By Nicole Fuller, The Baltimore Sun
9:09 p.m. EDT, October 27, 2011
Bruce Holstein moved to Carroll County eight years ago looking for land to build a house so he could live closer to his grown daughter and her family. He settled on a historic road with no streetlights, flanked by maple and hickory trees, with corn and soybean farms in the distance.
It’s a small-town way of life that Holstein wants to preserve, and he sees no bigger threat than a statewide plan to direct development — a plan set to take effect as early as next month.
Democratic Gov. Martin O’Malley’s effort to target growth near existing development — and to withhold funding from local governments that don’t comply — has raised hackles in some corners of Maryland. Some of the most vocal opposition has come from Carroll, where one county commissioner believes the plan is part of a broad scheme orchestrated by the United Nations. In neighboring Frederick County, leaders have called it a communist erosion of democracy.
Mergers, Acquisitions and Takeovers “They want to put us all in one-bedroom condominiums around a city or town,” said Holstein, a retired federal worker from Taylorsville. “They’re going to take that land where farms are now and turn it into green zones, and no one can live there. I don’t need Martin O’Malley to tell me what to do with my land.”
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