“It would help my business, but I’m
more concerned about the town,” Brown said. “I
don’t want to see 300 new homes.”
Brown was among the 30 people who attended
an April 12 meeting in Thurmont’s town hall to talk
about the possible annexation and town growth in general.
“Mayor” Martin Burns hosted
the meeting in response to the many e-mails he has received
since he said he expected an annexation request for the
235-acre farm to come to the town in the near future.
Burns has met with developers twice and
told them, “You’d better bring your checkbook
if you’re even thinking about coming to the town with
an annexation request.”
He said an annexation is a legally binding
contract. The town can stipulate anything and if the developer
agrees to it, they have to abide by it.
Area resident Kevin Haney said, “To
me, it almost sounds like bribery.”
Burns said it was a business decision for
the town and the decision depends on what the town is offered.
“They have not made it anywhere close
to being intriguing for me,” Burns said.
Besides a commercial development with a
large box store and a residential development of 300 to
400 new homes, developers have suggested building the shell
of a new town hall (the exterior structure only, leaving
the interior for the town to finish) and a wastewater treatment
plant for the development.
“Nothing is firm until somebody puts
pen to paper and they say this is what we’re offering,”
Burns said.
The box store is commonly believed to be
Wal-Mart, but Burns said five different large stores have
expressed an interest. Wal-Mart has not signed a contract
and Burns has heard Wal-Mart is interested in property between
Lewistown and Walkersville.
“If we were talking Wal-Mart alone,
I think people would say go for it,” Burns said. “People
don’t want the homes.”
Though the town can’t stop a request
from being made, town officials can discourage it from being
made.
“What we can try to do is steer it
and scare them off,” Burns said. “Sometimes
that works.”
However, he noted that the town’s
potential for growth is down to about one year’s worth
of developable lots. With the current zoning on the farm,
only a dozen homes could be built on the farm now, according
to town planning and zoning commission chairman John Ford.
Without that growth, Burns said, “Your
sewer rates and water rates and tax rates are going to go
up if we don’t get more money in.”
Haney, who lives within a third of a mile
from the farm, asked if the town would consider bringing
the annexation issue to a referendum. Burns said he fully
endorsed a referendum, but it has to be brought forth by
residents. The town charter doesn’t allow the commissioners
themselves to begin the process.
Even if a referendum were successful, only
town residents would be allowed to vote on it. Haney and
about half the people at the meeting would not have a say.
“What you’re asking for is a
right to act as if you are part of the town and paying our
taxes,” Burns said.
Town resident Thomas Cromwell said, “You’re
responding to other people’s initiatives, which are
really always driven by commercial interests.”
(See related story, “Myers
development could start in 2008,” in this
issue of The Dispatch.)
