INDIAN HEAD SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY PARK PUBLIC HEARING

Economic development supporters squared off with environmentalists at a public hearing Monday evening in La Plata to discuss the merits and pitfalls of a request to change the zoning of a 268-acre parcel in Bryans Road to allow more uses at a planned technology park.

The Charles County Planning Commission held the hearing at the county government building Monday to consider a request by COPT-FACC Indian Head LLC to change the zoning of the land where the Indian Head Science and Technology Park will be built from business park and medium residential to the planned employment park overlay zone. The developers want to place the overlay zone on the parcel to allow for a greater mix of uses, including research and development flex space, according to the county's planning staff.

The business park, which will have its main entrance on Route 210, will be an environmentally sensitive project that will feature 1.5 million square feet of retail, industrial, office and research and development flex space and employ about 3,000 people when the project is completed in 14 years, according to the developers.

The tech park's tenants will be companies that offer energetics support to activities at the Naval Support Facility Indian Head base in town, according to the county planning staff report.

The parcel has wetlands, steep slopes, two tributaries to the Mattawoman Creek and is heavily forested, according to the county planning staff report. About 117 acres of the parcel — 44 percent — will be placed in the county's resource protection zone so that sensitive environmental features will be preserved.

More than 100 people turned up for the hearing. Business leaders in the community testified in support of the proposed tech park, including Charles McPherson of the Facchina Group of Companies LLC in La Plata.

The tech park will offer high-wage jobs so that residents won't have to fight a long commute in and out of the county to positions in Washington, D.C., and around the Washington Beltway, McPherson said.

Baldus Real Estate supports this endeavor. 

07-Aug-2009