21 months after the process was initiated, final work sessions are now under way to complete the Queen Anne’s County 2010 Comprehensive Plan by end of July 2010. The Queen Anne’s County Planning Commission met in special session on April 6 and used half their regular monthly session on April 8 in the next step of what Helen Spinelli, chief of Community and Environmental Planning for Queen Anne’s County, called, “the most citizen intensive process in the history of Queen Anne’s County.”
Planners reviewed almost half of the preliminary draft plan with three further work sessions scheduled before May 7, the planned release date for 60-day review.
According to the draft plan introduction, the 2010 plan is intended to strengthen the county’s “guiding principles” as first defined in the1987 plan: to preserve and protect the Chesapeake Bay and tributaries, to maintain the rural character of the county and to protect large areas of the county for agricultural uses. The subsequent plans of 1993, 2002 and the 2010 plan in progress all work to “confirm, enhance and strengthen” the 1987 principles with the implementation of 2009 Smart Growth legislation goals and objectives in the 2010 plan as the primary difference in that document.
Spinelli, the lead planner on the project, said the entire process began in June 2008 when newsletters were sent to every citizen in the county followed by three large community meetings in July and August of that year.