If the developers who want to tear down the vacant Bendix factory don't get the zoning change that would permit them to build a home-improvement store in the Loch Raven area, they have a Plan B in place.
The project has already been approved for the planned unit development process, which eliminates some zoning and development regulations for projects deemed a benefit to the community.
Some community leaders are becoming increasingly wary about planned unit developments - PUDs - being used as an alternative to the highly scrutinized comprehensive zoning map process, or CZMP, currently under way in Baltimore County.
"The PUDs are eliminating the importance of the CZMP," said Donna Spicer, president of the Loch Raven Business Association and a community activist who has become an expert in county development. "The threat is, `If we don't get what we want in the CZMP, we'll get it in a PUD.'"
This week, the county Planning Board will hold public hearings about comprehensive zoning requests in the County Council's 5th District, which includes Towson and Perry Hall; and the 6th District, which includes Fullerton and Bowleys Quarters. Community groups in both regions are concerned that the PUD process might undermine what is decided in the zoning process.
Robert A. Hoffman, the lawyer for Stevenson Taylor Investments, which wants to build the home-improvement store at the factory site in Loch Raven, said the deadline for submitting zoning requests was before the project on 15 acres near Taylor Avenue and Hillendale Road was approved as a PUD by the council in November.
Asking for both a PUD and zoning gave developers a "fallback option," Hoffman said.
In eastern Baltimore County, community leaders are leery of zoning requests that might allow developers to seek PUD approval. For example, several property owners are seeking changes from rural conservation zones to residential zoning - a change that could qualify them for PUDs, said Bill Lagna, president of the Bowleys Quarters Community Association.
"We're finding that generally, developers are asking for too much," Lagna said. "Part of the problem is the PUDs, which give them far too much latitude. We're petitioning for the PUD laws to be revised."
A large number of zoning requests in the Middle River area are being reviewed, including a request to change the manufacturing and industrial zoning on a former federal depot to allow for a large-scale commercial development. It covers 53 acres on the north side of Eastern Boulevard near White Marsh Boulevard.
