Siding with the project's opponents were the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and the American Planning Association, which saw it as a national test case for the value of community planning.
The O'Malley administration also agreed with opponents and intervened in the case on their side.
"We think this is a time when we need more smart, sustainable growth, not less," said Richard E. Hall, state secretary of planning.
Strictly speaking, the case focused on whether the zoning board should have been required to decide whether Terrapin Run "conformed" to the county's comprehensive plan. The board found the project "in harmony with" the plan, which opponents had argued was too loose a standard.
A Circuit Court initially overturned the zoning board's decision, ordering it to reconsider. But the state's second highest court sided with the developer, declaring that such plans are merely guides for local officials in deciding where to allow development.
Opponents of the project appealed to the state's highest court.
"If the court's decision is permitted to stand, it undermines two decades of smart-growth advocacy and leadership on the part of the state of Maryland," said Dale Sams, a retired paper mill executive in Cumberland who is among the project's critics.
Opponents pointed out that Terrapin Run still must clear a variety of local and state hurdles. The Maryland Department of the Environment has rejected the county's attempt to include Terrapin Run in its water and sewer plan, and it ordered the developer to prove that disturbance of the land will not degrade the creek of the same name that flows nearby.
William C. Wantz, a lawyer for residents opposed to Terrapin Run, said the decision applies in a narrow legalistic sense only to zoning board decisions in the state's municipalities and 15 most rural counties.
But environmentalists and growth-management advocates say they fear the ruling could open the door elsewhere in the state to other developments at odds with locally adopted plans.
Kim Coble, Maryland director of the bay foundation, called the appeals court ruling "very short-sighted.
The Annapolis-based environmental group had argued that the development would harm the stream, which ultimately flows into the Potomac River and the bay.
"It's not consistent with the direction the state's going or needs to go," Coble said. She said her group would ask lawmakers to "make sure the law's very clearly spelled out" regarding growth management.
Some growth-management advocates vowed to seek legislation to reverse the court's decision. Hall said the O'Malley administration wants to study the ruling more before deciding whether to seek such legislation.
tim.wheeler@baltsun.com
