Does The County Planning Department Really Plan For Anything?
Filed under: Development, Maryland, Salisbury Politics, Wicomico Politics
Thursday’s Daily Times ran a great letter to the editor from Dave Suiter.
Friends say that Dave served our country in the US Navy, retired and then started a second career. I bet if you asked him he would say that he’s just your average concerned citizen. To the best of my knowlege, Dave doesn’t draw a salary from either Wicomico County or the City of Salisbury. Now since Dave has been able to figure out that how many housing units have been approved to be built on the east side of Salisbury and how many people will probably be living in them, why can’t the Salisbury / Wicomico Department of Planning.
I’m not trying to ruin Christmas for anyone, including the people who work at the Planning Department. But PLEASE give us all a little break in the new year. Just on that side of town, housing is in the pipeline for over 11,000 people. Don’t insult me or anyone else by saying that only seniors will be moving in. Don’t insult me or anyone else by saying that none of these folks will be driving cars, or getting sick, or being robbed.
Just for the sake of argument, let’s assume that around 2,000 of those new people will be attending county schools. Where will they go? Into already overcrowded schools of course.
Just for the sake of argument, let’s assume that these 4,300 units will each have only one car. What roads will they drive on? Our already overcrowded roads of course.
Several readers have attempted to blame the Board of Education for our current fiasco with the schools. While I’m no huge fan of the bureaucracy that has become our public schools, let’s not blame them for this one. When they went to the Planning Department a couple of years ago and asked for their projection as to the number of new students to expect in Wicomico County over the next ten years the response has been to plan for 500 students over the next 10 years. Guess what? There were over 200 new students this year!
Does that mean that we can expect only 300 more students over the next nine years?
What about the roads? Buy the time the new collector road is completed, traffic will be bumper to bumper on her.
What’s the solution to this problem? Well, the City and County Councils could start by putting someone like Dave in charge of planning. He seems to have a handle on the process better than the “professionals”. After that, I think Linda Kent, Tina Perrotta, Terry Cohen, and Palmer and Brad Gillis should be named to the Planning Commission (no I’m not kidding). Debbie Campbell should replace Lynn Cathcart and the County Council seat should just be left vacant.
Would this help matters? Probably so. Believe it or not, both Palmer and Brad are intelligent and thoughtful people. You don’t have to agree with someone to respect them. Linda, Tina and Terry aren’t the types to be rolled by anyone. We all know that Debbie is going to do what’s right for the people of Salisbury. And I’d be willing to bet that before any project got out of the Commission with any recommendation they’d all be wanting to know what is the projected impact of a project on the current and planned infrastructure. I’d also be willing to bet that the first time someone from Planning said that a 600 unit development would only add 50 or 100 kids to the schools they’d be laughed right out of the building.
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Mr. Suiter’s excellent letter addresses the east side of the City of Salisbury, not the entire City (or elsewhere in Wicomico County), where there are probably even more lots and units approved, and there are more “in the pipeline.” What’s incredible is that the Planning & Zoning officials continue to encourage more and denser development, calling it “Smart Growth,” despite the overcrowded schools, roads, etc., when they are not engaged in other endeavors — see today’s “Duvafiles.” That situation needs immediate attention, probably a complete housecleaning at the “P & Z Commission” and its “staff,” and the sooner the better.
To fix the two Councils, it is probably necessary to wait until the next election. The Wicomico County Council can be replaced next year, and the majority (”Dream Team”) that controls the Salisbury City Council in 2007.
WILL THE “ELECTED COUNTY EXEC.” HELP ?
Next year the first elected Wicomico County “mayor” will be voted into that new office, and the increasingly widespread and vocal opposition to uncontrolled growth and overdevelopment surely will be a major issue in the election. But will he or she who wins be able to do much to stop them from continuing to occur?
The zoning powers will remain with the Council. I believe — just look at the City of Salisbury, where the City Council, thanks to Dunn, Comegys and Cathcart, are ruining entire neighborhoods. Hopefully the Exec will have power to revamp the Planning Department and its “Commission,” which is where things like the Hearne project and the Salisbury Mall nonsense get started.
It seems to me that at least some of the new east side housing
will be subsidized and at least a few of these will be occupied by gang members who will view each of these new developments as fresh territories for sales of drugs, prostitution etc. Competition is inevitable,
and not a pretty sight to behold.
Gangs exist here now, branch operations from Washington and Baltimore.
Many fail to accept this. Better to deal with it now than to wait until the problem becomes unmanagable.
Don’t look to the developers for help with this.
Phil makes an excellent point. SPD is stretched thinner and thinner as they have more territory, residents, and traffic to police. As far as I know, developers are not required to pay anything to grow the police department to meet the needs.
Ask the homeowners on 8th Street in Pocomoke what subsidized housing does to a neighborhood….
WHY DON’T THEY SELL THE CIVIC CENTER TO COMCAST WITH THE UNDERSTANDING EACH HIGH SCHOOL GET TO USE IT TWO TIMES A YEAR FREE OF CHARGE. BUILD A NEW HIGH SCHOOL AND USE THE MONEY FROM THE SALE TO REDO BENNETT, PLUS SAVE A MILLION DOLLARS A YEAR SPENT BY THE TAX PAYERS ON THE CIVIC CENTER
So are you saying we shouldn’t have subsidized housing? What about “affordable” housing? Where are lower-income working people to live, then? People who work retail and fast food type jobs don’t make enough money to pay monthly rents of $700 or more, and on top of that also pay utilities, buy food and the other little necessities of life (never mind any kind of luxury or ease). And if we don’t want them to have roommates to share expenses, we’re going to end up with a huge homeless population. You think this will lower crime rates and gang activity? Come on. We need affordable housing, and subsidized housing, or else we need to raise minimum wages without allowing every other cost of living to go up a similar amount. Working single mothers, young people just starting out in the job market and older people working for low wages all need a safe, decent place to live, too. IF they’re doing everything they can but housing costs are still way out of range, what else is there for them?