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Community Corner

Land Use, Mandates, Highlight County's Major Planning Initiatives

Harford County officials will take a closer look at the use of bike and pedestrian trails in the county.

David Craig unveiled the major planning initiatives in the next four years for Harford County late last week.

The county executive was joined at government headquarters by Planning and Zoning Director Pete Gutwald and County Council President Billy Boniface to announce priorities through 2014.

“Probably strapped around all of these initiatives is this word sustainability,” said Gutwald, giving an overview of the issues.

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A state mandate to evaluate the Chesapeake Bay Critical Area Comprehensive Program Update will be the first part of the new initiatives tackled by the county.

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“Our master plan and land use element will be the biggest issue this year when it comes to the planning and zoning department, but we also realized that there were some other issues,” Craig said.

Gutwald said the county will unveil the “planning and zoning online community” to receive feedback from citizens. The issue is scheduled to be introduced to the County Council in January of 2012.

The county will also assist parks and recreation in evaluating its facilities to meet a state mandate. It is scheduled to be introduced to the County Council in September of 2012.

The floodplain management map will be updated to assess risks throughout the county. Gutwald said it would be an asset to insurance agencies and emergency response personnel.

Lastly, the county will look at “strategies and policies to make a lot of our communities more pedestrian-friendly” in the bike/pedestrian master plan, Gutwald said. He added that it would be more of a neighborhood connector than a commute option and that requests to evaluate bike and pedestrian trails, which are part of the transportation plan, were popular enough to make it a separate initiative.

“It’s a combination of policy and looking at design,” Gutwald said. “How do we interconnect our communities in the development envelope?”

The latter two issues are scheduled to be introduced to the County Council in early 2014.

The kickoff meeting for the master plan and land use update will be Feb. 17 at 6:30 p.m. in Harford Community College’s Chesapeake Center.

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