Planning panel backs favorable recommendation for Salt Life Park Phase 3 growth allocation

The planning commission on Oct. 1 voted to recommend a county growth-allocation award for Salt Life Park Phase 3, a planned expansion of an existing mobile-home community. Attorney Hugh Propper and witnesses including planner Steve Engle and owner Mark Otowski presented environmental analyses, cited prior rezoning findings of fact and said roughly half the property lies outside the critical area; they argued the project is infill and compatible with public water and sewer.

Steve Engle and environmental consultants said state and federal wildlife agencies had found no threatened or endangered species on the site, and the team described mitigation and public-benefit measures — including landscape upgrades and mitigation placed in county parks — tied to new climate and environmental-justice screening requirements enacted by the Maryland General Assembly. Commissioners discussed unit counts and densities (the concept plan cited about 46 units) and the constraints of critical-area lot-coverage rules, then voted to recommend the growth allocation. A commissioner noted the county has a finite pool of growth allocation acreage, and staff provided updated county totals for remaining allocation in the Atlantic Coastal Bays program.