You may have heard a little about redeveloping some of Waldorf into a more walkable area when light rail ever comes here if it ever does. We keep hearing it will be here in 15 years or so. Whenever it does come the county has created a concept plan for the land along where it will it will make a couple of the proposed stops.
So here is the concept for Downtown Waldorf. Apartments, hotels, office, retail and a civic center. Just so you can get your bearings the top is Route 301 and Leonardtown Road (Business Rt. 5) runs along the left side of the picture. The current CSX rail and the light rail would run parallel to each other thru the county as shown at the bottom.
However none of this is going to happen until there are some major upgrades done to the infrastructure in the area. Water and sewer upgrades, getting all the power lines run under ground, road improvements, etc. The design for those should be complete in October.
Please understand that this is only a concept and is not going to be built by the county. The current land owners can build what they want as long as it complies with the new zoning for the area. Some things that are now not permitted to be built in the area are automotive related businesses, fast food, gas stations and mini storage. We will see how this turns out over time. It will take someone with a lot of time and money to develop the land and turn it into something nice.
UPDATE 8-3-16: According to this article: http://www.thebaynet.com/articles/0716/plans-to-revitalize-town-threatened-by-recent-decision.html
Some of the commissioners decided to throw in a change to the recent comprehensive plan about how many of each type of residence would be allowed in the county in the future. This would change the concept a lot since much of the plan was based on apartments and town homes. It makes no sense to create a proposal for future transit oriented development and then destroy that with this recent change. We will have to see how this plays out.
