In preparation for its first general public meeting on plans to build a senior-housing complex on the edge of historic Doughoregan Manor, officials of Erickson Retirement Communities have spent weeks building support for the project by meeting with leaders of several area community groups.
Erickson's preliminary concept plan is scheduled for an open house-style presentation from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday at the county's Ellicott City Senior Center, 9401 Frederick Road. In recent weeks, the company has been dropping in on groups and laying out some of the parameters of the project.
Some citizen activists who have attended the meetings say they see the firm trying to slowly build support, or at least head off criticism.
"I just think they want to meet with as many people as they can," said Carol Filipczak, a board member of the county League of Women Voters chapter. Erickson met with the league's board in early November, she said.
"Some developers see that as a means of informing the community," she said.
Erickson officials have met with groups representing the St. Johns Lane area, Terra Maria, and youth leagues that use Kiwanis-Wallas Park, according to members of the groups and William E. Erskine, an attorney for the developer.
No proposal has been submitted to county planners.
The plan calls for the Carroll family, owners of the 892-acre historic estate, to sell Erickson a 150-acre swath of land closest to Centennial Lane, for phased development of 1,500 apartments and care facilities for senior citizens. The company would have an option to buy an additional 38 acres for another 500 units. The Carrolls also plan to donate 36 acres to expand Kiwanis-Wallas Park.
If approved, the deal is intended to provide enough money to allow Camilla Carroll and her brother, Philip D. Carroll, to preserve the rest of Doughoregan. That includes the nearly 300-year-old mansion and 30 other buildings that once belonged to Charles Carroll, the only Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence. The estate - the only signer's home still in family hands - lies between Frederick Road on the north, and Route 108 on the south, west of Centennial Lane. The main access to the proposed development would be off Frederick Road, just west of Kiwanis-Wallas Park.
Although receiving an initial positive reaction from county elected officials and some citizens, the concept will require major changes by the government to extend water and sewer to the site, and to allow dense residential units on what is now farmland.
