Editor’s Note:Tom Alspach, local attorney and current president of the Talbot Preservation Alliance, delivered an open letter to the Easton Town Council members last week after an open hearing to discuss the annexation of the 13 acre Orion property on St. Michaels Rd across from Easton Village.
Dear Council Members,
Many thanks for your patience and attention throughout the public hearing on a very warm Monday night. I am sure everyone in the room appreciated your willingness to allow citizens to speak at length despite the circumstances.
By way of this correspondence we simply ask that you consider carefully several important issues raised by the pending proposal, before you reach your decision on annexation. We submit that these include at least the following:
- The Council should acknowledge and exercise its full range of legal authority in connection with an annexation.
Maryland’s Court of Appeals has articulated the full range of the town’s authority in connection with any pending annexation proposal:
A municipality is under no legal obligation … to annex contiguous territory, and may reject a petition for annexation for no reason at all. If the municipality elects to accept such territory solely as a matter of its discretion, it may impose such conditions by way of agreement as it sees fit. If the party seeking annexation does not wish to annex under the conditions imposed, he is free to withdraw his petition to annex … .
Mayor and Council of Rockville vs. Brookeville Turnpike Construction Company, 246 Md. 117, 228 A.2d 263, 271 (1967).
Accordingly, this Council is fully authorized to require, as a condition of annexation, that the proponent agree upon a plan for the specific uses that will be permitted within the zoning classification to be applied to the property.
- The Council should ignore the “threat” of development in the County, if annexation is not approved now.
The implied threat of development under County zoning is offensive and should be disregarded. It would be utterly foolish for the present owner, or a successor, to develop the property outside town limits since annexation, and town utilities, would add immeasurable value to the site. Moreover, the permissible uses under County zoning are limited as a practical matter, and in fact not much different from those uses that would be permitted under BC zoning in the town. Most importantly, the recurring theme of a possible “poultry processing plant” if annexation is not now approved is a red herring and should be ignored. No one would invest the many millions of dollars in the necessary wastewater treatment plant for poultry processing at that location, nor would anyone forego the real value of the road frontage for that sort of inappropriate use for the site.
- “Consistency” with the Comp Plan is a necessary, but not sufficient, predicate for annexation.
Although annexation should not occur unless it would be “consistent” with the CP, a finding of such “consistency” is only the necessary threshold for broader consideration of whether, when and under what conditions the site should be annexed into the town. Annexation is not required now simply because the site has “Priority 1″ status and is designated for “commercial” future land use. And in any event, even a finding of “consistency” is less than clear: there is more to the question then whether the property enjoys Priority 1 status.
The CP also cautions that “Easton has significantly more commercial development than a community of our population would normally dictate.” (Page 39). The Plan additionally states that “new regional scale retail development” will be limited to existing undeveloped commercially zoned properties and redevelopment of Easton’s older shopping centers. (Page 40). The Plan also advises that “a community with an overabundance of commercial development invites traffic congestion.” (Page 32). And perhaps most importantly, the Plan directs us to “reuse existing underutilized commercial buildings” in the town, and to “support projects” that “encourage infill development and commercial rehabilitation.” (Page 240-41).
Annexation and development of the subject property would be plainly inconsistent with all of these principles of the CP and especially would contravene the directive that we should be concentrating on infill and redevelopment – when there is still so much undeveloped infill space in Waterside Village, and many properties in existing shopping areas are empty or in need of rehab.
- The Council should weigh the benefit of deferring annexation, and requiring a plan for specific use, against the alleged “benefit” of annexation now, with no control except for a zoning classification.
Deferral of annexation now, and a requirement that intended uses are identified when annexation does occur, would provide many benefits for the town:
∙ With a quarter million square feet of new retail space recently approved, most of which is not yet on line, and with 230 new dwelling units approved but not yet built in WV and Easton Village, we will within several years see the impact of this development on local traffic and the viability of our existing commercial areas.
∙ Deferral of annexation until we see the real impact of the above will allow for traffic mitigation in actual circumstances, and an assessment of who should bear the inevitable costs.
∙ By requiring an agreed plan for use of the subject site, we can assess whether its development will complement, or instead threaten, the economic viability of existing businesses and shopping areas.
The proponent’s primary claim of “benefit” from annexation now, without a land use agreement, is that it allegedly will “expand the tax base” of the town. But we are regularly reminded by the Mayor and others that Easton’s finances are in excellent shape, and surely generating some additional tax dollars should not justify an annexation that could have substantial negative consequences for town citizens, and existing businesses already generating taxes for the town. Moreover, the town would be better served by garnering additional real and personal property tax dollars from development of the ample existing but unimproved land at Waterside Village, and the rehabilitation of other commercial properties already in the town.
- While considering the pending application, “fairness” must tilt toward the town’s citizens and taxpayers.
At the conclusion of Monday night’s hearing one Council member commented that the Council must “fairly” balance the interests of the many citizens opposing the annexation against the rights of the property owner seeking annexation. While this is certainly true in most instances, we respectfully submit that such an “equitable” balancing is not appropriate here.
The Council does not have before it a proposal by a taxpayer and property owner in the town for a rezoning, a PUD or some other change of status, that has provoked opposition from other citizens of the town. Instead, in this instance, we have on the one hand a resident of the County – who has never paid a dime of taxes to the town – who simply wants the Council to immeasurably increase the value of his property by annexing it into the town. On the other hand, we have town citizens, voters and taxpayers who have grave concerns that annexation now, without a use plan, will have substantially negative effects upon their lives and the town’s existing businesses.
In these circumstances we submit that the Council’s obligation should be to consider the concerns of its existing citizens and taxpayers paramount to – and not equitably offset by – the financial interests of a non-resident looking for increased profitability in the potential sale of his property post-annexation. We hope that Council will consider the pending proposal in this context as it reaches a decision on the application.
We thank you again for your further consideration of these points. And we urge the Council to reach a decision that really is a “win” for both sides – that would allow annexation at a future date, but with an agreed plan for use of the subject property, in order to address the legitimate concerns of neighbors and citizens, while ultimately affording the applicant the financial benefit of sale and development of his property within the limits of the Town of Easton.
Very truly yours,
Thomas T. Alspach, Esq.
President
Talbot Preservation Alliance
Carol Voyles says
With so much commercial space still available in that area, waiting to assess outcomes and impacts would seem the prudent thing to do.
Thanks to Tom Alspach for this comprehensive assessment. Hope the Easton Council finds it helpful.
Jan Bohn says
These comments state our case admirably. Our neighborhood is directly across from the property in question. We know that traffic will be a problem; it already is a problem. We also know there is quite a lot of empty rental space in Easton – in the town center, Waterside Village, Talbottown, the Lowes/Kohls/Penney’s shopping center. Why would the Township add to that unless the space was already rented to a profitable concern? That does not appear to be the case here. Please consider your constituents before voting. Sometimes the ‘tax revenue’ doesn’t actually make fiscal sense,