The burden of proof was on the petitioner, and board members said they had not been persuaded of a change or mistake or that there was a trend to place gas stations in village centers. In Howard County, the county council also serves as the zoning board.
Russell Preisinger, a nearby resident and business owner, was disappointed with the decision.
"I live less than a mile from there, and it's a real inconvenience to go up to Route 40 to get gas," he said yesterday. "When you're in a hurry, an extra 10 minutes is a lot. That's an extra 20 minutes both ways."
Preisinger, who is co-owner of Mangia, a restaurant in the shopping center, and who owns nearby office space, also had looked to the proposed gas station to draw customers.
"I'm quite bummed in both ways," he said. "I have everything here. It's one thing we're missing is a gas station."
But Richard Futrovsky, a Waverly Woods resident who had testified against the project, was happy with the decision.
"It shouldn't be there," he said in an interview yesterday. "It doesn't belong there. People didn't want it. ... It's not the type of business that you put in a shopping center that's in a residential neighborhood."
During a hearing last month, Joseph W. Rutter Jr., a principal with Howard County-based Land Design & Development Inc. who testified for the opposition, said Marriottsville Road is a more appropriate location for a gas station.
Levitan had argued that locating gas stations in village centers and shopping centers was a trend that began in the late '70s and continues today, because of people's interest in one-stop shopping.
Calvin Ball, whose district includes Oakland Mills Village Center, where a gas station closed several years ago, said that closure was evidence of an opposite trend.
"There were several opportunities to have other gas stations there," he said during the hearing. "I'm not convinced that the trend is to have gas stations in village centers."
The shopping center developers have said that if Convenience Retailing withdrew its zoning appeal to build a station at Warwick and Birmingham ways, Waverly Woods Development would be open to the construction of a gas station by them or someone else on property it owns on Marriottsville Road.
Levitan said yesterday that he would be interested in that idea.
"We tried to meet with GTW to work out a deal to build on their parcel on Marriottsville Road," he said. "They couldn't give us anything concrete."
june.arney@baltsun.com
