BROADNECK 2016 Year in Review Pt. 6 – How to Protect Rural Areas

County Executive Steve Schuh strongly supported recent legislation for the preservation of rural land in South County. Public utilities will not be made available to selected properties- not only in S. County- but this designation included three properties on the Broadneck Peninsula. These properties named included the RA/RLD zoned properties on Pleasant Plains Road, Holly Beach Road and Whitehall Road.

Our Councilman Peroutka summarily removed our rural acreage from preserved properties protection to give the original propety owners wider latitude if they may want to bring in water and sewers and develop their properties more densely in the future. We found this position to be unhelpful. We have serious concerns about unfettered property rights where the property rights of adjacent homeowners are not considered. In our opinion, limiting development to current levels does not put onerous restrictions on current owners.

This Legislation ultimately failed due to concerns by communities not in the rural areas. Their concerns were that nothing the bill protected them from development pressures pushing into their communities once the rural areas were capped.

We look forward to working with the county in a more constructive form to protect our rural areas and also limiting unwanted growth on our peninsulas which are problematic for traffic issues that dense development brings.