… even if too late to affect it the other day.

Greener Acres, Washington Post, November 21, 2008.

Councilman Tom Dernoga, champion of the TDR legislation in Prince George’s County, will be on the Kojo Nnamdi radio show tomorrow (Friday) starting at 12:30 on 88.5 FM. Let’s be ready to call in and support our issue - and guy!

The planning board has done county residents no favor with this waffling position, found HERE

Working the land
November 6, 2008

“. . . the County Council and Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission must be on the same page with regard to managing growth. Complaints that developers haven’t been building in the right places indicates more needs to be done to attract builders to areas in need of development. And new communities where single-family homes are often bunched closely together – a large source of complaints – could not have been approved without a nod from county and planning officials.

In the end, TDRs would be a step forward for the county. Preserving rural areas not only adds to the beauty of Prince George’s, but it protects environmentally sensitive areas and contributes to growth-management principles.”

Read Tom Dernoga’s Commentary in the Nov. 6, 2008 Gazette:
Now is the time to get sprawl development under control

“. . . developers are used to having it easy in Prince George’s County. For years, they have been allowed to plow down forests and plow farmland with impunity. For years, they have been given all the density they want — at Metro stations or virtually anywhere they ask — without any expectation that they contribute to the greater good or to lessening sprawl. Therefore, they have killed every prior TDR law effort and they are fighting CB-80-2008 furiously. Why pay to build density if the government will give it to you for free?”

CLICK for Greenspace at a glance
Anyone can look up the areas we want to preserve by checking out the county’s General Plan documentation. All the supporting materials can be found at the County site but most likely you will want to look at the key part, called Development Pattern Element which discusses the Policies for each Tier and for the Corridors and Centers.

The “Greenspace at a glance” image is taken from these documents, and in all of them the Developed Tier is the Orange Colored Area generally within the Beltway. Almost all of the County’s “Centers” for development are located in the Developed Tier. General Plan pages 31-35.

The Developing Tier generally is the White Colored Area between the Beltway and Route 301. General Plan pages 36-39.

The Rural Tier generally is the Green Colored Area east of Route 301, along the outer edge of the County and the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center. General Plan pages 40-42.

The Corridors and Centers are designated on the map with symbols. General Plan pages 43-53 for a discussion of Policies for the Corridors and Centers.

An alert that is suitable for printing in hardcopy or sending via email is ready below, two formats. If you send the PDF as an attachment via email to your respective lists, then be sure to include ‘plain text’ to go in the body of your mail message, so readers know what it is all about (some people are understandably cautious about opening attachments.) A text version which you can cut and paste into your email is also available. In either case, it is best if you add your own message (something short) to match the specific interests of your people. (One size need not fit all!)

CLICK HERE for the CB 80 flier in PDF format.

CLICK HERE for the CB 80 flier in text format (suitable for cut/paste into YOUR group alerts.)

The Prince George’s County Council is scheduled to hear CB-80-2008, the “TDR Bill”, on Tuesday, November 18th @ 10am **

County Council Hearing Room
County Administration Building, 1st Floor
14741 Gov. Oden Bowie Drive
Upper Marlboro, MD 20772
(301) 952-3600

** Council Session begins at 10 am. We will try to get a specific time for the hearing, so stay tuned.

For those of you interested in detailed policy analysis, here is a very good paper:

Transfer of Development Rights in U.S. Communities: Evaluating Program Design, Implementation, and Outcomes, by Margaret A. Walls and Virginia D. McConnell of Resources for the Future.

CLICK HERE to download this report in PDF format.

With county legislation advancing - finally! - residents of Prince George’s County, Maryland, may soon see our farmland and urban green space protected. Let’s get the word out to support CB 80, the “Transferable Development Rights” bill now before the County Council!