MARVIN MANDEL, Governor

3857

No. 42
(House Joint Resolution 18)

A House Joint Resolution concerning

Urban Sprawl

FOR the purpose of requesting the General Assembly to
appoint a joint committee on the cost of urban
sprawl to evaluate and make recommendations and
report on the problem of new development to the 1976
General Assembly.

WHEREAS, local officials are being faced with
increasingly difficult decisions about how land should be
used and how much and what type of development should be
allowed. They are being presented proposals for new
types of development that they may not have dealt with
before: clustered single family housing, townhouses,
walking apartments, and high rise apartments are
appearing in communities even out to the urban fringe;
and

WHEREAS, At the same time, there is increased
concern about the impacts of new development on the
community. This has been limited mostly to economic
impacts of the development whether the added tax base
would compensate for the added costs and the new
residents imposed on the community; and

WHEREAS, In recent years, these economic concerns
have been joined by environmental and other concerns.
What will the development do to air pollution, water
pollution, wildlife, and open space? What is the impact
of development upon energy consumption? On water
consumption? How will the development affect the lives
of the people who live in it? Of those who live near it?
and

WHEREAS, There has been no recent effort on the
State level to assess all the economic costs associated
with different types of development, nor has there been a
document that attempted to integrate the various
economic, environmental, natural resource, and social
cost of these developments; and

WHEREAS, Therefore, the Maryland General Assembly
should appoint a joint committee on the cost of sprawl,
and this committee should submit a report to the Maryland