Special Tax District proposals lead the growthscams presented.

The state and county governments are promoting growth in the Baltimore Region. The Baltimore Metropolitan Council (BMC), comprised of the governments of Baltimore City, Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Carroll, Harford and Howard Counties, is perhaps the largest culprit. Using federal, state and county funds, the BMC plans expenditures of about one billion dollars per year for transportation and highway projects in the Baltimore region.

The Council's members are mainly the county executives of member counties, plus a few state representatives. The BMC's chair is John Gary, Anne Arundel County Executive; it's executive officer is Harvey Bloom.

The Transportation Steering Committee (TSC) of the BMC handles the major planning decisions for the member county executives. The TSC Chair is Jon Arason, Director of Planning and Zoning for the city of Annapolis. Harvey Gold, Senior Anne Arundel County Transportation Planner, represents John Gary.

The BMC sprawl promoting machine works like this: Gold helps coordinate the BMC highway building and road widening projects with the business community and developers in Anne Arundel County. His largest building project currently is a $50 million expenditure for two miles of highway and interchanges on Route 32 at Fort Meade. This project will save commuters between Howard and Anne Arundel counties approximately 2 minutes. Meanwhile, there is no bus service between these areas or BWI.

The Maryland Department of Transportation and the Baltimore-Washington International (BWI) Airport have shown ingenuity by financing the construction of new highways and parking garages in the BWI area. For example, BWI is spending $50 million for parking garages, financed by bonds purchased by the Maryland Transportation Authority (MTA), which has surplus funds from its Chesapeake Bridge tolls. The MTA does not invest in public bus service.

Anne Arundel Sprawls Ahead!

The Anne Arundel County Council has created two county government institutions that sponsor growth: (1) the "special
taxing district" and (2) the "tax increment
development district."

Home builders and developers use the special taxing district as a way to shift infrastructure costs from themselves to new home buyers. For example, a person buying a new house may discover that this special taxing district has incurred debts for construction of his community's new infrastructure-expenses that the developer had to pay previously.

The second Anne Arundel pro-growth innovation, the "tax increment development district," functions as a county tax shelter for large developers of business parks, malls and other commercial enterprises. Under the tax increment development district scam, county taxes are used to pay off huge developer costs.

For example, the planned Arundel Mill Mall near BWI will be both a special taxing district and a tax incremental development district. The county taxes collected from this giant mall will go into the Arundel Mill Tax Incremental Development District to pay off its debts before reverting to the county.

The multi-national corporation that is developing this 400 acre mall near BWI hopes it will be the largest mall in the state. Apparently, the development will have over 100 acres of parking lots. It assumes that most of its customers will drive over 15 miles to reach it. Meanwhile,There is no bus service to these areas or BWI.

John Baer (Send comments to the author at #10 Taney Avenue, Annapolis, Maryland 21401)