(1/14) In a lopsided vote of 834 to 157, town residents turned out in force to vote down the annexation of Simmers farm into town limits.

All day long residents trickled into the Fire Company’s activities building to make their voices heard. However, according to one election judge, at 3 p.m., the trickle turned into a rush and stayed that way until the polls closed at 8 p.m. At 7 p.m. the line to vote stretched all the way from the registration desk to entrance door.

While the vote was decidedly against the annexation, the final tally did not reflect conversations taking place outside the entrance of the activities building where neighbors freely exchanged views on the why they voted the way they did.

When a general query was asked of a group of those who had cast their votes if they where ‘for, against, or ambivalent’ on the annexation, fully half said that while they had voted against the annexation, they were ambivalent over their vote. Those decidedly ‘For’ and ‘Against’ were evenly split.

"Development has to happen, and will happen," said one resident, "I just don’t want it now. We had too much development over the past few years. Lets digest what we’ve done and give it a few years before we do more."

Another ambivalent voter said that he only voted against the annexation because "I bike along the road where the development will be going it. If they could have found another location, I would have voted for it. We need the senior living options the development would bring."

This voting against the annexation cited concern with the pace of growth in general in Thurmont which they felt was killing the small town environment that had either grown up with or moved to Thurmont for. Other cited traffic as their primary concern, and where "unable to fathom how the town would deal with all the traffic the development would bring."

Pro-development voters, for the most part, said they had followed the proposed development for year, and expressed frustration with those "who ‘came out of the woodwork’ to appose the development. They had years to weight in on this during all the planning and zoning meetings," said one resident who’s home abutted the proposed development, "yet they never showed up. This was not fair to the developer who followed the rules."

While the results of the referendum put a halt to the annexation of the remainder of the farm, it did not put a halt to the development of the seven acres of the farm that are already within town limits.

At an informational meeting on January 12, Daniel Cross, the developer, told the assembled audience that if the annexation was voted down, he intended to move forward with some sort of multi-family housing development of the in-town portion of the farm which is currently zoned for R-5 high density housing.

Cross said he would seek public comment on a lower density plan on that part of the new neighborhood on the remaining portion of the property, with a mixture of ground floor primary bedroom homes suitable for senior living, multi-family starter homes for families, single family houses, and the Senior Assisted Living Facility.