On May 24th, attorneys for the Lakeside developer, Rocks Engineering out of Vienna VA, and the Town of Trappe submitted a 7-page letter (here) to the Maryland Department of Environment (“MDE”) requesting that MDE disapprove Talbot County’s adoption of Resolution 338 (“R338”), weak as it is, the one bit of legislation adopted May 14th to provide the County some future opportunity to review for the first time Lakeside’s consistency with the County Comprehensive plan.
The lawyers set out numerous arguments, many that seem forceful. The important ones consist of half-truths, falsehoods, some “true facts” (devoid of real context), and important omissions, woven together artfully to persuade MDE to kill off any possibility of future County oversight no matter how theoretical. When push comes to shove, Rocks’s attorneys, with the help of Rauch, Inc. (the project engineer whose contacts run deep—see here), has had great success over two decades in obtaining from MDE whatever is needed for this billion-dollar project to move forward. There is substantial risk Rocks will get MDE to step in this time too.
Getting to the truth is like wrestling a greased pig: the critter is slippery, fast, strong and very smart. And who, in particular, is going to fight this? It is the County’s duty to stand up for its rights…not any one Council Member, not private citizens or The Talbot Integrity Project. The corporate entity, “Talbot County, Maryland” must act.
Well, good luck with that. First, a majority of the Council (Callahan, Haythe, and Stepp) are strong supporters of Rocks–as established by their key votes to adopt the exact Sewer Service Map advocated by the developer (R348), including recitation of acknowledged untruths. So the County might not even fight the developer’s effort to quash R338. And even if the Council decides to act, do you know to whom the battle is entrusted? The County Attorney, Patrick Thomas, whose sympathetic actions have without exception aided the developer since Thomas arrival on the scene three years ago.
The Spy is not the place to parse technical legal arguments, so let me hit just two points of many. (And, folks, I know it is very complicated and hard to follow…the fact that enables the developer’s attorneys to believe they can act with impunity.)
First and most critical, the developer contends that with regard to master planning, a town’s authority trumps the County’s authority, contrary to Maryland law. As to land use matters–in particular determining what is and is not consistent with the COUNTY Comprehensive Plan, such as timing of development–the COUNTY’s determination governs. (MD Environmental Article 9-511). Of course the State encourages counties and municipalities to work together, to coordinate, to consult, to weigh each other’s desires carefully. But if/as/ when a county and a town completely disagree, in Maryland it is the COUNTY that makes the call.
Rocks’ contention otherwise, advanced by his attorneys in the recent letter and by engineer Bob Rauch elsewhere (see deposition here, pages 108-111), is doubly dangerous because of the peculiar way annexation law works in Maryland, vividly demonstrated at Lakeside. With certain property owners’ consent, a town can annex land—ANY AMOUNT of land—without a county having anything to say about it at all (other than a short-term zoning constraint). Can that town then do with the land whatever the town wants, with the county completely out of the picture, irrespective of its master plan? Not in Maryland. This is the nonsense of “sovereign municipalities,” an idea that would have incalculable benefit to a developer able to dominate a municipality–think Rocks and Trappe.
Look how this argument is playing out with Lakeside, where in 2002 the developer Rocks (Bob Rauch as a 20% partner at the time (deposition, page 20)), optioned 900 acres—almost 3 times the land area of Oxford—on the other side of Route 50 from Trappe. Rocks then made a deal with the small, financially stressed Town of Trappe: annex our land and help us develop a 2501 home subdivision (with much commercial too), and we’ll do good things for you. The Talbot County Council sent a 4-page letter detailing objections—the SAME objections never addressed to this day: schools, traffic, taxes, impact on rural character, County roads—but the Town signed on to its Faustian bargain anyway.
Eighteen months later, the project finally came before the Council for classification as “S-1, immediate priority” for development. It was flat out rejected, 5-0, without even being sent over to the Planning Commission for a review of consistency with the County Comp Plan. That should have been the end of it. The developer and Town persisted, however, attempting to resubmit its plans, contrary to a rule that said two years must pass first.
And that brings us to the second point in the lawyers’ recent letter to MDE, an astonishing Mount Everest of chutzpah. For the clinching argument, the lawyers cite a precedent, reminding MDE that, after much lobbying by Rocks and the Town of Trappe (just as is going on now), on July 10, 2006 MDE sent Talbot County a letter disapproving its adoption of Resolution 126!
Folks, the enormous gall of this is that these attorneys cite MDE’s rejection of Resolution 126 as the conclusive reason MDE should disapprove R338—when that is the very episode surrounding MDE’s issuance of ILLEGAL sewer construction permits for Lakeside!
R126 had nothing whatever to do with sewer service classifications and did not change the sewer service classification of Lakeside to S-1, the legal prerequisite the County Council had rejected unanimously. R126 had to do only with when the Town could reapply—which it did not do until 2019! Lakeside was not even classified for sewer service at all, but as everyone now acknowledges was UNPROGRAMMED. It stretches credulity beyond breaking to think the most expert land use engineer and land use attorneys on the Shore did not know that. And yet Rocks and the Town knowingly applied for (and got) not just a discharge permit, but actual sewer construction permits from MDE, knowing the project had been rejected by the County…meaning those permits were illegal.
And consider this: MDE rejected R126 on JULY 10, 2006, but the Town (for the benefit of Rocks and Rauch) had already obtained the illegal construction Permit #6-25-1104 on MAY 30, 2006, six weeks before the rejection. For full details and copies of all relevant documents referred to regarding R126, review Chapter 4 of the “History of Lakeside Approvals” here.
(Also, note that Rocks did not exercise its options to actually buy the 900 acres of land until after those illegally issued permits were in hand.)
Flash forward to 2024 and here’s how the sausage got made: on April 2nd the Planning Commission REJECTED R347 and R348 (the critical sewer service map Rocks needed), sounding a death knell by finding them both inconsistent with the Comp Plan. Days later the Council (Haythe and Steppe voting aye) surprisingly adopted R338, which provided (in theory) for a future review opportunity. Per an informal understanding of quids and pros and quos, because of R338’s passage, the Planning Commission in May reconsidered its April rejection, and, voila, reversed position, finding R347 and R348 “consistent.” R347 and R348 were promptly adopted by the Council.
But now Rocks and the Town seek to have R338 rejected…and the Council might not even send the County Attorney off to fight it. Just one of those things, or was that somebody’s plan all along?
Contrary to Rocks’ lawyers’ request, MDE should not disapprove R338. Rather, MDE should extend the review period by 90 days (per its express authority), during which period it should hold a public hearing on all three of the “Lakeside Amendments” to Talbot’s Comprehensive Water and Sewer Plan—R338, R347 and R348. After a thorough, objective review, MDE should then approve R338 and should disapprove R347 and R348, amendments that were found consistent with the Comp Plan by the Planning Commission only because R338 had been adopted. The likelihood of this result is infinitesimal.
Dishonesty tolerated is dishonesty rewarded.
Reform. Reform. Reform.
Dan Watson
The Talbot Integrity Project
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