EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

MAYOR AND BOARD OF ALDERMEN

DEPARTMENT OF PLANNING & COMMUnity DEVELOPMENT

Date SUBMITTED:                         July 28, 2006          

DATE OF WORKSHOP SESSION:  August 2, 2006

date of public MEETING:        N/A

 

To:                 MAYOR & Board of ALDERMEN

From:           Chuck Boyd, Deputy Director of Planning & Community Development

RE:                  Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance (APFO)

 

 

PURPOSE:     To present to the Mayor & Board of Aldermen information on an APFO. 

 

HISTORY:  With recent election, there has been a renewed push for the City of Frederick to adopt an Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance (APFO).  Frederick County adopted an APFO for roads, schools, sewer and water on December 1, 1991.  Since that time, the County ordinance has had several revisions. 

 

In 1997 & 1998, the City of Frederick established a committee to develop an APFO for only schools. This committee produced a draft plan that was never adopted.  In creating an APFO for schools, the committee found three major problems:

 

1)      Decision about school construction and redistricting essentially became decision as to where developments can be approved.  These decisions are made by the County and the Board of Education and not the City of Frederick.

2)      The APFO often passes small projects and fails larger project (unless the phasing option is used).  To pass there must be enough seats available today for all students who would come from a development when totally built out.

3)      The County APFO is very strict and would not allow for exceptions that promote other City goals and objectives like affordable housing or downtown redevelopment.     

 

There are other municipalities in the County that currently have an APFO.  These include: Brunswick, Emmitsburg, Mt Airy, and Walkersville.  These ordinances vary with the issues facing each jurisdiction.  For instance, Walkersville only reviews the adequacies of schools & water and Brunswick reviews water, sewer, roads & schools. 

 

Other jurisdictions within the state that have APFO’s include:

 

Counties with Adequate Public Facilities Ordinances

Anne Arundel Carroll Harford Prince George’s Washington, Baltimore, Charles, Howard, Queen Anne’s, Calvert, Frederick, Montgomery, St. Mary’s

 

Municipalities with Adequate Public Facilities Ordinances

Boonsboro, Emmitsburg, Laurel, New Windsor, Walkersville, Brunswick, Hagerstown, Manchester, Sykesville, Cumberland, Hampstead, Mount Airy, Taneytown  (Source: HB 1205)

 

 

DISCUSSION:  First we must understand what an APFO can accomplish and what it cannot do.

An APFO is a form of land use regulation that controls the timing of property development and population growth with the purpose of ensuring that the public facilities needed to serve new residents are constructed and made available contemporaneously with the impact of the new development

 

Said another way, the purpose of an APFO is to ensure that, to the maximum extent practicable, approval of new residential development will become effective only when it can reasonably be expected that adequate public facilities will be available to accommodate such new development.

 

An APFO is a planning tool that attempts to coordinate the local CIP and growth.  An APFO can be applied to public facilities such as schools, jails, transportation, utilities, parks and recreation, etc…The most common uses for an APFO is for schools, roads, water and sewer. 

 

An APFO is not intended to stop growth, but to manage it in a responsible manner.  An APFO is also not a financing mechanism, but can work to regulate development to mirror pubic and private investments in infrastructure.

 

At the direction of the Mayor, staff quickly changed the Brunswick APFO for schools, water, sewer and roads to accommodate the City of Frederick.  Even with this quick turn around, each ordinance requires policy to be developed by the elected officials.  If the Mayor & Board of Aldermen decided to use Brunswick APFO as a model, the following decision need to be made:

 

  • Types of exemptions (page 5 Section 1.7 B)
  • Road Thresholds (page 10 & 11 Section 2.1 A & B)
  • Determine extent of road test (page 11 Section 2.2 A)
  • Water: maximum percentage of plant capacity for adequacy (page 13 Section 3.2)
  • Sewer: maximum percentage of plant capacity for adequacy (page 13 Section 4.2)
  • Schools maximum percentage for adequacies (page 14 Section 5.2 C)
  • Phasing adequacies for schools (page 16 Section 5.2 H)

 

These same policy decisions will need to be made with any type of growth management tool. 

 

This workshop is a follow up to the 7/19/06 workshop.  At that meeting the Mayor & Board of Aldermen requested that staff from Brunswick, Carroll & Howard Counties be invited to discuss their APFO’s.  The purpose of this workshop is to allow the elected officials to discuss Brunswick APFO with the staff that administers it on a daily basis. 

 

The staff from Howard and Carroll Counties will be present on 8/9/06 to discuss their APFO’s.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

RECOMMENDATION:  Staff has no recommendations at this time.

 

 

BACKUP INCLUDED:          Brunswick’s APFO

                                                 

           

           

REVIEWED BY DEPARTMENT HEAD:    Charles W. Boyd 

 

CONCURRENCE BY:

                                                               Date                                                                       Date

FINANCE                          ________ _______        LEGAL       ________       ________

 

CITIZEN SERVICES                   ________ _______        FPD             ________       ________

 

DEPT. PUBLIC WORKS   ________           _______        PLANNING  ________       ________

 

ENGINEERING                 ________            _______        CIP              ________       ________