For the past decade, Greg Bowen, Calvert County's director of planning and zoning, has heard from dozens of residents and elected officials brimming with suggestions to tweak the county's zoning ordinance.
He always gives the same response: "We'll put it on the List."
The List now has 88 items, ranging from major proposals that would radically alter the county's landscape to small clarifications of the difference between a "health spa/gymnasium" and a "gym/fitness center."
All those topics will finally be debated as part of the year-long rewriting of the county zoning ordinance that the county commissioners and the Planning Commission began last week. The once-in-a-generation reworking of the regulations was last completed in 1984.
One of the most contentious proposals would prevent further commercial development in certain rural areas. The current regulations allow stores and other businesses to be built in areas known as rural commercial districts.
"You drive down Route 4 and boom, there's a strip mall in the middle of the county," commissioners President David F. Hale (R-Owings) said. "Should it continue to exist?"
The issue is likely to pit business interests against slow-growth advocates who say commercial development should be limited to town centers. Hale and other commissioners declined to define their positions before they hear from the public and the planning staff members.
Residents will have an abundance of opportunities to make their voices heard. Last week, the commissioners and planning board members agreed on an ambitious schedule that breaks the regulations into seven chunks and allots about six weeks for discussing each. A public hearing is planned on each portion of the ordinance.
"Can we buy into this?" Hale asked his fellow commissioners and the planning board at their joint meeting Tuesday. "Otherwise, we'll never get done."
If they do not stay on track and adopt the changes in January 2006, Hale said, the commissioners will be debating contentious proposals as they are all up for reelection.
