No-Go For Townhouses In Saltworks Creek

When communities work together, good things can happen!

That’s how neighbors around the Saltworks Creek watershed successfully rallied to stop a 76 townhouse and assisted living project in the creek’s headwaters.

Administrative Hearing Officer Douglas Hollmann has denied the special exception requested to build in the headwaters of Saltworks Creek. He noted that the proposed project, submitted by the Monticello Property Group, would have required a massive stream-valley fill in order to the cross Saltworks creek to access the 47-acre development. It would have also required routing a tremendous amount of commuter and ambulance traffic through a residential community.

Hollmann ruled that the project will be:

  • detrimental to public health, safety and welfare of residents in Monticello, creating 250 cars and frequent ambulance trips through narrow streets of the existing community,
  • commercial in nature due to the assisted living facility,
  • not compatible with surrounding residential zoning rules and not consistent with the county’s general development plan,
  • harm environmentally sensitive areas,
  • negatively impact property values

In the map at right, note the skinny area in shaded blue. This is where the massive embankment would have to be created to access the two parcels of land outlined in yellow.

We’d like to thank everybody who rallied together to preserve the quality of life for communities, the creek watersheds and the Severn River itself.

Hollmann specifically acknowledged the tremendous outpouring of community opposition; the zoning and traffic issues raised during the hearing by attorney Dan Mellin, who represented the existing Monticello community on Bestgate Rd.; and the 21 witnesses who testified on behalf of thousands of residents in the Monticello, Woodlore, Saltworks On the Severn, Epping Forest and Severn Grove communities.

River advocates, the Severn Riverkeeper and the Severn River Association also testified against the special exemption, citing devastating water quality impacts from the proposed project.

Click here to read Hollmann’s Feb. 27, 2020 decision.