preserving the quality of life in Olney, Maryland

County Executive's Strategic Plan for Economic Development

On April 27th, the County Council held its public hearing on The County Executive’s proposed Strategic Plan for Economic Development. A united front of citizens groups from across the county testified in opposition to the Plan’s recommended level of growth for the coming decade — the Montgomery County Civic Federation, Neighbors for a Better Montgomery, the Audubon Naturalist Society, Solutions Not Sprawl, the Sierra Club, Montgomery County Taxpayers League, the Olney Coalition and others. Even Planning Board Chairman Derick Berlage testified that the level of growth called for in the Plan is twice that recommended by the Board.

There are approximately one hour of video excerpts, from the more than four hours of testimony presented, now available for viewing on the Neighbors for a Better Montgomery website www.neighborspac.org. Simply click on the top entry in the Headlines box. The clips require REAL ONE Media Player to view (available for free through a link on the website), and they are indexed so that one can use the slider bar on the player in order to view just the portions desired. We hope you will take the time to view these compelling arguments against runaway growth.

Barbara Falcigno of the Olney Coalition testified at the hearing. Her testimony is reproduced below:

Good evening. My name is Barbara Falcigno and I am testifying tonight for Olney Coalition. Olney Coalition represents 2000 households in Olney and is growing everyday. The elected delegates of the Olney Coalition unanimously agreed that this Strategic Plan for Economic Development should be sent back to the County Executive Office with the request to revise it to match the 1% job growth that the Planning Board believes is sustainable.

Because I am a teacher, I instinctively began to assess this plan. I would like to share with you a report card. The categories on this report card are affordable housing, transportation, adequate public facilities, and quality of life for its current residents.

Affordable Housing

The housing market in the County has been described as “hot for the past few years, but now it’s scalding” by the lead story in the past Saturday’s Washington Post Real Estate section (4/24/04, Surreal Estate, page F1). The article continues to state that “job growth is almost a 100 percent predictor of price increases in housing….. Interest rates play a role, but in a secondary way”. Thus if County were truly concerned about affordable housing, they would not have the goal of bringing in a high number of new jobs. This plan confirms the relationship between jobs and housing prices on page circle 27. It states that the County needs more housing in order to slow the increase in housing prices. However, slower job growth would achieve the same outcome. Finally, the Montgomery County Planning Board’s August 2003 report on the AGP (page 7) describes how the county is over capacity for jobs and close to capacity for housing if the entire county was treated as a single planning area. The County Executive’s Strategic Plan calls for 2% job creation and 1.4% for housing units which will result in a continued increase in the price of homes.

Clearly, increasing jobs will continue to drive the cost of housing upward. This undermines the County’s goal of providing more affordable housing.

Transportation

I was pleased to see that the plan identifies the need to address transportation issues with neighboring jurisdictions. After all, our roads do not end at our borders. However, the plan states on circle page 25 “The economic development strategy yielding the greatest long-term net fiscal benefits is to target employment growth at a rate faster than the growth in population.” This would result in more people driving into the County for work. Who does this benefit?

There is a huge need for better roads but there is little money to build them and little land available to build them on. We would like to see the data that supports the statement on circle page 33 that states “An effective solution must include the ICC, which makes the largest contribution to reducing future congestion.” We disagree with this statement because the data about the effect of the ICC is very conflicting.

The County currently has more jobs than houses. It is a laudable goal of having jobs near where people work so they do not have far to commute. However, people chose the location of where they live for many reasons which include quality of life (schools, safety), where spouse works, and where friends/family are located. Trying to create jobs where people live is not a realistic goal - especially in today’s economy where few folks stay with the same company for a lifetime.

Clearly, increasing job growth will continue to increase congestion. This economic plan does not achieve the County’s goal of improving our roads.

Adequate Public Facilities

Many areas are and have been under a building moratorium due to the lack of infrastructure. Current public facilities are at capacity or over capacity (M-NCPPC, Aug 2003 final draft of the Annual Growth Policy, page 8-9). Growth in tax base may provide finances for future services but it does NOT fix what is currently broken. We are currently in a hole and impact taxes do not fully compensate the County for the increase in demands on the infrastructure. It becomes a never ending cycle of broken infrastructure. In addition, current and projected County budgets do not have the money to improve the current infrastructure to meet today’s demands. A major reason people chose to live in Montgomery County is the quality of services – schools, libraries, parks, safety (fire/rescue/police). However, if these services deteriorate and taxes rise, people will choose to leave the County. I know of several people who have left Montgomery County and others who chose not to live here for these very reasons.

One argument made in this plan is that businesses contribute to the tax base and do not place demands on public services (Circle page 31). We challenge this premise since companies are usually enticed to come to an area through tax incentives.

Clearly, the push for more job growth perpetuates a negative cycle of poor infrastructure and growth to provide the funds to improve the infrastructure. The problem is that new growth contributes only a drop in the bucket of what is needed to bring the infrastructure up to acceptable standards. We need to first fix what is broken before we add dramatically to what is here.

Quality of Life

The priority of County’s policies should be to enhance the quality of life for existing residents and businesses – otherwise they will leave. The County needs to look at sustainability. Very little research has been done to analyze population trends and to project what this County will look like in 50 years based on current policies. This is very important to do.

This Strategic Plan for Economic Development is in conflict with affordable housing, transportation, and adequate facilities policies. A 2% growth in jobs will continue to aggravate the affordable housing problem in the County. A 2% growth in jobs will continue to congest our roads. A 2% growth in jobs will continue to strain the fragile public facilities we have today. Park & Planning determined a 1% growth in jobs would provide the growth needed to continue economic viability while providing the breathing room to catch up on building the infrastructure we so desperately need. A 1% job growth would provide a better quality of life for the County’s current residents – that is your constituents.

The goal of a teacher is for the student to learn; therefore, when a student produces poor work he/she is told to revise it. This plan does not receive a passing grade from our community. The Olney Coalition urges you to send this Strategic Plan for Economic Development back to the County Executive’s Office with the request to revise it to match the 1% job growth rate that the professionals at Park and Planning believe is sustainable.

Respectfully,

Barbara Falcigno, Secretary
Olney Coalition