At their Tuesday evening meeting, the Carroll County Planning and Zoning Commission discussed comments on, but did not vote on whether to approve the Freedom Plan.

The Freedom Plan creates a guide for future long-term growth in the South Carroll area, in terms of roads, resources and future land use designations, which can then guide future zoning changes. State guidelines require the plan be updated every 10 years, but the Freedom Plan was last updated in 2001 the planning commission spent the past year drafting a new plan, which it accepted in April.

Public comment was accepted by the commission throughout the planning process and during the 60-day review period after the commission voted to accept the draft plan in April. Those comments, from the public and state agencies, are now available online.

The commission and county planning staff noted that there were more positive comments about the plan than they had expected, but also noted a familiar thread in many of the negative comments a concern that development envisioned as possible in the plan with a 25-plus-year scope will happen all at once.

"The concern is that all of this will happen all in one year," said County Director of Planning Phil Hager. "You don't just hold out a sign that says open season and every available lot gets developed at the same time."

At the same time, members of the commission expressed concern about the impact on traffic and congestion some of the land use designation changed proposed in the Freedom Plan could lead to. The group decided to wait until at least Tuesday, July 18, their next meeting, before voting on the plan, to give themselves time to consider all of the issues.

Hager, who will leave office at the end of July to become head of the Anne Arundel County Office of Planning and Zoning, advised the commission members to think carefully about what criteria they would use to approve or deny any requested changes to the plan, noting that opinion alone is not enough.

"You need to base it on something that will stand the test of a court case," he said. Otherwise, someone challenging the plan in court would only have to prove that the change they disliked was not fairly arrived at and then "you could end up with something very, very different than anything you discussed."

Once the commission does vote, and presuming the plan is approved, the next step will be for the Carroll Board of County Commissioners to take up the plan, a process that will include more opportunities for public comment. The commissioners can either alter the plan, reject it or adopt it, the latter of which would lead to its implementation.

jon.kelvey@carrollcountytimes.com

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Planning Commission discusses Freedom Plan comments - Carroll County Times