Walkersville moves forward with annexation

Thursday, Jan. 5, 2006

The Town of Walkersville is moving forward with its intent to annex a 250-acre parcel of land south of town before the City of Frederick can do so.

The first step in the process is surveying the land, and the town recently awarded a $14,900 contract to a land surveyor to complete the job.

The town’s annexation of the land — located on the west side of Md. Route 194, immediately after crossing the Monocacy Bridge from Frederick city— would prevent the City of Frederick from annexing the property and developing it for residential and commercial use. The city’s comprehensive plan shows that intention. Walkersville plans to zone the land for agricultural use, with no development.

The land includes two farms, one owned by Doris Grossnickle, and the other owned by Charles and Kathryn Nicodemus.

Both Walkersville’s and the City of Frederick’s comprehensive plans, which show the municipalities’ future growth areas, include the land. Frederick County officials work off of each municipality’s comprehensive plan when drafting a region plan. The county is currently working on updating the Walkersville Region Plan.

Town officials began working on the annexation in October 2004 at the urging of the town’s Planning and Zoning department. That department then stated it wanted to prevent the City of Frederick from annexing the land first.

Once the land has been surveyed, the town will prepare a ‘‘metes and bounds” description of the land, and create a map for Frederick County’s Geographic Information System department, town manager Gloria Long Rollins said. Town attorneys will then draft a resolution for the annexation, and the town will hold public hearings on the matter. Town officials will then vote to adopt the resolution.

Town officials are unsure of the timeframe for when the annexation process will be complete.

‘‘There is no timeline,” Long Rollins said. ‘‘It’s not a big urgent thing, but it’s something we wanted to complete to make sure they’re in our boundaries and we have control over that area. We didn’t want the City of Frederick to complete the proceedings first.”

The town must ensure the zoning is consistent with the county’s plan, town planner Susan Hauver said. The current county plan has the area zoned as agricultural, but the county’s 20-year growth plan has it earmarked as an office research industrial area.

‘‘The county can’t stop us from annexing the property,” Hauver said.

If the county finds a town’s zoning of annexed land inconsistent with the county’s comprehensive plan, it can block development of the land for five years. Since the town’s goal in annexing the farmland is to prevent development, it will achieve its aim either way the county rules.

‘‘Those land owners are more than willing to come in [to the town],” Burgess Ralph Whitmore said. ‘‘We got there first, we got the people lined up so that’s it.”

Whitmore said he believed the land would eventually be developed as an industrial area. But, as part of the town of Walkersville, any development there would be subject to the town’s Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance, which requires adequate schools, roads and other infrastructure to exist before more development can take place.

Frederick city does not have such a growth ordinance.

The town awarded the contract for surveying of the land at its last meeting Dec. 14, to the low bidder, Whitney, Bailey, Cox and Magnani LLC. While the company had not included travel expenses in its bid, town officials made a motion not to pay the company any more than $20,000 for the whole project, which town staff expects should only take one day to complete.