A resolution concerning the 2018 water and sewer plan, December cycle of amendments for the purpose of changing the water and sewer category designations of properties within the 2018 water and sewer plan.

Turn to Mr.

Battle.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Members of the committee.

CR29 contains three applications for water and sewer category change and 34 redesignations, which are essentially just updates to the water and sewer maps to reflect uh properties already connected to the system.

The first application is 25 PW01 for quarter center.

The development proposal is 148 stack townhomes, 13 villa homes, and 132 townhomes.

The request is for uh advancement from category four to category three for water and sewer.

County exec recommends approval of the change.

Uh the parking planning uh board does not have an uh um a recommendation on this instance in the city of Laurel and the City of Laurel uh recommends approval.

Uh the next item is 25 P01, Frank Tippett Road.

Uh the development proposal is for three single family homes, 3800 square feet with the uh suggested sales price of $670,000.

The request is to go from category 5 to category 4 for water and sewer.

Both the county exec and planning board recommend approval of the uh category change.

And finally, the third application is 25 M02, allied brandywine property.

Uh, this development proposal is 200 townhomes uh with 1,969 square feet of living space and uh sales price of 450,000 dollars, and also included in the development is 9,000 square feet of retail space.

The request is for advancement from category five to four for water and sewer, and both the county exec and the uh planning board recommend approval of the category change.

Uh the category redesignations are in districts eight and nine uh in the vicinities of Wheels Lane, Birdsong Lane, Old Palmer Road, Surratt's Road, Livingston Road, Holloway, uh, and Aka Keek Road West.

Both the um County Exec County exec recommends approval of the uh redesignations.

Mr.

Chair, that concludes my summary of what's in CR29.

Thank you, Mr.

Battle.

Um, at this time, I'd like to make a motion to approve the countywide redesignations, uh, the Matterwoman 25 M02, Piscataway 25 P01, and deny Parkway 25 PW01.

If I got a second, I'll speak to that.

So speaking to the Carter Center, um, I've reviewed the record extensively.

I went back to the 2006 category change that went from five to four, reviewed those documents.

I've reviewed the record extensively.

And although the applicant has provided a lot of arguments backed by evidence to support approval of this category change, I believe that the proposal is lacking in several material respects and should be denied at this time.

It's not our role to revisit the zoning decision.

Our role is to evaluate the category change policies and criteria in sections 2.14 and 6.4 of the adopted 2018 Prince George's County water and sewer plan.

However, the nature and purposes of the MXT zone do provide context to our analysis.

The most glaring observation comes under the criteria for economics and general fiscal concerns.

Whereas the city has described the project as strategically located at the I-95 Route 198 interchange.

An honest assessment makes clear that the development is isolated and lacks contiguity.

While it abuts first Baptist Manor and touches a corner of the Crescent at uh Cherry Lane, there is no actual connectivity.

This isolation manifests itself in a lack of adequate public facilities, which also reveals an obvious failure of the MXT zone purposes, such as to promote the effect of an optimum use of transit and to increase pedestrian-oriented activities and amenities.

Specifically, in the January 8th, 2024 Soltez adequate public facilities analysis, the report states there's currently public bus service along nearby Van Dusen Road and along Cherry Lane to the north.

Both bus routes are within one half mile of the proposed uh property.

At best, this could be described as an exaggeration.

In reality, a pedestrian leaving from the project entrance has two options.

First, going a pirate lane to Cherry Lane to a bus stop on Van Dusen Road, a walk of at least five-eighths of a mile with no sidewalks for over a quarter mile.

Pirate Lane itself is little more than a one-lane driveway with no shoulders and no sidewalks.

The bus stop has no shelter and not even a concrete pad to stand on.

The second and arguably safer option is to follow Contee Road around the Cherry Lane, a distance of almost a mile.

And after leaving the development, the Conte Road is a narrow two-lane road with no shoulders nor sidewalks, meaning pedestrian would have to walk almost half a mile along the edge of the roadway.

This reality raises a further question of cost in public facilities.

The applicant submitted a fiscal impact study that concludes that the city will realize a positive net fiscal impact of almost $110,000.

However, the study fails to assess the fiscal impact on the county.

Municipalities often benefit from residential development because they are not responsible for operating a maintenance cost of schools.

To the contrary, the cost of school operations and maintenance generally result in residential development, particularly townhouse development, producing a negative fiscal impact on the county.

Apart from school costs, the isolated nature of the project just mentioned above presents another adequate public facility and cost concern.

There's a history of the city annexing land for development along county roads and not accounting for the disconnected public infrastructure, as in this case.

Currently, there's a facilities and cost problem along Van Dusen Road and Contee Road resulting from the West Side and Anderson's corner developments.

Again, there are disconnected pedestrian facilities and pressuring the county to come up with funding to address the inadequacy.

The isolation of Carter Center from the necessary public facilities is a serious shortcoming that is likely to result in a negative fiscal cost to the county that has not been analyzed in the fiscal impact study.

Turning to environmental criteria such as preserving, protecting, and enhancing environmental quality and the impact on proposed developments on green infrastructure.

The application raises some concerns, a couple which I'll touch on.