Expensive way to get rid of an eyesore

Our Opinion

Friday, July 31, 2009

Everyone who lives and works in the area does too, and that includes the students and staff at Great Mills High School.

Before long, one of those gas stations may be torn down, and the hope is that the other one will follow at about the same time.

This may happen not because zoning laws against this sort of abandoned blight are being enforced. There are no such laws in St. Mary's County.

Instead it may happen because the Community Development Corporation, charged by the county government with the redevelopment of Lexington Park, is applying for a federal grant that would pay $560,000 to buy one of the old gas stations and the property it sits on. The current owner will have to tear down the gas station and clean up contaminated soil as part of the deal. The hope is that the other gas station, which sits on property where retail and office space and 440 condominiums are planned, will come down at the same time.

It's about time, make no mistake, and it is a creative way to solve a persistent problem at long last. But while it's true enough that this won't cost the local government any money, the Community Development Block Grant will cost taxpayers of the United States, and that includes most of us.

"Unfortunately we had to take extraordinary measures," Robin Finnacom, president of the Community Development Corporation, said. Otherwise, she said, the property "could sit like this for an eternity and we'd have no leverage."

Now some of this money may be recouped if the Community Development Corporation ultimately resells the .6 acre site to a developer. But why was it necessary to buy this property in the first place?

If the gas station is such an eyesore and hazard to the community that it's worth $560,000 to get rid of it, shouldn't there be local zoning rules that require property owners to remove a blight like this? After all some residential neighborhoods have covenants that keep people from having too many junk cars on their property. And we have county rules about how where a sign can be placed and how big it can be.

Can't the county have rules that don't permit property owners to simply abandon property along a community's main commercial thoroughfare?

Yes, it would cost the property owners some money to keep up or remove structures on the property they own. But in this case the actual cost of demolishing the old gas station figures to be about $20,000, just a fraction of the $560,000 taxpayers are kicking in to be rid of it.

The county government is in the process of revising its comprehensive land use plan. When the time comes to look at the zoning rules that are part of that plan, this is a problem that should be addressed.