SNOW HILL – County officials approved plans for a campground expansion at Frontier Town.
The Worcester County Planning Commission last week approved a 107-unit expansion at Frontier Town. The park will add cabins in a new cluster design.
“I think it’s very well thought out,” commission member Ken Church said.
The commission was presented last Thursday with a site plan for 107 park unit sites with a swimming pool and recreational areas. Attorney Hugh Cropper told the commission that the expansion would be built on the old drain field at Frontier Town, which is no longer being used now that the campground has connected to public sewer. He explained that while the campground had initially gotten approval for the typical cookie cutter campsite layout, Sun TRS Frontier, the company that owns Frontier Town, came up with an innovative idea for a new layout. In it, cabins would be clustered together and parking would be situated away from the cabins.
“Where the cabins would be located, there would be green space around them instead of gravel and parking,” Cropper said.
Because the design wasn’t in the code, Cropper had to write a text amendment, which was approved by the Worcester County Commissioners last year, to allow for the new layout. He presented the planning commission last week with a site plan featuring the ne layout. He said the cabins would look like the existing ones at the campground but would be situated in clusters. He said the proposed bathhouse for the new section would mimic the existing ones at Frontier Town.
Cropper said the layout represented a modern approach that would allow for a better facility with less impervious surface.
“This is not an old-fashioned campground…,” he said. “It’s going to be innovative. It’s going to take people that are going to park, and either take a golf cart or walk to the unit, but when you’re in these units rather than looking at your neighbor’s pickup truck you’re going to look at the wooded area.”
Commission members asked when the expansion would be built.
Cropper noted campground officials had been working on the project for the past five years.
“The sooner the better,” the project’s engineer said.
Though there was a question about lighting on the site plan, officials said various lighting options were still being evaluated. They stressed however that they were trying to keep the lighting down so it wouldn’t be disruptive.
The commission voted 6-0 to approve the site plan.
