As I often tell my wife, perfection is just too harsh a standard. So the Spy is forgiven for it’s erroneous and misleading summary of results of the Orion property annexation hearing. After all, the video did capture the full dialogue.
But having been in the room, I’ll say that your reporter must have been downstairs taking a break, and gotten the purported summary from the applicant’s attorney afterwards.
All five Council members clearly are insisting on an access road—because of public safety concerns, not sanitation. The developer has not yet worked out that access road, and as a former developer myself, I feel his pain. But that’s the nature of the business, and unless the Council is sleepwalking, that burden will not be shifted to citizens, nor will the costs of waiving it (i.e., increased traffic congestion and safety).
I think Mr. Lesher attempted to leave everyone happy by essentially approving the annexation conditionally—that is, “if/as/when” the developer were to show up with an access road, the annexation would automatically go into effect rather than starting the process anew…but even that notion was shot down as the Council unequivocally rejected the application 4-1. As evident in the video, the Council—and pretty much everyone else—does expect that this property will sooner or later be annexed into the Town. (Mr. Lesher: “Things will fall into place.”) But that’s a different matter than reporting that this annexation application was “temporarily defeated.”
As Mr. Ford and others on the Council said, these properties will almost surely be developed some years down the road as a PUD (“planned unit development”). Because in that timeframe the Easton Village community should be fully built out and the BJ’s/Target Center should be completed (many thousands of sq. ft. remaining!), many issues—including traffic congestion—will be much more clear. At that point the Town will be in a great position to define—and will have the power to require—whatever conditions make sense at that time. Annexation today would be way premature, though we all understand why the developer would like to get ahead of the game.
Dan Watson
Talbot County
Doug Davies says
Well said. The narrow focus on the access road flies in the face this site in context of the town as a whole. Surely this property will eventually be annexed into the town, but the bigger question of the need of the town to annex any more property seemed to be vacant from the conversation. With thousands of vacant SF in the Watergate Village development, along with many vacant parcels all throughout the town (think along Marlboro Drive at Khols, properties along Port Street, vacant buildings downtown, etc.) the haste at which this annexation was trying to be pushed through was unfit. Mr. Lesher’s sentiment I can agree with but the focus of the access road seemed to be shortsighted. If you think about what this intersection will look like at full build out of the Watergate Village side, I suspect we would be having a conversation very soon about adding an access road to St. Michales Road. Once the light is in place this intersection will quickly resemble any ordinary intersection with a gas station or royal farms on the corner. This is not my desire, but this is the fate of the intersection.
Glenn Baker says
The stories speak to the desires of the neighbors. Most folks think of a neighbor as being some one living close by. Not only are these NIMBY neighbors not close by they can’t even see the property under discussion from their house. And then they use the tired “public safety” argument.
Easton’s town government has been hood winked yet again.