Dumb Growth in Catonsville. Even Dumber!

Early creation of breaches when it still looked like there
might be some tree protection and only selective cutting.

Clear Cut in December

Clear Cut in December. The tress were not even used for anything,
just a big pile of mulch

 UPDATE 12/12/11: The Development is Approached Even Dumber than Envisioned!

The situation now looks much worse than back in September when the earlier pictures were taken. The developer clear-cut practically the entire development site plus felled all the larger trees along the roadway, presumably to create turn-lanes from what was a very narrow rural forest drive. It makes one weep to see this level of devastation so close to a State Park and in one of the important watersheds feeding into the bay. It is probably safe to say that an individual chicken farmer could hardly be as damaging as a development that mows down acres of trees for suburban lawns which will be fed with fertilizers.
The villages of Columbia, Howard County, some built in the seventies, showed how houses and subdivisions can be nestled among wooded areas without cutting every single tree. They looked instantly mature and pleasant, no need to wait for 40 years for the new little broomstick trees to grow. Why did developers forget how to do this in a time when stormwater management requirements are more stringent and more urgently needed? 

By the way: The "product" (real estate lingo) that will go up here is precisely the one we have already too much of. Precisely the product that created the financial disaster when worthless derivatives based on worthless mortgages based on a superfluous product brought the whole house of cards down. Precisely the non walkable not mixed use "subdivisions" consisting of isolated vinyl boxes that do not create a community and require everybody to drive everywhere. Even if the development is located inside the rural urban demarcation line, it is wrong. Super wrong!

See also SUN paper 12/6/2011


Original Entry based on September visit:

These pictures speak for themselves even if one doesn't know the gory details: Big machinery among big trees, concrete pipes and large logs lying flat on the ground, wood slaughter is obvious. The details are worse: This is a property right adjacent to the Patapsco State Park and on the watershed of the Sawmill Branch, a tributary to the Patapsco River which is struggling and adding considerably to the pollution of the Middle Branch and the Chesapeake Bay.


A local land owner filed a development plan in 2006 and got it approved in spite of the fact that under State law this certainly should be considered a sensitive area and should never be developed. 32 houses, 32 acres of destruction, three cul de sacs. The recession put this atrocity on hold for a few years but now the bulldozers are knocking down the trees and turning the earth. This type of destruction is the main reason why in every large rainstorm thousands of tons of sediment wind up in the Bay and smother the vital underwater grasses there.

From the early stages when there was still a forest
(also below)

 The benefit? A small number of expensive single family homes sitting in isolation on curvy roads looking at the surviving trees which, in their new edge position, will probably fall over in the next big windstorm since they were never exposed like this before.
No amount of buffers, mitigation or stormwater ponds will be able to undo the damage.
It is this kind of local decision that makes it so necessary that there is some State oversight. Those always concerned about local rights and who lament that we are squandering the assets of our children and grandchildren should not only talk about property rights, local zoning and the deficit but also the environment.  There is simply no justification for this type project particularly considering how much already developed land sits fallow, especially in commercial areas.

The B. property adjacent to the beautiful State Park is a glaring example of why private greed, property rights and the market cannot be the only guideposts for how we organize a community.