O’Malley Working On Massive Statewide ‘Smart Growth’ Plan
Smart Growth, the bastard child of controversial and unpopular Democratic Gov. Parris Glendenning, is once again rearing its ugly head under Gov. Martin O’Malley.
O’Malley is working feverishly with his administration to resurrect the failed concept, give it a massive shot of bureaucratic steroids, and put in place a statewide plan to guide future development.
Even though each locality in Maryland already has its own land-use laws in place, Richard Eberhart Hall, Maryland’s planning czar, told the Washington Post that the time has come for the state to steer development!
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“One of the problems we have had in Maryland is getting the growth to go where we want it to go,” Hall, told the Post. “Just because we have mapped smart-growth areas and identified them doesn’t mean there is as much growth there as we would like to see.”
Using the carrot and stick of tax incentives and all of the powerful bureaucratic machinery of state government, the O’Malley administration will take an aggressive role in “encouraging” some developments and “discouraging” others.
Meanwhile, property owners and developers will be forced to ignore the marketplace or chance a confrontation with O’Malley’s latest form of “Central Planning.”
No matter how many laws, regulations, taxes or government edicts are already on the books, O’Malley and his one-party rulers seem to spend their lives thinking up and implementing more and more ad infinitum.
What do you think of the Governor’s new/old statewide “Smart Growth” initiative?
Crossposted on UnfreeState.com
