Potomac — Today [March 4], the Council took a critical vote to protect one of our county's most pristine and fragile watersheds. After months of deliberations over the future over the Ten Mile Creek area of Clarksburg, I feel confident my colleagues and I arrived at a sound, scientifically-supported conclusion to limit the amount of new development that can occur in this area.
The Clarksburg Master Plan was created and approved in 1994. Fortunately, even back then, planners and councilmembers recognized that much of the planned development in stage four of the plan was located in and around the Ten Mile Creek watershed. They had the foresight to include a pause button of sorts — one that said that the council could reconsider land use recommendations in stage four of the plan based upon future environmental assessment.
As one who firmly believes we have an obligation to be good stewards of the environment, I took this pause button seriously, and when I was Council President, I led our Council in sending the plan back to the Planning Board for reconsideration. Upon receiving the Planning Board's recommendations, I then spent a great deal of time examining the science pertaining to the watershed and listening to local, state, and national subject experts. Experts told us that the unique and fragile geology of the watershed, coupled with the natural slopes of the land, made it particularly susceptible to degradation from development. We were told that the lower the amount of impervious surface, the better for the watershed. In the end, the science and the data was indisputable.
For those who argued that added density on certain parcels of land was needed in order to meet the community-building goals of the original 1994 Plan, we addressed that too by allowing for new development, but protecting the most sensitive areas by creating an overlay zone over most of the watershed requiring enhanced buffers and boundaries for land disturbance. The reality — 20 years after the prior plan was adopted — is that several fundamentals of that plan, including the notion that Clarksburg will be an employment hub, are no longer realistic. In addition, we were told by retail experts that the better site for a premium outlet mall was at Cabin Branch, outside the Ten Mile Creek watershed, and our Council has allowed for that development to take place. Once we allowed for that boon in retail to occur, the experts told us that additional retail on a large scale would hurt Town Center's prospects, not help it, and what Town Center needed was a modest number of additional "roofs."
Good public policy often entails weighing a myriad of public and private interests and planning for future generations, and this issue was no different. But in this instance we could actually protect this "treasure" and also allow for what Clarksburg and Town Center truly needs, a modest number of new roofs located in areas that will not pose a threat to Ten Mile Creek. Ten Mile Creek is one of the healthiest streams that our experts have found in Montgomery County, Howard County, and Carroll County combined, and if this Council's legacy is that it worked hard to protect it, that is a legacy worthy of our residents for generations to come.
My colleagues, Councilmembers Marc Elrich and Hans Riemer, were invaluable in achieving this outcome, and I am grateful for their hard work and diligence on this issue. And I am grateful that the rest of my colleagues agreed to protect this natural resource for future generations because we will not get a second chance.
Roger Berliner, Montgomery County Councilmember
District 1