Dear Friend of the Bay,

Great news for Maryland's forests! On Friday, the Maryland Court of Appeals ruled that forest conservation plans for development projects can be legally challenged after being approved. From now on, forests will have the same legal protections as wetlands and waterfront lands in Maryland.
This ruling comes at a critical moment in our work to protect Harford County's Abingdon Woods, where a developer intends to clear about 220 acres of forests—including the removal of 49 large, old growth trees that are specially protected under Maryland law. Now CBF can move forward with plans to contest the developer's forest conservation plan in circuit court.
While this ruling came down through our work in Harford County, the ruling sets precedent statewide. The court recognized the importance of Maryland's forest protection law and ensured plans that fall short can easily be challenged in court by citizens, nonprofits like CBF, community organizations, and more.
For decades, CBF has prioritized forest conservation efforts to reduce pollution to the Chesapeake Bay. The work has taken on greater importance in recent years because forests are imperative in the fight against climate change. They help filter our waters, increase property values, reduce energy costs, provide clean air and wildlife habitat, and improve public health.
Thank you for continuing to stand with us as we work to protect Maryland's forests and the Bay. 
CBF's Press Release
Bay Journal/ Maryland Matters

FredCo Councilmember Kai Hagen does a good summary of why keeping the boundaries of the protective Sugarloaf plan all the way to 270 makes sense and carveouts for heavy development are not forward thinking policy. Take a moment to sign the petition here.

The Sugarloaf Treasured Landscape Master Plan has been a difficult process. The original plan was going to protect the farms and open space of entire Sugarloaf mountain region - only to have back room deals lead to carve outs along the west 270 for a wealthy developer, Tom Natelli, who wants to skirt the more protective zoning on his 500 acre parcel (currently farmland and forests) (mapped in red below).

The Frederick County Planning Board chose good governance and transparency and added the carve out back into the protective plan, extending the protections all the way west of 270 and all the way east to the Monocacy River- the historical boundary of this region. Now that the plan is in the final phases at the FredCo Council, there are again machinations on the part of Mr. Natelli and others and a new amendment that will be introduced by one or more Councilmembers. This amendment would seemingly allow spot zoning changes throughout the protected area - seriously weakening the plan. 

A Texas-based company called - not making this up- Quantum Loophole (QL)- has already broken ground for a giant data center on a 2,000 acre site along 270 (outside of the proposed land use plan) that used to house the Alcoa factory but seemingly need more land east of 270 (within the proposed boundaries) and just happened to welcome Mr. Natelli to its board of directors last summer - hence the proposed...loophole...being proposed as an amendment to the otherwise solid land management plan in front of the Council this very week. But if the data center is underway in a redevelopment area, why do they need more land in Frederick County - land that is currently forests and farmland? 

"Quantum Loophole’s first-of-its-kind data center campus offers city-scale infrastructure for hyperscale, colocation, and purpose-built data center developers. The more than 2,100-acre, master-planned site sits just 20 ms from the massive, but constrained, Ashburn ecosystem." - Business Wire
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Frederick's QL data center construction is a sister to the one they have built 20 miles away. Too bad there was not more capacity to have all the cloud computing in one spot - no big deal, QL will just create a 40 mile pipeline through the Agricultural Reserve and under the Potomac River in 3 places - entitled QLoop to enable data transfer. And here we were told the internet was actually not a series of tubes.

(From Sugarloaf Alliance)

This is a two minute action request of you.
Montgomery County Council currently has before it the draft update to the general land use plan - dubbed Thrive 2050. Among the myriad troubling deficiencies of the draft- scant reference to water - whether drinking or stormwater flooding, whether River, stream, or groundwater aquifer. And certainly absent is  the effect of and response to the changing climate on water resources- climate change is relegated to reference in a non-binding appendix.
​The Thrive process was paused, rightly, to address the identified absence of racial equity language.
​But a deadline, September 1, to complete contractor product addressing equity is looming… and even the contractor has publicly expressed deep concern that the time is not adequate to properly engage the public and provide improvement.

​​The Planning Department describes this document: “The foundation of planning for Montgomery County is the General Plan. This vision has guided all plans and policies for more than five decades.”

Notwithstanding the frustration over length of update process… during a pandemic… with lack of public transparency and full stakeholder participation… the Council must provide the means to improve both process and substance by giving the needed time and attention to get this plan right. 

County Executive March Elrich wrote to the Council asking that Thrive 2050 be paused to address some glaring omissions and to continue the work of the equity consultant. 
The Equity consultant Nspiregreen gave a briefing to the Council on Tuesday - coverage of that briefing from WTOP (below section on Purple Line) highlights the need to consider -and implement- the full findings of the Equity consultant. 

Hit the Pause Button on Thrive Montgomery 2050 - it’s headed in the wrong direction.
August 2022
Dear Council President Albornoz and Councilmembers,
Thrive Montgomery 2050, the proposed update of Montgomery’s General Plan, if enacted, will fundamentally change our land use policies.  The direction of that change is of deep concern to us.
In keeping with our existing General Plan and master plans, we support these smart growth and housing policies:  

• In order to redress racial inequities and socio-economic injustices, our General Plan must promote and enable full housing for all - especially for low-income and moderate-income families.
• protecting our Agricultural Reserve and our clean streams, clean air and drinking water supplies. 
• Removing planned-but-unbuilt highways including proposed M-83 from all of our master plans.

Thrive’s current version approved by the PHED committee, if enacted, will take our County in the wrong direction: more sprawl and pavement in rural areas - and more displacement in urban areas. Streams, forests and trees in both urban and rural areas are threatened by Thrive’s growth policies. Thrive wrongly promotes non-farming “recreational” land uses in our Ag Reserve; these threaten farmers’ long-term, stable access to affordable land. Thrive would accelerate high-end market-rate housing in our urban and suburban areas which would raise land prices and rents, reducing opportunities for non-market-rate housing (a.k.a. social housing).
These proposed changes require much greater public review, participation, debate and revision, before the Council takes any final action on Thrive. The Racial Equity and Social Justice (RESJ) review of Thrive must offer thorough revisions to the entire Thrive document, including to its housing, growth, and transportation policies. But the rushed RESJ process is unlikely to yield needed revisions to these policies.  Let’s get it right. Let’s not pass such a flawed product in the false belief that “we’ll fix it later.” Let’s fix it now.
Given these problems, I request your active support for these three steps:
(1) Hit the Pause Button on Thrive – and on all Thrive-related strategies, plans and zoning changes. 
(2) Extend Thrive’s schedule to re-program a new effort to review and revise Thrive, through a much more inclusive process. Work with the new incoming council and planning director to enable them to review, evaluate, and revise Thrive as needed – based upon full and inclusive public participation with residents as respected planning partners. 
(3)  Hold public hearings this Fall of 2022, to enable on-the-record public review and comment on the PHED draft, including on any proposed revisions from the RESJ process.