The owner of a local surface mining company stirred up a hornet's nest early this spring when he proposed to rezone 150 acres in Hughesville in the event that he needed the land to relocate a gravel wash plant to a portion of the property.

Frank Chaney II, president of the board of Chaney Enterprises Inc. in Waldorf, submitted a request early this year to the county planning office to rezone the property west of the Hughesville Post Office and the Brookleigh Woods subdivision on Prince Frederick Road from agricultural conservation/village residential to heavy industrial in March.

Chaney said during public hearings held this year by the Charles County Planning Commission and Charles County commissioners that the rezoning was warranted because there has been a significant change in the neighborhood and that a mistake was made when the parcel was originally rezoned.

The completion of the Hughesville bypass, declining businesses in the village and the death of the tobacco industry in Southern Maryland have all contributed to the change in the neighborhood, Chaney testified.

The relocation of the gravel wash plant that is sandwiched between Acton Lane and Mattawoman-Beantown Road might be necessary in the near future if the county proceeds with plans to extend Post Office Road, Chaney said.

But, Hughesville residents strongly opposed the rezoning, stating in public hearings that having a gravel wash plant in the village would increase heavy truck traffic, drastically reduce property values and create traffic safety hazards on Prince Frederick Road.

The county's planning staff indicated in a staff report that the rezoning of the land is not consistent with the county's comprehensive plan, the Hughesville revitalization plan, the county's transportation plan or the Patuxent River Policy Plan, which was adopted by the county commissioners in 1984 and revised in 1997.

Although the planning staff concluded that there was no evidence that the neighborhood had changed or that there had been a mistake in the original zoning the planning commission voted in May to recommend that the county commissioners approve the rezoning request.

The planning commission's decision added fuel to the fire for Hughesville residents and they gathered ammunition to confront the issue again during a county commissioner public hearing held in June on the rezoning request.

The commissioners have deferred making a decision on the request until March. In the meantime, they have asked Chaney to provide them with a revised traffic study and an updated plan that includes restrictions on noise and light pollution, increased vegetation buffering, limits on nuisance noises and 10 to 15 acres set aside for the American Red Cross and the College of Southern Maryland.

"I would like to see the company put something else there," said Sandra Thorne in an earlier interview. Thorne's father sold the land in question to Chaney many years ago. "I don't see how a gravel wash plant is going to help the community or create any jobs down here. They'll just take the people who work at the plant in Waldorf and put them down here."

Nancy Bromley McConaty

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Comments:  The fact that the Maryland Department of Planning issued the very same determination as county planning staff was omitted.  In addition, the commissioners' decision on this request was last postponed until January 2009, and now we find it has been postponed until March 2009.  However, the commissioners' request to Chaney to provide them the additional information, in the meantime, suggests they have already made their decision.  This is information that would be required if the request were approved.  Chaney isn't complaining about the postponement...does he know something the public doesn't?