7/7 Overlay Map & Overlay Public Comm

7/7 Newsletter

Critical Digital Infrastructure (CDI) Overlay Zone

Quoting from the county website:

"Introduced as a comprehensive plan amendment, the map is based on three key factors:

"Data centers should be limited to the area around the Eastalco site, where infrastructure exists to support it.
"Data center development should be limited to less than 1% of the county's total landmass.
"For every new acre turned over to data center development, the County should preserve five acres of farmland."

See the map here. The Planning Commission will first review the map on 7/16 and then take public comments during their meeting on 7/23. The map (as revised) then goes to the state for review; it's not expected to reach the County Council for consideration until fall.

County Planning Commission Hearing 7/9

Please email your comments TODAY and

plan to attend on Wednesday!

On Wednesday, July 9, the Frederick County Planning Commission will hear public comment and make their recommendation to the County Council regarding the proposed CDI Overlay Zone legislation (bill 25-09). See the Commission's agenda here. We encourage you to attend, wear white to show opposition to the current version of the Overlay. Please email your comments to the Planning Commission, County Council Members, and the County Executive.

Planning Commission meetings take place in Winchester Hall, 12 E. Church St., Frederick, and begin at 9:30am.

The Sugarloaf Alliance's complete comments on the CDI bill are posted at our website; feel free to draw from these points as you compose your own:

The CDI Overlay should define a single, compact and contiguous area within the existing Eastalco Growth Area. Almost all of this land is currently zoned industrial and is the most appropriate for data center development.
Data Centers should not be located next to residential land. This was a Data Center Work Group recommendation, and a provision of CDI Siting Bill (25-05) until it was amended by Council.
The CDI Overlay should not be applied to any parcels currently within Rural Legacy, Priority Preservation, or Treasured Landscape areas. While this is a provision of the CDI Siting Bill (25-05), the Overlay bill should contain an explicit prohibition on changing these land designations for the purpose of applying the Overlay. Note: Our hard-won Sugarloaf Plan is "Treasured Landscape" and some areas within the Plan boundaries have been in the data center industry's sights for development.
Frederick County should not approve new Data Center site plans until a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis has been completed by an impartial third party. Thus far, there has been only the industry-sponsored Sage Report calculating additional gross revenue and ignoring county expenses. We would note that adjacent counties collect business personal property taxes; Frederick County should consider that, too.
Future data center development must not require establishment of new power transmission rights of way nor construction of new power generation facilities within Frederick County. Outside of the CDI overlay zone, the data center industry should not be allowed to consume additional land within Frederick County nor should Frederick County residents be required to subsidize construction of infrastructure for this industry.
Future data center development must not require construction of additional water or waste treatment facilities funded by Frederick County taxpayers. Frederick County residents should not be required to subsidize construction of infrastructure for this industry.
A Citizens’ Advisory Group should be established to periodically review and monitor the implementation of the CDI Overlay, CDI Siting Bill, potential data center zoning violations (noise), and associated community concerns. This group should have a majority of members without financial ties to either the data or real estate development industries to provide credible oversight of the data center developments.
Prior to approval of any additional data center developments, emergency response plans need to be formulated and made open for public comment. The potential fire threat that storage of many millions of gallons of diesel fuel within the CDI Overlay zone needs to be considered when approving these developments.

For more information explaining the purpose and impact of an Overlay Zone as well as Sugarloaf Alliance's positions on the county's CDI legislation (Bills 25-09 and 25-05), please see our previous newsletters here and here..

COUNTY COUNCIL HEARING

on the

Critical Digital Infrastructure (CDI) Overlay Zone

Tuesday, 7/15, 7:00pm

Following the Planning Commission's meeting on the 9th (described above), on Tuesday, July 15 the County Council will hold their Public Hearing to take public comment regarding the same CDI Overlay legislation (25-09). Again, please plan to attend and wear white to show the Council your opposition to the legislation as currently proposed. Council meetings take place in Winchester Hall, 12 E. Church St., Frederick, and hearings begin at 7:00pm (the Council meeting will begin at 5:30). The agenda is not yet published.

NOTE: You may send your comments to the Planning Commission, the County Council, and the County Executive by email or snail mail. IF YOU OFFERED COMMENTS AT THE JUNE 17 COUNTY COUNCIL MEETING, those comments were not part of a hearing and therefore not on the record for the CDI Overlay bill. You can put them on the record, by submitting them in writing at this time (as above).

Investing in Workers and Workplaces (IW2)

at Planning Commission 7/9

In addition to the CDI Overlay legislation, on Wednesday the Planning Commission will workshop the proposed "Investing in Workers and Workplaces" (IW2) plan. (See their agenda here.)

Background: See the information initially offered about the IW2 project at the county's website; see Sugarloaf Alliance's concerns about the proposal and the early process here.

Since the initial proposal, County planning staff have prepared a new IW2 document for Planning Commission consideration. For now, we will note that we see no mention of Eastalco or data centers in this document focused on county economic development, and we see very little in the way of analysis. There are a lot of proposed parcel rezonings. Have a look.