SNOW HILL– Citing traffic on Route 589, county officials said they wouldn’t support a rezoning request near the north entrance to Ocean Pines.
The Worcester County Planning Commission last week voted 5-1 to provide an unfavorable recommendation to a rezoning request for property across the street from the north gate to Ocean Pines.
“I personally feel this is where we have to put our foot down,” said commission member Phyllis Wimbrow.
At a meeting last week attorney Hugh Cropper presented the planning commission with a request to reclassify a 27-acre parcel of land zoned A-1 agricultural. Cropper said he was seeking to have a two-acre piece of the property zoned commercial and the remainder zoned A-2 agricultural.
“If you look at the permitted uses in the A-1 and A-2 they’re almost exactly the same,” Cropper said.
As far as potential special exception uses, Cropper said there were eight more permitted in the A-2 than the A-1.
“In every other respect the A-1 is exactly the same as A-2 and really from a traffic perspective is no different,” he said.
He said the property had belonged to the Ayres family since the 19th century and that since the farmer who leased the land no longer found it profitable to farm, the owners wanted to have it rezoned. Cropper said he was making the request based on the change in the surrounding neighborhood. He pointed out that with the expansion of the casino and the construction of new medical facilities on Route 589 among other things the neighborhood had changed drastically.
“The change in the neighborhood has kind of left this property behind,” he said.
Commission member Rick Wells said he felt rezoning the property would make the traffic in the area worse. He said he sympathized with Cropper’s clients but didn’t want to rezone the land before some sort of roadway improvements were made.
“That state has got to do something,” he said.
Wimbrow said she understood his concerns.
“There comes a point when you have to say we have to deal with this issue before we can allow any more,” she said.
Wimbrow pointed out that rezonings on the other end of Route 589, which she hadn’t supported, had been approved and yet the properties hadn’t been developed in accordance with commercial zoning.
“I cannot vote for this,” she said.
Commission member Jerry Barbierri said his comments reflected what he’d heard from community members.
“Until we have a definitive plan for Route 589, the widening or whatever else State Highway has in their plans, I think we would do an injustice as a planning commission to approve any other commercial properties at this point in time,” he said.
Commission member Mary Knight pointed out that the Maryland State Highway Administration was provided with development plans as projects moved forward.
“We’re saying this board has precedence over SHA?” she asked.
She said SHA reviewed projects and shared any concerns they had when development was proposed.
“I’m not a traffic engineer,” she said, adding that SHA had approved access for every project she’d seen during her time with the planning commission.
“That’s all they ever say,” Wimbrow responded, referencing the years she spent working in the county’s department of development review and permitting. “In all the years I did rezonings, which was decades, that’s all they ever said.”
Knight’s motion to give the rezoning request a favorable recommendation failed to get a second.
A motion to provide the request with an unfavorable recommendation received a 5-1 vote with Knight opposed.