A six-month-old Prince George's County law that makes new home construction contingent on ample fire and police service has essentially shut down the pipeline of new projects across the county, planning officials say.
Since the law took effect, none of the 23 new residential subdivisions considered has been approved by the county, said Alan Hirsch, head of the Prince George's subdivision review committee. An additional 13 proposals for 1,039 houses that have not been reviewed are in limbo because of questions about their ability to pass the test, Hirsch said.
Armed with six months of police and fire response data, failure rates and pressure from some state lawmakers, the County Council is considering a measure that would increase the allowed response times and permit builders to take other steps if their subdivisions fail the test.
The law requires police emergency calls, on average, to be answered within 10 minutes and nonemergency calls within 25 minutes. The legislation also set a response time limit across the county of 10 minutes for advanced life support. Fire engines and ambulances have to reach subdivisions in eight minutes in the county's rural tier. In other parts of the county, the fire engine and ambulance wait was set at six minutes.
The council was warned by the building industry and planners that creating a bill tying residential construction to police and fire response times could curtail development in southern Prince George's.
But even the doomsayers never thought the effect would be felt countywide.
The bill "had unintended consequences of shutting down more than the council thought," said F. Hamer Campbell, director of government affairs for the Maryland-National Capital Building Industry Association.
Planners generally divide Prince George's into three regions: the developed urban areas within the Capital Beltway, including Capitol Heights and Seat Pleasant; the developing northern and central suburbs, including Laurel, Largo and Bowie; and the largely undeveloped rural tier in the southern and eastern fringes of the county, including Croom and parts of Upper Marlboro.
In the past six months, 23 projects have gone before the subdivision review committee, the first step in submitting a plan to the county. Seven were denied. Sixteen were withdrawn by the applicants, who had realized they would not meet the law's requirements.
College Heights Estates was one of them. The 22 houses that Mitchell & Best, a Rockville-based homebuilder, want to construct near the University of Maryland at College Park are within a mile of two fire stations.
It is the kind of location most people, including County Council member Douglas J.J. Peters (D-Bowie), thought would have no trouble passing the county's new adequate public facilities test.
Instead, the proposed development would just barely miss the mark, said Lt. Col. Karl L. Granzow Jr., who is responsible for fire response data. Fire engines, on average, would reach the subdivision in 6 minutes, 32 seconds, and ambulances would make it in 7 minutes, 48 seconds.
