Before making his statement at the Aug. 21 Calvert planning commission meeting, member Christopher J. Gadway asked the panel’s administrator if the pending vote on the Lusby Villas project was the last time the board would see the issue before them.
Administrator Tamara Blake-Wallace confirmed that it was.
“I believe the planning commission is here as a citizens representation and I believe we need to listen to the community,” Gadway said during the meeting at the Harriet Elizabeth Brown Community Center in Prince Frederick.
Noting that he has heard “maybe three” public comments in support of the proposed 276-multifamily dwelling unit development planned for the Lusby Town Center and a significantly larger number of residents voicing opposition, Gadway declared, “I’m going to have to disagree with this project moving forward.”
Gadway, along with fellow commission members V. Wilson Freeland and James S. McQueen, voted opposed to the certification submitted by Blake-Wallace that all of the conditions of the preliminary approval granted by the planning commission in May had been met. The four other commission members voted in favor of the certification, so it passed as presented.
Prior to the vote, McQueen noted the panel had received over 1,000 letters in opposition to Lusby Villas.
“That’s a lot more than a few,” McQueen said.
The large apartment complex is to be built on 26.23 acres of land in Lusby’s residential–office subdistrict. It will have six buildings for apartments, nearly 600 parking spaces and other recreational amenities. The land is owned by John Gott Jr. and the project is being developed by Quality Built Homes.
Since first being announced earlier in the decade, Lusby Villas has drawn opposition from town residents, who content the development will bring traffic gridlock, compromise public safety, max out classrooms in the area’s public schools and cause environmental problems to the Mill Creek watershed.
County Commissioner Mike Hart (R) as been one of the loudest vocal critics of the project.
“You are beholding to make sure it [the project] is done right,” Hart told the planning commission during the public comment portion of the Aug. 21 meeting and after the final vote was taken.
Hart said Lusby Villas is “a business” and the project’s owners are “responsible for their footprint.”
The commissioner, who lives and owns a business in Lusby, has contended the town “doesn’t have the infrastructure” to support the large number of dwelling units proposed.
On Aug. 20, with the Lusby Villas vote looming, County Commissioner President Earl F. “Buddy” Hance (R) noted during his report toward the close of the board’s weekly meeting that some citizens have lobbied for the commissioners to intervene and kill the project.
Hance explained that if the county commissioners attempted to stop the project in its tracks, they would be in violation of the law, would be taken to court and “we would lose. We can’t pull the rug out from under them.”
County Attorney John Norris affirmed Hance’s declaration, stating, “You have the legislative but not the administrative authority.”
Hance said the commissioners are in the process of tweaking the parameters of allowable residential density in the county’s seven town centers but the changes would not impact the Lusby Villas project.
During the planning commission’s public comment section, David Bury of Chesapeake Beach repeated his call for updated traffic study data. Bury said by taking a vote prior to the release and vetting of new traffic impact data, the commission has now created “a dilemma” for itself.
Huntingtown resident Myra Gowans promised the planning commission members they would all be sued by a citizens group that will raise funds to hire a lawyer. The basis for the litigation, Gowans explained, was commission member Lisa Williams’ alleged failure to identify herself as a real estate agent and the questionable validity of a nearly 20-year-old memorandum of understanding between Lusby Town Center LLC and the planning commission regarding the Lusby Villas property.
Gowans claimed the memorandum “has not met the legal standards.”
Before she could elaborate, Gowans was told her speaking time was up. However, she refused to stop. Subsequently, her microphone was turned off, her comments were muted and a sheriff’s deputy escorted her to her chair in the hearing room.
Before the meeting adjourned, Williams, who may have been attending her final meeting as a planning commission member, read a statement into the record.
Williams said Gowans has “recklessly alleged that I have not followed the law.” Williams added that the planning commission’s financial disclosure statement “only requires disclosures of sources of earned income in the applicable years.”
Williams said her application for planning commission membership, which was submitted to the county commissioners four years ago, “stated I was a real estate agent.”
She called allegations that she had a financial interest in Lusby Villas “absurd and false. Typically, the leasing of apartments would be handled by a professional management company, not real estate brokers or agents. I have no financial or personal gain whatsoever in Lusby Villas.”
Williams added that she has received no word from the county ethics commission that any complaint has been filed against her.
“I am proud of my four years of service,” she said.
Williams and four other people, including Bury, applied for the planning commission seat for a new five-year term set to start Sept. 1.
On Tuesday, the county commissioners voted 3-2 to appoint Dale Weems to the planning commission, replacing Williams.
After last week’s meeting was adjourned, two sheriff’s deputies, at her request, escorted Williams to her car for her safety.
Local News
