Maryland's Smart Growth Legislation

by Michael Burke

Anti-sprawl legislation passed on the final weekend of the Maryland legislative session. Gov. Parris Glendening's self-described top legislative priority, his "Smart Growth Initiative, "sailed through the House and Senate after key differences were ironed out. The bill, a slightly weakened version of what the Governor proposed last summer, should discourage suburban development.

The new law will restrict state spending on roads, sewers, schools and other public infrastructure spending to designated growth areas -- essentially all the areas inside the Baltimore and Washington beltways and established towns and cities across the state. The law means that hundreds of millions of state dollars will be funneled into existing growth areas. Current development patterns had been predicted to eat up more than 500,000 acres of open space and farmland over the next two decades. Development can still occur outside growth areas, but no state funds can be used to support those efforts, taking away a major financial support to existing sprawl patterns.

Environmentalists won a key compromise in the final bill. Growth areas must be in areas that have existing water and sewer lines, not simply water systems as the House version had specified. Given the growing recognition of the problems with septic systems, this curb on suburban sprawl has particular significance for the quality of the state's waters. In a compromise, the final bill allows industrial areas and office parks to qualify as growth areas as long as they already have public sewers.

In another important victory for environmentalists, a "loophole" that would have allowed any road project now in the state's transportation plan to go forward, whether or not it falls in a designated growth area, was dropped in the final version. Given the long time horizons for highway projects, this loophole might easily have facilitated sprawl for years to come.

The Governor's companion legislation, the Rural Legacy bill, was also approved on the final weekend. The bill authorized the use of state funds to preserve land in areas vulnerable to development. Early in the session the legislature also adopted the Governor's Brownfields bill, which encourages voluntary cleanups of polluted industrial sites.