Commissioners
doubt they will
annex Lawyer Farm
Field
proposal has major problems
By James Rada Jr.
News Editor
THURMONT, Md. – In a straw poll during the May 1 commissioners
meeting, the Thurmont Commissioners expressed doubt that the
Lawyer Farm annexation proposal by Beazer Homes would overcome
the commissioners’ reservations. If that is the case,
it is doubtful that the property will be annexed into town.
“There’s
a lot of issues I do not think they’ll be able to overcome,”
Mayor Martin Burns said.
Among his concerns
were the fact that the proposed project has 250 single-family
homes with no housing variety to allow different price points
(like the Drees annexation proposal) or even a variety of
land uses with commercial or retail (like the Myers annexation
proposal). Burns also said he believes the proposal will not
alleviate any traffic on East Main Street or Moser Road.
Commissioner
Ron Terpko added, “With the consent order with MDE there’s
no possible and the traffic is going to be a nightmare.”
Burns said that
what the commissioners were doing was not taking an official
vote but expressing their feelings about what is known about
the project to date.
“It’s
their (Beazer’s) option. We just can’t sit up
here and say denied,” Burns said.
The idea behind
the straw poll was to give the developer an indication of
the direction the commissioners were leaning. This would allow
the developer to decide whether it was worth the effort to
continue to pursue annexation. Burns recently announced a
similar straw poll concerning the Myers Farm annexation proposal.
At this point,
Burns said, “Drees Homes is the one that looks the most
promising.”
He said this
is not to say that the project doesn’t have drawbacks,
but it also has its positives. One such positive is that part
of the annexation proffer to the town could include a $4.6-million
equalization basin which would act as a “Band-Aid”
for the town’s sewer problem and buy time for the town
to deal with the multi-million-dollar repairs.
Otherwise, Burns
said the sewer repair costs will begin to impact the town
budget. “I cannot sit on my hands knowing there’s
a sewer issue and not do anything for another year,”
Burns said.
Terpko said that
with the changes in the town charter, the town commissioners
could put all three annexations on a referendum. While the
commissioners did not discount this option, they thought it
still might be premature to either take a straw poll on the
Drees annexation proposal or put it to referendum.
George Rathlev
with Beazer Homes could not be reached for comment prior to
publication.
