American Dream

To what lengths will they go? How far are people willing to drive for the privilege of working in the metropolitan area while living in more affordable housing in a more rustic setting?

A hundred miles, one developer is betting.

Drive about 100 miles from the District and you could wind up south of Cambridge on the Eastern Shore, or north of York, Pa., or on Town Hill in picturesque Allegany County, what boosters call "the Mountain-Side of Maryland."

So Michael Carnock, principal of PDC Inc. of Columbia, has taken an option to pay $3 million for 935 acres of forested mountain valley land in eastern Allegany County that is two hours and many mountain ridges removed from Washington. He is negotiating to buy 400 acres more to complete the project.

The proposal has been highly controversial in Allegany County, filling the letters columns in the local newspaper and generating
78 exhibits and 25 hours of testimony over seven nights this summer before a county zoning panel.

The location, Carnock said, is about 50 miles from Hagerstown, 70 miles from Frederick and about 90 miles from Gaithersburg
and the high-paying, high-employment Interstate 270 corridor. In Carnock's view, it's a no-brainer.

"If I was going to draw a realistic radius, I would think you'd get folks going to Germantown, to northern Montgomery County, to work," he says, standing on the shoulder of Scenic U.S. 40 by the land he hopes to develop. "You can get there in an hour and a half in rush hour."

Carnock's site adjoins 47,000-acre Green Ridge State Forest and is a mile or two from Interstate 68. From there, it's a straight shot to where the jobs are. And, as housing prices closer in soar to ever-higher heights, there appears to be a growing market for this, the newest frontier in the ever-expanding exurbs.

"I think everything's moving this way," said James Stakem, president of the Allegany County Board of Commissioners.

"It wasn't that long ago that people thought it was crazy for folks from the city to move out here and commute back and forth,
but that's exactly what happened," said Steve Goodrich, planner for Washington County, which sits immediately east of Allegany County. "Green Ridge might seem a little wacky right now, but in the long run it's believable."

Carnock's proposed project, named Terrapin Run for a stream that goes through it, would bring 4,300 housing units and 11,000 people to a pristine, sparsely settled area of Western Maryland. The eastern end of Allegany County is a land of steep forested ridges, verdant valleys and a mere 2,400 people. The planned community would become the county's second densest concentration of humanity, ahead of Frostburg (7,873 people in 2000) and smaller only than the city of Cumberland, with 21,000 residents.

Still, both sides of the debate agree that, as Dave Williams, the developer's local public relations man, put it: "The concentric rings of Maryland's growth from the Beltway have reached our borders."