Queen Anne’s County will be be having a referendum (Question A) on revising and updating the County’s Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance. Are are some basic FAQ on APFO’s and background information.
Q. What does “APFO” stand for?
A . APFO stands for Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance. Fourteen of Maryland’s faster-growing counties (and 26 municipalities) have such ordinances. QAC first adopted an “interim” APFO in 2001.
Q. What, in general terms, does APFO try to accomplish?
A . APFO, as its name implies, tries to insure that the schools, roads, and other “public facilities” (such as water and sewer) serving a proposed development will remain “adequate” for the existing community after the development is built. If school classrooms will be too crowded, or roads too congested, or there will be insufficient sewer capacity or water supply, APFO says that the development shouldn’t be approved.
Q. If there is one or more of these inadequacies, is that end-of-story for the developer?
A . No, the developer has three options, though he may not like any of them very well. First, he can simply delay his subdivision application and wait until adequate capacity comes into existence — as, for example, if a school expansion or a new overpass is about to come off the drawing board. Second, he can reduce the size of his project, or develop it in phases, so that either it is below the size thresholds at which APFO comes into play, or it will be supported by adequate public facilities coming available in the future. Third, he can propose a “mitigation plan” to create adequate capacity: the developer can construct, or fund the construction of, additional facilities that will keep the service demands of his development from degrading services to the existing community.
Q. One can see why developers wouldn’t care much for APFO, especially at a time when budgets are tight and there’s little or no public money for new schools or upgraded intersections. What’s the rationale for throwing this cold water on the developers’ projects?
A. The rationale is simply what the whole purpose of APFO is: to protect existing residents from having new development cause their schools and roads to become inadequate. As between the interest of the existing community in adequate public services, and the interest of the developer in doing a project, APFO says that where these conflict, the existing community wins.
Q. But what if my priority is growth? What if I’m ready to accept more school crowding and greater traffic congestion in order to achieve growth and a larger tax base? After all, you can’t make an omelet without breaking some eggs.
A . That question brings us to the APFO Revisions. The majority of the County Commissioners have decided that QAC’s “permanent” APFO enacted in 2007 will impede development that they want to see happen. So they passed the APFO Revisions. These would change the standards of adequacy and redefine what developments they apply to, so that the revised APFO would no longer delay developments.
Q. OK, run us through what the APFO Revisions would do with schools and roads. How much of a change in the adequacy requirements are we talking about?
A. Let’s start with schools. An important initial point is that commercial developments, which by definition don’t create residences for families, aren’t, and never were, subject to the APFO standards for schools. Nor are age-restricted residential developments, where no school-age children are allowed. So it’s only the ordinary residential developments that APFO tests for impact on schools. Here the APFO Revisions would make two big changes. First, the size of residential developments subject to APFO would rise from 6 or more units to 20 or more units. In 2007, in the permanent APFO, then-Commissioner Ransom took the lead in making the school adequacy test applicable to any “major” subdivision as defined in the code – i.e. one of 6 or more lots or units. This action, supported by the other four Commissioners, prevented developers from avoiding the schools adequacy test (as they had been) by keeping their individual subdivision applications to 19 units or less. The APFO Revisions would re-open this highly valued escape hatch.
Second, whereas the present APFO now says that a school becomes inadequate if its enrollment exceeds “100% of state-rated capacity for each level of school”, the APFO Revisions would raise that number to 120%. Of the 40 Maryland jurisdictions with APFO’s, only one has set its school adequacy standard as high as 120% of capacity. In 2007, then-Commissioners Ransom and Billups stated, and their colleagues all agreed: “We firmly believe a school is full at 100% capacity, not when portables line what once were playgrounds.” The majority of the current Commissioners, however, have a different attitude toward the educational consequences of increased class size and greater use of portables: see related article in this issue, APFO Revisions Will Be On November Ballot.
Q. What do the APFO Revisions do to roads and intersections?
A . The changes to traffic impacts are similar to what would be done with school impacts. First, the size of commercial developments that can avoid APFO testing for traffic impacts would be raised, and second, and more important, what is considered an adequate “level of service” would be lowered. Level of Service, or LOS, is (to quote from the Comprehensive Plan) “a qualitative description of [traffic] operations based on delay and maneuverability. It can range from ‘A’ representing free flow conditions to ‘F’ representing gridlock. The County roadways, in general, currently function at a Level of Service ‘A’.” (As the Plan notes, however, this general A level of service certainly doesn’t apply on summer weekends!) Under the APFO Revisions, outside of growth areas the level of service required to be maintained post-development would go down from “B” to “C”. In growth areas, the required level of service would be lowered from “C” to “D”, a common goal for urban streets during peak hours. (“D” means that “the driver experiences reduced physical and psychological comfort levels. Even minor incidents can be expected to create queuing, because the traffic stream has little space to absorb disruptions.”)
Q. Is the ballot question on APFO Revisions going to be confusing? Will I know how to vote for what I want?
A . Yes, the wording of the ballot question is in legalese, but, no, you shouldn’t have a problem with knowing how to vote. That will be clear enough: • If you agree with what the County Commissioner majority did in passing APFO Revisions, you will vote “For the Revisions”.
Q. Suppose I want to read more about this. Where can I find the documents themselves?
A . The existing APFO is in Chapter 28 of the County Code. It can be found by going to the County website www.qac.org, clicking on the Information tab at the top, then clicking on County Code Library (on two successive screens), and finally scrolling down to Chapter 28, Adequate Public Facilities. The APFO Revisions are also on the County website. Again, click on Information and then on “Ordinances; by year”. Then click on CY2011 at the left. That takes you to a page where you can scroll down to Ordinance 11-22. There, with further clicks, you can get the texts of both the APFO Revisions as passed and the Dunmyer amendments that were not adopted.
Curiosity of the Queen Anne’s Chronicle
Question A
Local Referendum by Petition
Revisions to the Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance
County Ordinance 11-22 was adopted September 27, 2011 and would revise and update the Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance in Queen Anne’s County. Among other things, the Ordinance would require a determination of school adequacy for residential developments of 20 or more new lots and reduce the level of service standards for schools and transportation facilities.
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