thursday's groundbreaking ceremony for the new Washington County District Court building. Speaking under a tent off West Antietam Street, Gov. Parris Glendening praised the future site of the District Court as a perfect example of his Smart Growth initiative, which seeks to direct public investment toward revitalizing downtown areas.

Nice little bombshell Gov. Parris "In the Springtime" Glendening dropped on the Prominent Classes in Hagerstown last week. The governor mentioned in passing that the possibility of placing the University of Maryland branch campus in the downtown Baldwin House still appeals to him, despite the fact that local leaders want the classrooms to be built at Allegheny Energy's Friendship Technology Park off I-70. The Prominent Classes are justifiably stressed by this turn of events.

Editor's note: This is another in a series of Eastern Panhandle candidate previews that The Herald-Mail will be running over the next several months. The announcements also will be posted on our website, www.herald-mail.com , through the West Virginia primary on May 8. To submit announcements, email them and a color photo (preferably a jpeg) to billk@herald-mail.com or matthew.umstead@herald-mail.com . Any questions? Call 301-791-7281. Incumbent Jefferson County Commission member Frances Morgan, a Democrat, has filed for a second four-year term on the county board.

COLLEGE PARK, Md. (AP) -- A study concludes that Maryland's smart-growth law isn't doing much to curb suburban sprawl. The study by University of Maryland scholars said the 12-year-old law is ineffective because it can't force builders to comply. The study also said Maryland hasn't given developers enough incentive to launch projects in older, urban neighborhoods. Former Gov. Parris Glendening pushed the smart-growth law through the General Assembly in 1997 and has become a national advocate for the policy.

CHAMBERSBURG, Pa. -- As a call center with a major government contract marked its grand opening Thursday, the celebration seemed to be as much about its future growth and employment levels as accomplishments to date. Catapult Technology moved 45 employees from Letterkenny Army Depot to the North Pointe Business Center a month ago. The information technology service provider is 2 1/2 years into a $200 million contract with the General Services Administration. The call center, which is actively seeking new contracts and work, can expand up to four times in the new facility, operations manager Scott Gallagher said.

"To the Hagerstown caller who said they were voting for Obama because this country needs change and they like what Obama has in his head and in his heart, I ask, how in the world do you think you know what is in Obama's head or heart? If you think you do, you are living in the land of Oz. This country needs change, all right, but not what Obama will bring. " - Hagerstown "Don't let the media make your decision. This election campaign has been agonizingly too long, 24/7.

Say what you want about $4-a-gallon gasoline, but there's one thing that it has accomplished. It has vindicated the controversial rural rezoning plan passed in 2005. The plan essentially limited the number of lots that could be developed, especially in agricultural areas, where the old rule was one house per acre. If the Washington County Commissioners' vote hadn't reduced property values, then $4-a-gallon gasoline surely would have. Judging by the number of houses sitting unsold, being offered as rentals or going to auction, it already has. The difference is that all the houses that might have been built in rural areas between then and now weren't built.

HAGERSTOWN - Hagerstown is a successful national model of "smart growth" and must continue to focus on renovating and filling vacant buildings, former Maryland Gov. Parris Glendening said Tuesday after a tour of the downtown University System of Maryland at Hagerstown. The University System is housed in what once was the Baldwin House, a historic hotel on Washington Street. "We're here because you saw the light," JoEllen Barnhart, the University System's associate executive director told Glendening as she was introduced to the former governor.

MARTINSBURG, W.Va. - Former Maryland Gov. Parris Glendening is scheduled to be the keynote speaker at a Smart Growth conference to be hosted by the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) in October. The free conference will be Oct. 17 at the Holiday Inn in Martinsburg City planners and community leaders will learn about the principles of Smart Growth, which include development strategies such as using compact building design, collaborating with stakeholders, mixing land uses, and preserving open spaces, farmland and critical environmental areas.

Realtors group outlines plan for city The Pen-Mar Regional Association of REALTORS Inc. shared its plans for strengthening and revitalizing Hagerstown at the City Council meeting Tuesday. The city's revitalization is the association's public policy focus for 2007, officials said. One need the association has identified is that Realtors should be educated about the benefits of city living, said Jeff Matthews, association president. Housing within the city preserves open space and takes advantage of existing infrastructure, he said.

Talk to public officials who have been through the electoral process and they'll tell you that candidates get questionnaires from every interest group that's out there. And each contains questions on multiple issues, too many for most people to keep straight. With that in mind, on Wednesday I asked members of The Herald-Mail's Editorial Advisory Committee to pick the top five issues facing Washington County in this election year. We spent more than an hour hashing things out. Here is what they came up with: Growth, as in "smart growth" that keeps development from overburdening existing taxpayers with the cost of providing services to new residents and their children.

To the editor: In the past four years, the Washington County Commissioners have passed and implemented a new comprehensive development plan and a far-reaching rural rezoning amendment. Proponents of the legislation were persistently unyielding and referred to its passage as "smart growth. " The controversy that surrounded the legislation was often philosophical in nature and involved two basic and conflicting views: 1. Individual property rights should be respected and protected by government.