By Jack Chavez, Staff Writer

(Feb. 2, 2023) The only constant in Berlin over the last few years is everything is changing, or at least that’s how it seems with the amount of development, revitalization and annexing the town has seen.

To that end, Berlin Planning Director Dave Engelhart approached the Planning Commission during its Jan. 18 meeting with a request from Mayor Zack Tyndall that they comment on what it would like to see in a possibly revamped comprehensive plan.

“The mayor wanted me to discuss with you this year’s budget,” Engelhart said. “We have a small amount of money set aside for a municipal growth discussion facilitated by an outside group or person to talk about where we’re going. Are we going to keep expanding? Are we going to have an urban growth boundary? (We’re talking) about elements of our comprehensive plan.”

Engelhart said that the town “has someone we’re talking to already” that can give a speech or presentation about comparable small towns that could speak to how things moving forward could look “in 10, 20, 30, 40 years.”

The request coincides with Worcester County taking a look at its own comprehensive plan, which would allow the town to approach the county with new ideas, Engelhart said.

“This would dovetail with that pretty well … so we can get our two cents in with the county,” he said.

“But this isn’t solely for that. This is more … any new development especially commercial or retail, we’ve had several annexations and the public, unless it’s kind of a no-brainer, the public (opinion is split with half) understanding that we maybe need some growth to keep our tax base up and keep paying for the budget items that the town seems to need going up every year.”

Engelhart added that the funds for this are mostly leftover American Rescue Plan money distributed during the pandemic.

Commission chair Chris Denny said he doesn’t want to see money spent just to spend it.

“It’s like the parking (study),” he said. “It was a grant, we spend $25,000 to go around and draw where our parking spaces are and then you need another $75,000 to finish a parking study. (But) you (could) get five people to walk around and figure it out ourselves. I just don’t want to be taking money to beat the same thing to death. We had all that public input and it wasn’t very well-attended for a few of them. Correct me if I’m wrong. That’s what I’m saying … I’m sure there are other uses.”

Commission member Matt Stoehr cautioned that with rapid growth, it’d be imperative to look at similar towns and see where they possibly made mistakes.

“You look at Berlin right now, we’re going to have two breweries, a distillery, we’re adding restaurants, we’re adding housing. We’re growing fast…. I’m sure other towns grow at a similar rate and certain things they planned great with, but there are probably certain things I bet you they wish they could do over,” he said.

Stoehr added that he’d like to see towns with comparable tax rates, pointing out that Snow Hill is similarly sized but its tax rate is higher than Berlin’s, though he conceded its property values are lower than Berlin’s.

“We sure do complain here in Berlin about our tax rates,” Stoehr said. “I know that our property values are higher but our tax rates are a lot lower than other areas in Caroline County, Worcester County, Wicomico, etc., Somerset.”

Stoehr also brought up “the utility” issue, pointing out that more development will need to be met with more infrastructure, and the town needs to know what it can provide.

“Expansion of the system is already underway,” Engelhart said in response. “We’ve been doing that for about two years. Now it’s not the physical expansion but the design and work that we need to do that’s already begun.”

He added that an increase in the town’s capacity is being analyzed.

“We know that’s coming,” he said.