Representatives from civic groups all over District 9 -- including Clinton, Brandywine, Baden-Aquasco, Croom, Danville-Floral Park Rd., and Windbrook -- joined us in Accokeek to discuss development concerns such as inadequate public facilities and 3 bills (CB-51, 52, and 53) introduced by Councilwoman Bland in such a way as to prevent public participation through the standard hearing and notification process. (Click here to read these bills.)
Ms. Bland was able to spend 40 minutes of her time addressing our concerns before she unfortunately had to leave for another event previously unbeknownst to us. Two of her staff members kindly stayed after her departure to answer questions until the meeting concluded at 9:00.
While priorities were varied, the general sentiment of the crowd was that
1.
Development cannot continue unchecked until adequate public facilities (police, fire, EMS services) are in place
2.
Ms. Bland should not have introduced text amendments to allow three huge development projects to be approved without a normal public hearing process
3.
The planning and zoning processes in general are not working to serve the citizenry, and must be revised to allow residents to participate more effectively in the planning and development system that has such a deep and lasting impact on all of us
Ms. Bland did provide written answers to the questions we submitted prior to her visit, and these will be posted to our website shortly.
The most valuable outcome of this meeting was absolutely the show of coordinated opposition to business as usual that we were able to present. One obstacle that we have been facing is that too many people have been working in semi-isolation, which has not always been as effective as they might have hoped. We are doing a lot of successful networking, and thus are maximizing our impact.
We were also pleased that a representative from Steny Hoyer's office was in attendance, and we were glad to meet the Gazette's new reporter for this area, Leslie Woolridge. Click here for her coverage of the meeting.