Planning & Zoning Commission Work Session on Master Plan Preliminary Recommendations – April 1, 2026
Planning & Zoning Commission Work Session on Master Plan Preliminary Recommendations – April 1, 2026
The Planning & Zoning Commission held a work session on April 1, 2026, from 6:00 PM to approximately 8:00 PM, to review preliminary recommendations for the Carroll County Master Plan. The discussion focused on land use, housing diversity, growth areas, and infrastructure, drawing from Economy and Housing Work Group reports. No public comments were heard, and no formal votes were taken; decisions were reached by consensus.
Discussion Items
- Encouraging diversity of allowable housing types: The Commission agreed to keep this recommendation. Commissioners discussed the need for different housing types in rural areas (e.g., employee housing on farms) and challenges with septic systems and state regulations. Staff will research examples from other jurisdictions and report back on opportunities and obstacles.
- Comprehensively plan targeted areas for rezoning and proactive infrastructure investment: Noted that this is what the master plan itself will accomplish. The recommendation was kept on hold pending detailed land use mapping.
- Ensure an adequate amount of land is zoned to provide for housing opportunities: The Commission decided to keep this recommendation with broader language to encompass the housing types listed in the work group report (e.g., townhouses, duplexes, ADUs, cottage clusters). The regulatory reform details were omitted.
- Prioritize development within and near growth areas and municipalities: Five sub-items were discussed:
- Support expansion of municipal boundaries where infrastructure can support growth – kept.
- Reevaluate AgPRES boundaries and policies near designated growth areas – kept, with discussion on challenges of running infrastructure through preserved land.
- Revisit planned infrastructure, especially roads – kept as a reminder to factor into the master plan.
- Identify implementation tools for walkable mixed-use developments (green spaces, trails, grocery, health care, transit) – kept, with expectation that consultant input will inform this.
- Identify/create a new growth area between Woodbine and Sykesville – tabled for future consideration. Commissioners expressed concerns about cost, feasibility, and consistency with the current master plan vision of directing growth to existing designated areas.
- Revisit lot yield in the Agricultural district if growth tiers are adopted: The Commission left this recommendation in place, pending future discussion on growth tiers. The growth tier question was left open from previous policy discussions.
- Growth tiers: The Commission previously discussed a recommendation from the Housing Work Group to adopt growth tiers and a conflicting recommendation from the Ag Work Group not to adopt them. The topic remains unresolved; staff will revisit it later in the master plan process.
- Affordable housing: Commissioners noted that affordable housing starts with smaller homes on smaller lots (R-10,000 zoning), but land availability is limited. The state has not set specific metrics; the county may need to set its own standards. The need for county incentives (e.g., tax breaks) was also discussed.
- AgPRES program: Commissioners discussed the need to reevaluate the agricultural preservation program due to rising land prices, competition from solar development, and changing dynamics. A policy recommendation to evaluate the program is already in the master plan.
- Mixed-use development: Discussion centered on planned commercial centers and the potential for redevelopment of existing properties (e.g., malls). The consultant will provide best practices and recommendations for code changes.
- Consultants: Staff noted that consultants are working on deferral topics (age-restricted, self-storage, planned commercial centers) and will produce phased reports through September. A separate consultant will conduct a small area plan for the Freedom area.
Key Outcomes
- The Commission affirmed or kept the majority of recommendations presented, with modifications noted above.
- Staff will research and report on: (1) examples of housing diversity in rural areas (including employee housing and common septic systems), (2) potential for increasing densities in appropriate locations, and (3) best practices for mixed-use development.
- The discussion on target areas (from the Economy Work Group) was postponed to a future meeting (either April 21 daytime or May 6 evening).
- Next meetings: Tuesday, April 21, 2026, at 9:00 AM and Wednesday, May 6, 2026, at 6:00 PM, both in the Reagan Room.
- No formal motions or votes were taken; all decisions were consensus-based.
Meeting Transcript
To order April first, twenty twenty six. Can we get um do we do a um we don't need to establish a quantum because it's a works work session and there's no business items to welcome everybody. Let's uh stand from position for weeks. Um, as we've been going through all of their recommendations. You recall we've gotten through the policies. Now on to land use. Um we will see how this um conversation goes. There aren't of we got about, I don't know, maybe about halfway through them. So there aren't a whole lot more. Um of course it only takes one good juicy recommendation to uh spend a lot of time discussing and debating, but um but uh assuming that we'll get through the rest of the land use recommendations. The rest of the meeting we wanted to circle back around on um some of the target areas that were part of the economy work group. Um if you recall we had um kind of set those to the side, the recommendations for those target areas to the side with the idea that we would come back to them and look at them collectively at the end. In the meantime, we were going to go out and um meet with the municipalities that are on the subject of those target area recommendations and kind of get their take on um on those recommendations so you have that some some of that feedback. So tonight after we go through the land use recommendations, we wanted to take a scan of those target areas and get a sense from you all of um what kinds of questions you want to make sure we ask when we when we meet with the municipalities so that we can bring all of that information back to you um as completely as as possible. So that's the game plan for tonight. Anyone have any questions or alternate suggestions? All right. Um so let's dive back in here. You can see from um column C here the action that you guys took. Well, the um the discussion that you guys had on the recommendations through um March 17th. So um we got through one to three, four, five of these, and they were all affirmed with some notes on um on revisiting, particularly these last three here. Um revisiting these um at a later time. So we were gonna keep them for now and kind of see how they fit in with the rest of the recommendations as those um get fleshed out. So we'll go on to um this recommendation on line 11. Also um an economic uh and economy work group recommendation, and this one is to encourage diversity of allowable housing types, and the note uh further note that these this may require amendments to the county zoning code to support as well as comprehensive review of zoning to ensure appropriate integration into communities. Thoughts on um that recommendation keep change something else, but I would say keep it. I mean, obviously we want to encourage different housing types. Right. But and like it says that it's going to require some code changes. Yeah, and certainly um what those different housing types are and how they would need how the code would need to change in order to accommodate them would be part of that next level of um discussion and um and code revisions and like this recommendation points out um there is an element of ensuring that that it's located in the right places, right? Um can I give an example of that? Yeah. Well, I'm the only one well, I might not be the one person, but like a lot of my large dairy dairymen around the US, especially in New York, they build uh do what do they call like bunk houses where they have like a shared space and they might be like eight single bedrooms and stuff like that for employee housing. Okay. I can think of some other people that like bulkers probably use something like that. I don't know what they have. But instead of just being one large house, they each have their own door to come in, but then they'd have a common area and stuff. I see quite a bit of it. They I mean New York State actually has plans for stuff, yeah. I mean, some of them might have 16 bedrooms and interesting. I don't know how easy that'd be get a septic permit for that. Yeah. That's a good point there, because agricultural, right? Yeah. Because also they're like out in in Frederick County right over there towards barriers. There was that church back in there that had like a retreat built back in there that was for sale years ago. I saw when I got looking at it, it's like how did they ever get this thing permitted? Because it's got it basically sewer system, but room for like up to 50 people. Right in Frederick County, right on Clemps, like yeah, it's Clemsonville Road. Is that that's not the Clag It Gardens?
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