Annexation: Growing Smartly or Growing Poorer?
Maryland's longstanding Smart Growth policy aims to focus development in and around existing towns and cities, but efforts by municipal officials to expand their borders to allow for new homes and businesses have been controversial in recent years.
Voters have said no to annexations in Aberdeen, Mt. Airy and New Market, among other places, while plans to expand Denton have been challenged in court by surrounding Caroline County. On the largely rural Eastern Shore, where development pressure has been intense, annexations in Cambridge, Trappe and elsewhere also have been contentious.
Most of the objections to annexations stem from residents' fears that their community will grow too large or too fast, clogging roads and crowding classrooms. One of the big arguments for annexation has been that expanding the community's real estate tax base will generate additional revenue needed to fix roads and sidewalks or upgrade aging water and wastewater systems.
But now, an Owings Mills environmental consultant who is advising some residents challenging annexations has questioned the fiscal case for annexation. Richard Klein, of Community & Environmental Defense Services, says he's found that the smallest of Maryland's 157 municipalities tend to have the lowest tax rates, and that the cost of government increases as the town expands in acreage.
His analysis shows "a very clear relationship," Klein says, "that the bigger you are, the higher your taxes are." Some annexations do stabilize or even lower taxes, Klein notes. New stores, restaurants and offices tend to generate more tax revenue than they eat up in government services such as police and fire protection, trash collection and the like. New homes, though, can cost as much as 20 percent more to serve than their owners pay in taxes, he contends. Those towns that expanded to allow for commercial development tended to have lower taxes, he says.
Amid continuing debate across the state about the scale and pace of development, Klein says he's planning a workshop Saturday in Easton for residents who'd like to know more aobut the pros and cons of annexation as a way to grow smartly. The session, from 10 a.m. to noon at the Talbot County library, is free, but advance registration is requested. Click here for more information.
Comments
Your Blog on this issue is, as usual, very informative. The first paragraph succinctly describes the intent of Smart Growth in Maryland, but also clearly identifies one of the key nails in the coffin of any efforts to actually achieve those goals.
The picture attached to the blog is telling. Here is an opponent to annexation in the municipality adjoining the federal facility where BRAC is already being implemented. Where is the growth to accomodate BRAC to occur? Certainly not in Harford County which has not had a comprehensive re-zoning in over a decade. I suspect it will be Lancaster County, which I suppose will be touted by the 'environmental' community as another success in opposing growth in Maryland.
Then there is the comment on taxes in the quote fro Mr. Klein. The lesson for municipalities, I suppose, is to annex only for commercial development, as though the customers for that development will just appear as if by magic (and won't 'clog the roads and overcrowd the schools). Where will THAT growth occur? If not in towns where Mr. Klein's well trained audience will organize to prevent it, then most likely in sprawl development on scattered farms which are approved with never a comment from the environmental community or the State's organized Smart Growth advocates.
Posted by: Jim Noonan | January 9, 2008 9:02 AM
All these new BRAC families can't just pitch a tent on the Chesapeake Bay! They have to go somewhere. Just exactly where do the "NO" people suggest they go? They will ravage the countryside from Darlington to Lancaster, if not allowed to make "smart growth" villages where they make sense. Let's acknowledge that change has to happen!
Posted by: Curtis C. Coon, Esq. | January 10, 2008 9:37 AM