Trying to Get a Handle on Growth, Across the Region

Yesterday's Sun had a very interesting piece, where they interviewed the planning departments from five suburban Baltimore counties (Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Carroll, Harford, and Howard) on a number of vital statistics.

County	APF*	Taxes**	Build Out
Anne Arundel	If schools are over capacity, developer must wait until more space is available. APF includes roads, fire suppression, sewage disposal, storm drainage and water supply.	$2,346/$4,617	40,000-50,000 more units
Baltimore	If schools are over 15% over capacity, hearing officer can deny project or place it in a queue. APF includes roads, sewage disposal, and water supply.	None.	????
Carroll	If schools are over 20% over capacity, developer must wait until more space is available. APF includes roads, fire and emergency services, police, water and sewerage.	$2,787/$7,610	28,000-37,000 more units
Harford	If schools are over 5% over capacity, developer must wait until more space is available. APF includes roads, and water and sewer service.	$1,473/$7,442	30,000 more units
Howard	The county caps homebuilding at 1,850 units a year. f schools are over 15% over capacity, developer must wait until more space is available. APF includes roads.	$1.80/sqft	25,000 more units

So what's the summary? Our adequacy of public facilities laws seem to be the tightest in the region, covering the widest range of infrastructure impacts (though I've never seen any of the constraints, beside schools, stop a project). Our impact fees are woefully inadequate, even by local standards. An accurate assessment probably puts them at about 1/3 of where they should be. Build-out. If 40,000-50,000 new homes in the County (the most in the region, aside from Baltimore County, which is apparently clueless on the matter) doesn't scare you, nothing will. At current rates, and with our existing impact fees in place, we would be $360 million additional dollars in the red as a result of that new build-out. That's to say nothing of the additional traffic, pollution, sewer and water problems caused by adding another 100,000-150,000 residents.


* Adequate public facilities ordinances
** Multifamily unit/Larger unit impact fees