OTHER VOICES

Plan 2040

I have just read Jim Lyon’s guest column describing the mess the council is making of County Executive Steuart Pittman’s proposed, professionally developed 2040 County Development Plan (The Capital, April 13)!

All common sense and wisdom, regarding controlled development and protected green areas, have left our County Council, replaced by unanimous adoption of dozens of special interest payback amendments. It should be a crime, not to include meaningful input, from our communities. They will, as usual, have to look at and bear the brunt of the results, for decades to come.

I am a 35-year property owner in Anne Arundel County. Residents of this county cannot be more angry and upset at the shoddy townhouses built on every plot of grass developers can get their hands on. This county has turned itself into canyons lined with rows of boxes with windows, townhouses and condos, lining our highways and byways! And it is not slowing down!

Need proof ? Drive out Route 100 past Arundel Mills, or up Route 175 north of Fort Meade! These highways are literally lined with (not trees), but rows and rows of three-story townhouses, just warehousing people!

Take a drive downtown across Spa Creek bridge and look upstream. The sight is painful to look at. Spa Creek is a special part of historic Annapolis. Local residents and the city stood by and allowed a local group of well-connected investors to destroy the picturesque nature of (our) Spa Creek. They have managed to build their three story boxes-with-windows right over the water of this narrow creek, replacing century-old marinas. All just for their own personal gain.

Is this what Annapolis wants? What are we doing to ourselves? We cannot just sit back and allow our short-sighted County Council and a few moneyed and influential groups, to buy their way in. We need help.

Doug Brown, Crownsville

Accessible for all

As a blind person, I fully support the development of a rowing facility at Quiet

Waters Park and urge that county funding for this year be approved.

With my disability, I have encountered numerous obstacles to staying physically active and enjoying outdoor recreation.

It is often difficult or impossible to follow written exercise instruction, use exercise equipment with visual displays and controls, and reach and navigate many recreational areas.

There is also the common perception that blind people and others with disabilities lack the capacity to engage in vigorous activity.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has found that less than half of American adults with disabilities get regular exercise.

I was fortunate to overcome these barriers when I found Adaptive Rowing Annapolis in 2017.

This volunteer-run program helps people with all sorts of impairments learn to row with individualized training and modified equipment.

Since joining the program, I have gone from learning the basics of sculling to competing against experienced rowers in several regional regattas.

At the same time, my physical fitness has improved significantly, and my community connections have increased.

Getting out on the water and rowing with others has proved both fun and exciting.

Rowing has certainly improved my life, and I think it could benefit many other members of the community who have disabilities or belong to other underserved groups.

However, one of the major constraints that Adaptive Rowing Annapolis and other programs like it face is the lack of a permanent water recreation facility that can serve all people.

The development of a community boathouse in Quiet Waters — a project under consideration by Anne Arundel County — would go a long way in addressing this constraint, making rowing and other water sports accessible for all.

Benjamin Danforth, Lothian