At the last Mayor & Council meeting in February, we voted on the annexation agreements for the Vista Pointe and Cooper Farm developments. In both cases, the vote was unanimous to approve the annexations. Since the developments will likely be significant for Brunswick’s future, I’ll explain how I got to yes despite having some strong hesitation about it at first.
First, what is going on?
There are two new developments in the pipeline. One is Vista Pointe, which will be between Brunswick Crossing and New Addition (up the hill from the Dollar General and the new municipal building). The other will be on a property known as the Cooper Farm, which is the field between Galyn Manor and Souder Road. Both developments will be age-restricted, which means that most of their residents will be 55 and older and kids under 18 won’t live there.
The developments are consequential. Together, they will add up to 1,210 new houses and bring roughly 2,000 new residents to Brunswick by the time they are finished, probably in the early-to-mid 2030s. Between them and the completion of Brunswick Crossing, we’ll likely go from a population of about 8,000 now to around 11,000.
Because the developments are age-restricted, they will also affect our demographics. In 2020, about a quarter (25%) of Brunswick’s population was 55 or older. Once these fill up, my best estimate is that 30-40% could be in that age range. Exactly how much depends on whether the other parts of town get a higher proportion of younger people if folks 55 and up are drawn to these neighborhoods instead.
That’s substantial change. I ran for City Council looking to keep Brunswick’s growth balanced and paced out step-by-step. In my ideal world, these developments would have happened one at a time, and only one of them would have been age-restricted. I don’t live in my ideal world, though—none of us do—and I came to the conclusion that the annexations are in the best interest of Brunswick’s residents.
I’ll start with explaining what the vote actually did and what constraints shaped our options.
So, what did these votes actually do, and how much could they have actually affected the developments?
The votes were not to approve or deny the developments themselves. They were about whether to bring in land previously outside of Brunswick’s city limits that the developers own and want to include in the developments. By annexing those parcels of land, the City commits to providing municipal services such as water and sewer to those areas. As part of their annexation agreements with the City, the developers make “proffers”, which are things they pledge to do that would benefit Brunswick.
If we had rejected the annexations, the developments could still have gone ahead on the land the developers own within the existing city limits, since those areas are already zoned for low-density residential use. More than 80% of the total area of the Cooper Farm development was already within Brunswick, and the developer could have built 500 of their planned 550 houses on it. For Vista Pointe, about 60% of the land area was already within city limits, though because of the terrain they could have built only 300 of their planned 660 houses on it. With no annexation agreements, however, Brunswick would have gotten no proffers.
So, without the annexations we would still likely have gotten developments, though they might have been a bit smaller. But Brunswick would have gotten less in return. And it may have been possible for the remaining land to be developed outside of city limits with approval from the county. That would have been a bad outcome: developments right next to Brunswick that our local government has no jurisdiction over. I’m not entirely sure how likely that scenario was in practice, but it was a risk.
We also faced constraints that led the developments to be age-restricted, though those are partly self-imposed. Brunswick Elementary School is currently over-capacity, as measured by the state. Although school redistricting next academic year will relieve that pressure, having one of the developments be all-ages would almost certainly put BES back over the top by the early 2030s. The Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance (APFO) passed a few years ago prohibits new development that would make the elementary school go over 105% capacity, and there isn’t the will to change that right now. So, any development has to be age-restricted in order to not add more kids to the school system.
What was the most important consideration for me?
To me, the decisive factor was our water and sewer infrastructure. Keeping up its maintenance is one of my top priorities. In this case, the main issue wasn’t so much about having the water and sewer treatment capacity to service the new developments—as I understand it, we can do that. Rather, it’s about keeping what we have in working order by replacing aging infrastructure. That concerns all of Brunswick, not just the people who will be moving into these developments.
Brunswick has two crucial, high-dollar pieces of that infrastructure that are deteriorating and need to be replaced, and the sooner the better. One is the reservoir by Souder Road. Until very recently, it’s where most of our treated water was stored before flowing to homes. It had to be taken offline just the other week due to leaks and debris getting in there. The other is a machine called a sludge press at the wastewater treatment plant. It separates water from solid waste. Brunswick has to pay by weight to haul our sludge from the plant. When more water is mixed in with the sludge, it costs more to haul, which means higher water and sewer rate increases. And if the sludge press fails, we will have a real mess on our hands.
Together, the reservoir, the sludge press, and an ultraviolet light system that is also important for the wastewater plant cost nearly $10 million to replace. That’s well out of reach for the City’s normal budget. We have about $700,000 in state grants to help with them, and in theory we have $2 million in federal funds appropriated for that purpose, though there has been some uncertainty around that lately. Those items are also only the most immediate needs for our water and sewer system; there are further upgrades needed for future capacity and cost-effectiveness that will cost millions of dollars more.
We need to close that funding gap, but most of the options right now aren’t good. We could ask for more money from the federal government, but that doesn’t seem promising right now, to put it lightly. We could ask for more money from the state, but Maryland is trying to figure out how to plug its own $3 billion (with a “b”) budget hole. We could perhaps issue a bond, but then we’d be eating into our future budgets for a decade or more with new debt servicing costs.
That’s where the developments come in. Developers pay “tap fees” for each home they build, and those fees are used to upgrade the water and sewer system. The two developers combined will pay about $16.5 million in tap fees by the time they are finished. Normally, that money would trickle in over the 6-10 years it will probably take for these developments to be built out. Due to the annexation proffers, though, the two developers combined will pay about $6 million by the time the first plats are recorded (i.e., before their first homes are sold). Having that cash on hand early will allow us to tackle the reservoir and sludge press, and it will position Brunswick to start getting ahead of the game in upgrading our water and sewer system over the years following.
