Settling For A Mess: Havre de Grace Deals With Harford County To Mitigate Downtown Parking Woes

A midday agreement reached between Harford County and Havre de Grace Monday will ensure a portion of the city’s downtown parking lot will remain open to the public during the 18-month expansion of the adjacent water treatment.

While County Executive David Craig and Mayor Wayne Dougherty celebrated the agreement Monday with a joint press release, it seems Havre de Grace is conceding the most in what appears to be a lop-sided truce.

The crux of the settlement is that Havre de Grace will lift its stop work order on the project and allow work to proceed in exchange for the county’s help re-establishing a lane through the lot with some diagonal parking spaces.

But the city seems to be giving up a lot: Havre de Grace will not only lift the stop work order and sign off on all approvals and permits for the project, but must also pay for the costs of adding new parking, pay for the cost of the first two weeks worth of work delays, and make about half of nearby David Craig Park available for off-site storage and staging for the project. Oh and the city must also indemnify the county and hold it harmless for any damage caused by using the through-lane during the construction project. Continue reading Settling For A Mess: Havre de Grace Deals With Harford County To Mitigate Downtown Parking Woes

Fair Warning: Who Knew the Havre de Grace Parking Debacle Was Coming and Why Didn’t They Tell Anybody?

Harford County Executive David Craig and Havre de Grace Mayor Wayne Dougherty are engaged in a bitter battle, which may have even gone to court this week, over who is to blame for allowing a multimillion-dollar water treatment plant expansion project, and its accompanying impacts, to slip by with nary a heads-up for unsuspecting downtown business owners.

The issue boiled over this week when Dougherty, recognizing he was about to be lambasted by a furious public, issued an immediate stop work order that seemingly blamed the county for proceeding with the project, which will require closing off the sprawling parking lot behind the water plant for about 18 months, without having a proper plan in place to deal with the disappearing downtown parking spaces.

Craig came back this week with irrefutable proof that he was right and the public had been warned - a short sentence in a tiny article within a meager city-produced newsletter.

But as these masters of grandstanding duke it out over which trumps the other - Craig’s newsletter or Dougherty’s stop work order - what happens to the downtown businesses which could be crippled without a viable plan in place to keep traffic and tourists coming to town? Continue reading Fair Warning: Who Knew the Havre de Grace Parking Debacle Was Coming and Why Didn’t They Tell Anybody?