Residents are pressing Howard County Executive Allan Kittleman to curb development in Columbia amid concerns about growth and infrastructure in the county's largest community.

Tuesday's town hall meeting at Slayton House highlighted lingering concerns as the county gets ready to propose a 40-year agreement with Howard Hughes Corp. to add nearly 1,000 affordable housing units in addition to 5,500 conventional housing units in Columbia.

Early this month, the county delayed introducing the formal proposal, saying it was still negotiating outstanding issues. The package will include a multimillion-dollar tax increment financing agreement with the developer.

Residents pressed Kittleman to ensure that public facilities — particularly the schools — keep up to pace with anticipated growth. For example, Running Brook Elementary School in Columbia is expected to be at 131 percent of its rated capacity in 2019.

Kittleman said the county “will have time to prepare” to make sure public facilities can accommodate the additional housing planned for downtown Columbia, adding that the density “is not going to happen overnight.”

Carl DeLorenzo, the administration's director of policy and programs, said affordable-housing projects proposed in the draft 40-year agreement with Howard Hughes would still need to move through the zoning and planning approval process.

Some proposals in the package might be discarded, DeLorenzo said. For instance, he said it was “premature” to say whether plans for affordable housing on top of the Banneker fire station would be retained.

Residents at the meeting said that the county's Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance — a set of rules that dictate how public facilities meet the needs of the county's growing population — require an immediate update to reflect the county's current conditions.

That could push Kittleman to make changes to the ordinance, which has not been updated in nearly a decade, before approving additional development. The administration received recommendations about changes to the ordinance in April from a task force.

But Kittleman said there's “no way in heavens and earth” the administration could propose changes to ordinance earlier than this fall because the county government was in the middle of the budget process.

Concerns about growth were not confined to Columbia and the affordable-housing proposals.

The town hall meeting drew concerns about development as far as Ellicott City, where a 241-unit plan by Elm Street Development drew more than 600 people to a community meeting in late May.

Other issues also arose — one resident pressed Merriweather Post Pavilion's vice president of operations, Brad Canfield, about “loud, pounding bass notes” and increased noise from the center.

“It's no louder than it's ever been,” said Canfield.

“I've been there for 30 years, and I'm telling you the volume hasn't changed.”

Noise at Merriweather has been the subject of community complaints, and the County Council and the state delegation plan to organize a public meeting to discuss concerns related to sound levels there soon, according to County Council Chairman Calvin Ball.

Kittleman plans to hold two other town hall meetings this year.

The Republican executive, who was elected in 2014, had made a campaign pledge to regularly engage with Howard County residents in open and inclusive public discussions.