SNOW HILL – After taking no action two weeks ago, the Worcester County Commissioners voted unanimously this week to provide Frontier Town the sewer capacity needed for the first phase of its campground expansion.
On Tuesday, the commissioners agreed to initiate an amendment to the county’s water and sewer plan to allow Frontier Town to purchase 34 EDUs (equivalent dwelling units). Sun TRS Frontier LLC, the company that owns the campground, will now drop its appeal of the commissioners’ previous decision to deny the property sewer capacity.
“They agreed to allocate 34 EDUs — which will be 101 campsites — which is what we had planned on for phase one,” said Hugh Cropper, the company’s attorney, after the meeting. “And in exchange, although they didn’t say it, we dismissed all the litigation.”
Last year, Frontier Town asked to purchase 71 EDUs to expand its campground. The commissioners voted 4-3 to deny the request, pointing out the county’s EDU policy allocated sewer capacity to certain specific uses. Cropper filed an appeal of that decision in Worcester County Circuit Court.
In the meantime, he submitted a request for 34 EDUs, which would allow for the initial phase of the expansion to move forward. On May 1, Commissioner Jim Bunting made a motion to deny that request. It failed, however, receiving just two votes. At this week’s meeting of the commissioners, Assistant Chief Administrative Officer Kelly Shannahan brought the issue back up.
“You’ll recall that this item was reviewed at your last meeting,” he said. “A motion was made but it did not pass so that matter is still pending before you. We wanted to bring it back today to see if anyone would like to make a motion on this request for 34 EDUs.”
Commissioner Bud Church quickly made a motion to initiate a water and sewer plan amendment, which is required in order to allocate EDUs from Area 1 (north of the airport) to Area 2 (south of the airport), to allocate the requested 34 EDUs to Frontier Town. Bunting seconded the motion, which then passed unanimously.
After the meeting, Bunting said he was opposed to giving the campground 71 EDUs but thought 34 EDUs was a more reasonable request. He said by the time Frontier Town is finished with the first phase of its desired expansion, officials will have a better idea of how much demand there is for sewer capacity
Commissioner Chip Bertino, who opposed the request for 34 EDUs when it was made two weeks ago, said he agreed to this week’s motion because it did not take EDUs out of the pool allotted to Area 2. While Area 2 has just 53 available EDUs, Area 1 had 294 EDUs available prior to the commissioners’ approval of the campground request.
