6
Local News
The Calvert County Times
Thursday, December 6, 2018
Plans Jelling for West Prince Frederick Projects
By Dick Myers
Editor
Plans are starting to take shape for
a big chunk of the west side of Prince
Frederick. The Calvert County Planning
Commission at its Nov. 27 meeting ap-
proved creation of a public right-of-way
for the proposed Calvert Hills project.
That paves the way for the five-building,
96-apartment complex to be presented to
the commission.
The road for the subdivision over the
right-of-way will intersect with Prince
Frederick Boulevard, where a round-
about will be created, according to the
Calvert County Department of Public
Works.
Calvert Hills (Radio Drive, LLC) is ad-
jacent to the new Beechtree Apartments
complex, with 248 units, which is now
under development. The Calvert County
Board of County Commissioners recent-
ly approved a developer-funded traffic
light on Prince Frederick Boulevard at
the entrance into that development.
Calvert Hills also abuts West Dares
Beach Road at its southern boundary.
There have been plans for a number of
years to extend West Dares Beach Road
out to the College of Southern Maryland.
There is a curb cut on JW Williams Road
that passes through the college campus,
that would connect with the West Dares
Beach Road extension.
There is also property owned by John
Gott to the west of Calvert Hills that
could also be developed, though no plans
have yet been presented, said Director of
Planning and Zoning Mark Willis.
In a memo to the planning commis-
sion, Planner Olivia Vidotto explained
the potential interconnectedness of the
parcels:
“The plans show the proposed right-
of-way continuing through the adjacent
property (also owned by Radio Drive,
LLC), with a small portion crossing
the Gott property. This extension was
required by the Department of Public
Works (DPW) to ensure that the road
could continue and meet road ordinance
requirements to avoid problems at a later
date and a developer not being able to
continue the public road. The plans show
a wider portion of public right-of-way
abutting the Gott property to provide ad-
equate frontage for that parcel to build a
commercial entrance in the future. The
approval by the Planning Commission is
only for the portion of the public right-
of-way contained in the project shown
as Calvert Hills and for the portion be-
yond that is owned by Radio Drive, LLC.
DPW has approved the location and
alignment of the proposed right-of-way
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as shown on the presented plan.
“This project has been under review
for over a year with many discussions
and revised layouts related to access
and location of the alignment of a pub-
lic right-of-way. Part of this discussion
dealt with previous subdivisions that
were submitted and approved for SD06-
I3ARR, Villages of Calvert, Sections 1
& II. This development encompassed
parcels owned by John Gott and Osprey
Development and the project was a joint
application for development along with
the proposed extension of West Dares
Road. Approval of the preliminary plans
and the extension of West Dares Beach
Road was approved by the Planning
Commission on December 10, 2008.
Road construction plans for the exten-
sion of West Dares Beach Rd. were also
submitted and approved pending stream
mitigation, however, the preliminary ap-
proval and road plans have since expired.
Staff, the applicant, owner and engineer,
had many discussions on extending West
Dares Beach Rd. with this project. As
the two property owners are now work-
ing independently on projects, the ability
for Osprey Development Group to ac-
quire the easements and land that would
traverse through properties they did not
own was one consideration. The envi-
ronmental constraints associated with
the extension of West Dares Beach Road
was also taken into consideration. The
ultimate goal is to have a public right-of-
way that extends east west from Prince
Frederick to tie in to a reserved future
right-of-way connecting to College Sta-
tion and to Rt. 231 at the intersection
with the JW Williams Rd.”
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Architectural Committees
Survive with Minor Changes
By Dick Myers
Editor
Two years ago, the Calvert County
Board of County Commissioners
(BOCC) proposed eliminating the
county’s seven town center architec-
tural review committees (ARC’s) in
favor of staff review of proposals. It
turns out the idea of citizen reviews
of proposed designs for commercial
structures and signs has a lot of sup-
port. In the end, after two years of
discussion, the committees have sur-
vived with only minor tweaks to their
authority.
The process came to an end Nov.
27 after a joint public hearing by the
Calvert County Planning Commission
and the BOCC in which the minor
changes were approved unanimously
by both boards. The most significant
change requires the architectural
review committees to meet twice
monthly and if they are unable to act
on an application, then the staff will
take over and review it.
The architectural review commit-
tees originally came under fire over
charges that their slow deliberations,
and sometimes inability to gather quo-
rums to make a decision, were hinder-
ing economic development.
The planning commission was the
white knight that came to the rescue of
the committees. After holding a public
hearing. they rejected the idea of elim-
inating the review committees. The
BOCC then went back to the drawing
board and came up with an alternate
plan. One of those proposals stripped
the committees of authority to review
designs of chain stores. The theory
was that they had their own standard
designs.
The planners didn’t like that idea
either. At the public hearing, commis-
sion member John Toohey noted that
small, local businesses were being
made to bear the regulatory burden,
which flew in the face of the county’s
goal of helping small businesses.
So, as a result the planners recom-
mended the changes to the meeting
schedules to insure prompt actions by
the committees to alleviate the origi-
nal concerns.
Only three persons spoke at the joint
public hearing and all are either past
or present architectural review com-
mittee members and all gave general
support to the revised proposals.
Ed Apple, currently on the Prince
Frederick ARC, said of them, “I think
it is absolutely essential.” His wife
Sue, a former Prince Frederick ARC
member, said. “I think it is important
to remember that people really do care
what the towns look like.”
Tom Mero, a former member of the
Dunkirk ARC, said if the chair ex-
emption had prevailed the majority of
the commercial properties in Dunkirk
would have gotten a pass.
Mero did note, however, that the
new regulations requiring ARCs to
make their decision after one meet-
ing might be difficult in complicated
cases. That provision did prevail in the
final vote.
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