SNOW HILL – The Worcester County Commissioners this week rejected a text amendment that would have allowed some White Horse Park residents to continue living in the park fulltime.
As soon as Commissioner Josh Nordstrom agreed to put his name on a bill that would have allowed existing permanent residents of White Horse Park to stay there year-round, Commissioner Jim Bunting made a motion to reject it. That motion was approved 5-1, with Nordstrom opposed.
Nordstrom said after the meeting he knew the text amendment might not have been ideal but felt something had to be done to ensure White Horse Park residents weren’t kicked out of their homes.
“We’re making criminals out of otherwise good people,” he said. “I can’t speak to the motivation or thoughts of the other commissioners but for me this was a matter of conscience and trying to do the right thing.”
For much of the past year, a group of 54 White Horse Park residents have been working with attorney Hugh Cropper to develop a text amendment that would enable them to live in the park year-round. The group of residents, headed by Sue Naplachowski and Sally Connolly, hired Cropper after the county began efforts to enforce the existing restrictions on campground subdivisions. The county has two campground subdivisions, White Horse Park and Assateague Pointe, and according to regulations they are not to be inhabited year-round.
Nevertheless, Naplachowski said a small percentage of White Horse Park’s 465 units have been inhabited full-time for decades. A little more than a year ago, the county began efforts to enforce the provisions governing campground subdivisions, which state between Sept. 30 and April 1 units cannot be occupied for more than 30 consecutive days or an aggregate of 60 days. Naplachowski and her fellow fulltime residents, many of whom are elderly, began working with Cropper to find a way to amend the zoning code to allow them to stay.
The text amendment up for introduction by the commissioners Tuesday would have allowed White Horse Park property owners who have resided there full-time since June of 2018 to stay until they discontinued their full-time residency, passed away or sold their unit.
Ed Tudor, director of the county’s department of development review and permitting, advised the commissioners that neither staff nor the county’s planning commission supported the amendment as written.
“Staff has extreme concerns over this text amendment application as written,” Tudor said. “We feel it is fraught with problems and only makes a bad situation worse.”
Bunting cited staff concerns as he made his motion to reject the amendment. He also said there were approximately 400 White Horse Park property owners who didn’t support it.
Nordstrom, however, said he felt that even if the proposed amendment wasn’t suitable another solution should have been explored.
“We may not have found the right thing, but the wrong thing is to put people out of their homes,” he said.
Naplachowski said she was disappointed with the commissioners’ decision. In enforcing a regulation that hadn’t been enforced for 30 years, she said the county would be kicking 70- and 80-year-olds out of their homes.
Resident Jon Gilmore said he found it disheartening that the commissioners weren’t interested in hearing from the public on the issue.
“Frankly, I never expected a ‘thumbs up’ from the county,” he said. “However, it must be nice to have the luxury of making a decision of this magnitude without having to hear from those involved. And that goes for people who are in favor of the amendment and also for those opposed. My feel is that it flies in the face of democracy.”
Gilmore was particularly upset by Bunting’s comment that 400 property owners were opposed to the amendment.
“An official unbiased poll or survey has never been circulated among White Horse Park home owners,” he said. “Not only that, some people own multiple properties. I’m sure there are other ways the numbers could be skewed to fit one’s opinion and/or agenda.”
In an interview Wednesday, Bunting said he made the motion to reject the amendment because he felt the discussion had gone on long enough. He said he’d initially shared his concerns with White Horse Park residents in 2018. He added that Cropper had spent months adjusting the proposed text amendment and had met multiple times with the planning commission regarding the occupancy issue.
“I assure you, there was not going to be a change in our decision whether this was a public hearing or not,” Bunting said. “I didn’t see a need for continuing on. I thought it was time to get it over with. … It’s not fun being the bad guy. I took an oath to enforce the rules and regulations and code of Worcester County. I don’t worry about politics.”
Commissioner Ted Elder agreed that “the law is the law.” He said that just because people got away with living there for years that doesn’t mean they should continue to be able to live there.
Elder acknowledged that both White Horse Park and Worcester County were to blame for letting the situation get to this point.
“A lot of the problems we have are complaint driven,” he said. “If we don’t know about it things can go on. A lot of the time when we get a complaint that’s what opens the door. It’s a bad situation but these people have known about it for a year.”
When asked why he’d supported Bunting’s motion to reject the amendment, Commissioner Chip Bertino said he felt it had no standing because it was not supported by the community’s board of directors. Commissioner Diana Purnell said that after reading the staff report, she felt she couldn’t support the amendment.
“The staff opinion was right on the money,” she said.
County officials said this week they were still working on a strategy for how to enforce the White Horse Park occupancy rules. Cropper, however, said he hoped his clients would continue their fight.
“I’m incredibly disappointed that the commissioners would not even give them basic due process, the right to speak and tell their side of the story,” he said.
Instead, he said the elected officials relied on staff reports that were misleading. He added that many of the residents had lived in the community for decades and there’d never been a problem.
“I hope my clients hire me to file an injunction because I don’t think there’s a judge out there that’ll throw these people out,” Cropper said.
