Comprehensive Plan Growth Meeting March 18, 2008 

The first Easton Comp Plan meeting in this cycle, which focused on growth issues, was held on March 18. It began with Lynn Thomas working from power point slides and based on the premise that growth in Easton will continue at the historical rate of 3% since 1930. Included below are comments from the audience and others in attendance. (Fact: in the last 5-8 years the growth rate has spiked up dramatically, although a cap on sewage permits and the slump in the real estate market have decreased the rate over the last two years. Thus a 3% growth rate is too low to be accurate.) Audience comments are below. Starred are the most important items, some true and some that should be challenged.

*Tom Hamilton (town planning officer): 3% growth rate gets to be a bigger actual number each year.

John Ford (town council president): the market is the greatest force on the rate of growth, and it all balances out.

Hamilton: the current goal in development is to have a variety of houses – single dwellings, town houses, etc. Lots that are 10,000 square feet are the current subdivision standard. The old downtown lot sizes accommodate about 6 dewlling units (du) per acre. The Easton Club averages about 8-12 du per acre.

Bob Raugh (Easton Club developer): not all acreage is developable.

Hamilton: agreed, and added that environmental factors are often the cause.

*Lynn Thomas (long range planner): there is a rule of thumb that there should be two times the projected need for land in reserve for the above reason and also because some land owners in town do not want to develop. Challenge?

*Thomas: you also need land for commercial to keep pace with the residential growth.

*Question to answer: how much for a town the size of Easton?

*Thomas: you also need land for industrial. Some of our industrially zoned land has been used for commercial instead.

*Fact: industrial pays higher taxes and thus is better for the town than commercial. Also, commercial pays higher taxes than residential. Residential costs the town money because for every dollar brought in in taxes it costs $1.24 in services.

*Thomas: long discussion of density based on the land needed to accommodate 900 du needed for 3% growth rate

2 du per acre 450 acres

3.5 257

5 180

6.6 138

double these figures since you should have 2x the amount of land that you need

Susan Clifford (citizen): What was the land use goal in the last comp plan?

*Thomas: there was no vision statement for the whole plan in 2002, but there might be in this one.

*Hamilton: the goal is no more 2 du per acre housing, rather the density should be like old Easton. If you grow out to the greenbelt you either stop or change the greenbelt.

John Atwood (Planning and Zoning Commission chairman): you can’t quantify a vision. The question is: are you going to have artificial controls or let the market control.

FACT: a vision can be quantified in the zoning ordinance

Gene (didn’t get last name, citizen and chairman of a church building committee): his church needs 4-5 acres to build a church, which they cannot find in town. Subdivisions should be required to set aside land for uses such as churches.

Chris Kehoe (town attorney): land is more expensive surrounded by a greenbelt: how to address situation.

Raugh: Sometimes land a developer wants covers two priority annexation areas. Therefore dividing land into annexation areas is hard on the developer because he wants to develop his whole subdivision in both areas at one time.

Jane Bollman (citizen): Why is the historic 3% growth rate driving the plan? Why don’t we decide what population we want to grow to instead. The projected growth under the 3% “rule” would have us at 40,000 people by 2040 – too big.

Amy Owsley (Eastern Shore Land Conservancy): We should establish priorities.

Atwood: complained about the cost of the east-west connector road; complained about the traffic in town, and the toll development takes on other infrastructure

*Raugh: The problem is commuters. He counted the number of commuters coming in from Caroline County one morning – very high count. He feels the developer should take care of the problems his development creates, not other problems like commuter traffic

*Roger Bollman (citizen) Can there not be a policy to do infill development before annexing additional land?

*Hamilton: Some landowners will not develop.

*Bollman: Do you then annex more land if he won’t develop? What if he wants to develop later? Then you have annexed more land than you need.

*Ford: You want to annex for control of the land, even if it might facilitate development. Challenge.

*Barbara Padden (citizen): who pays for the extra expense incurred by the town ($1.24 for every $1 in taxes) – the citizens

*Hamilton: agrees

Pam Foss: (new owner of the small gallery on South St. across from the academy) out of the downtown businesses like Target suck business from downtown

Hamilton: stated that we have too much commercial business

Foss: how many new shopping centers do we need?

Harry Shaw (citizen): we have to plan to get to places without driving

Thomas: the town is trying

Barbara Brown (citizen): how does this relate to the downtown revitalization effort now underway

Thomas: those efforts might become a subchapter in the comp plan

*Unknown Citizen: what is the cost of development?

*Hamilton: developer pays initial costs, later the town and citizens pay ongoing costs

*Kehoe: since the town doesn’t pay for educational costs it really doesn’t cost the town much more (if anything) for residential development. The developer pays for all the infrastructure.

*Fact: the developer pays the initial cost of infrastructure, but later it becomes the town’s responsibility. Ex: developer puts in road, town repaves it in the future.

Atwood: called this discussion to a halt in order to get through the presentation and end by 8pm.

Owlsley: 3.5 du per acre (the Smart Growth standard) is appropriate. In Easton the density in the area near the town hall is 8 du per acre and a few blocks away it decreases to 6 du per acre.

Raugh: Easton Club density is 1 du per acre, and Easton Club East is 2/2 er acre

*Padden: part of the charm of densely developed downtown Easton is the variety of houses (no two alike) and churches, and other uses sprinkled among them.

*Megan Cooke (citizen): how much open space is required currently

*Atwood: developers build 2 du per acre because that is what sells

*Hamilton: there was an effort in the zoning that came out of the 2002 comp plan to require traditional neighborhood design (small lots with alleys) but it failed.

*Raugh: it is “absurd arrogance” to ask how big do we want to be. He then went on to complain that people who have moved here (as opposed to people born here like himself) should not be saying how big the town should grow to.

*Clifford: came here 30 years ago for the rural character; we are at a fork in the road: do we stay rural or do we urbanize.

Hamilton: agrees that this is the decision point

*Hamilton: there is huge development pressure in Maryland. Therefore we must take our share of the growth.

*Atwood: quoted Ed McMahon’s book on growth: growth is inevitable; do it wisely.