What other things factored into my vote?
The water and sewer tap fees were the most important consideration for me, but they aren’t the only things Brunswick is getting through these annexation agreements.
The Cooper Farm agreement has two important things in it, in my view. First, the agreement specifies that the developer will build a public pedestrian and bike pathway along the north side of Souder Road on the property, which stretches from 9th Ave nearly to 2nd Ave. Presuming the City can get the right-of-way for the last bit by 2nd Ave, they will also contribute to a crossing at 2nd Ave and Souder Road that will connect to the sidewalk from the shopping center. That will make it possible to walk all the way from the middle school to Maple Ave on a path or sidewalk. We’ve got a ways to go before we don’t have kids walking to school in the street, but this is a big step in that direction.
Second, the developer agreed to transfer about four acres to the City for the purpose of building a new senior center or community center to serve all of Brunswick. Either one of those has been a long time coming. The developer will also transfer 10 acres to the City for use as a public park. They also agreed to help the City acquire the 7.5 acre field behind the Galyn Manor playground (it’s currently owned by FCPS). So, there are several public use items coming out of that development, and the language in the agreement is pretty concrete for most of them.
There are also several valuable things included in the Vista Pointe agreement, though the end results of some of them are outside the developer’s direct control. If all goes well, the developer will build a sidewalk on Potomac Street between the new municipal building and the Crums Hollow bridge. That would connect the Dollar General and the houses next to it to the rest of West Potomac Street. The developer will possibly also extend the sidewalk on that side of Brunswick Street to the Brunswick Crossing trailhead at the West End playground. Both sidewalks depend on whether the terrain will permit building them within the public right-of-way, though, which we won’t know until later in the process.
The agreement also has a provision for the developer to transfer a 21-acre parcel of land they own across Souder Road in Rosemont to either the City or Frederick County for community use. What ultimately happens with that depends a lot on Rosemont and the County, though. The developer also committed to clean out clogged culverts in the area downhill from Vista Pointe (within city limits) and to make “commercially reasonable” efforts to build a swale or something similar to help with drainage issues behind the houses on that part of Brunswick Street.
Another thing that will come out of the Vista Pointe development is that 10% (66) of the homes will be marketed as affordable housing. Half of those will be aimed at buyers making 60% or less of the median income for our area, and the other half will be aimed at buyers making 80% or less. More to come on that as the details get settled.
There are a few other things, as well. And in the offchance I misremembered or misinterpreted something, the text of the agreements are what’s authoritative. You can read them here (starting on pages 17 and 49).
So, now what?
Alright, time to sum up. When looking at the possibility of rejecting the annexation agreements, I saw limits on what we would actually be able to change, and I saw a risk of ending up with some particularly bad outcomes (development happening outside City limits, not having the funds to replace the reservoir or sludge press). When looking at accepting the agreements, I saw some concrete benefits for all of Brunswick, especially in infrastructure. I weighed those options and, like my colleagues, voted to approve both agreements.
We will have to reckon with another spurt of growth and some change to our demographic balance. There will also be the usual downsides of development: losing some woods and fields, having construction ongoing for a while, having some more cars on the roads (mainly on Souder Road and Routes 464 and 180).
But there are upsides, as well. Reaching 10,000 residents sooner will likely make Brunswick more attractive for business and may get us new shops and restaurants. Having more residents who are retired or close to retirement may increase our pool of community volunteers, and those residents may have more time during the day to patronize local businesses. And if the cuts to the federal government continue and Frederick County’s overall growth starts to slow or reverse, having these developments in the works could help keep Brunswick from shrinking. As much as fast growth can bring problems, those problems are small compared to the issues that come with municipalities losing population. Baltimore can attest to that.
There are things we will need to focus on going forward. Working with the county and the ambulance and fire companies to make sure we have adequate emergency services is one. Another is to make sure our Public Works department is ready for increased road maintenance needs.
I have two observations to close with.
The first is that I don’t want Brunswick to be forced to age-restrict another development down the line because we’re still jammed up by our school capacity. I’d like Brunswick to remain welcoming to young families as well as residents further along in their lives. We’re currently in a dilemma where the constraint we set for ourselves with our APFO (105% state-rated capacity for the elementary school) doesn’t put much pressure on FCPS to get us more capacity. As someone who will have kids in Brunswick Elementary for the next decade at least, I don’t want it overcrowded. But we may eventually want to look at raising the APFO threshold somewhat—perhaps to 115% or 120%—to get the school system’s attention.
Second, for the next few years I’d prefer to focus on improvements within Brunswick’s limits rather than on additional annexations. We’ve done the work of growth, and now it’s time to do the work of consolidation. That means taking advantage of the opportunity these tap fees give us to catch up on urgent water and sewer needs, and figuring out how we can better sustain our infrastructure with our own resources. That way, we can avoid having to take on a development or luck out with a grant every time we need to replace a big piece of equipment. It also means building sidewalks and enabling some mixed commercial and residential use in places, so that we can get to restaurants and shops more easily. That would help Brunswick stay an attractive place to live even as we enter an uncertain period.
Wishful thinking? Maybe—we don’t live in our ideal world. But I think some of these things are achievable. I hope that, if nothing else, this helped explain my reasoning on these consequential votes. As always, please feel free to contact me directly if you have questions.
The process for these developments is far from over, and their details will be worked out before the Planning Commission for some time to come. If you have input you want to give, I highly encourage you to attend the Planning Commission meetings. You can find their schedule on the Brunswick City calendar.