Board Of Appeals

The Howard County Board of Appeals approved a proposal this week by the Savage United Methodist Church to expand its sanctuary and administrative offices along the historic mill town's main street.The board also granted a special exception for a private preschool that had been operating in the basement of the Savage church without county approval. The preschool was run by the church until 1985 and did not need a permit, but it became a private operation that year and should have had approval by the board, according to David A. Carney, an attorney representing the church.

Maxine and Robert Walker have worked to restore their historic Woodbine farm since they bought it in 1994. Their latest project is to replace the rotting wood on the side of their old yellow barn after rebuilding the stone foundation and replacing the tin roof. To help pay for renovations at Harwood Horse Farm, they want to rent out part of their land for private parties and open an antiques store in an old shed. As they've sought approval from Howard County, though, the Walkers have lost friends, they say. Neighbors along quiet Jennings Chapel Road have fought for five years to stop them, pointing to the threat of traffic, litter and growing commercialization.

The Howard County Board of Appeals has postponed indefinitely its hearing of Case No. 00-32A (Woodmont Academy), which had been scheduled for Thursday. A notice will appear in The Sun's Civic Agenda when a new date is set. The Board of Appeals will hear Case No. BA99-57E (Tutor Time Learning Systems Inc. t/a Tutor Time Child Care/Learning Center), continued, at 7:30 p.m. Thursday in the Banneker Room of the George Howard Building, 3430 Court House Drive, Ellicott City.

The County Council's move to revise the county ethics laws makes Howard one of the first local governments to approve the new standards mandated by the General Assembly last year. The changes, approved Monday, provide more detail in the county ethics laws regarding gifts, financial disclosure statements and lobbying provisions. It also expands the role of the county's ethics commission, requiring it to maintain an annual report of lobbying activity. The bill bans former County Council members from lobbying on legislative issues for a year after leaving office, and prohibits former employees from bidding to do business with the county on a contract for which they helped write specifications.

With one member missing and the rest evenly divided, the Board of Appeals postponed a decision last week on a contentious proposal for a warehouse adjacent to the residential Elkridge neighborhood of Dorsey. The Reisterstown developer who wants to build the warehouse is seeking permission to reduce the required 150-foot setback between his property and the community. Residents at the hearing, which began at 7:30 p.m. Thursday and ran until midnight, said the proposal would harm the neighborhood.

The county Board of Appeals is preparing to fight for turf threatened by new comprehensive rezoning regulations.Board members have come out against proposed zoning rules that would give the county Department of Planning and Zoning the power to grant zoning variances without the board's approval.The change is intended to save time and money for property owners by cutting the review process and fees nearly in half, said Joseph Rutter, county planning and zoning director. The new regulations would have to be approved by the County Council, sitting as the Zoning Board.

Members of the Howard County Board of Appeals postponed last night a vote on a proposal to build the county's first mosque, saying the three hours of testimony in the case requires careful review before any decision is made.Addressing a standing-room-only crowd of more than 100 members of the county's only Muslim congregation, board members said they will study the testimony and vote on the mosque proposal at an April 4 work session. "We want to be able to go over all of the evidence thoroughly," said Evelyn Tanner, who chairs the board.

The Howard County Planning Board voted unanimously yesterday to recommend approval for expansion of an Ellicott City homeless shelter from eight to 12 people.Nobody at the meeting contested the expansion of Miles House, a transitional shelter on Fels Lane near historic Main Street. The shelter is run by the Grassroots Crisis Intervention Center Inc.The case is scheduled to go before the Board of Appeals on Jan. 18.Pub Date: 10/22/99

Ellicott City residents who fought a proposal to convert a historic home into offices promised yesterday to keep a close eye on the property after a county Board of Appeals decision to approve the project.Housing developer L. Earl Armiger was granted a special request to move his company, Orchard Development Corp., from 3300 North Ridge Road in Ellicott City to a two-story home in the 3900 block of Old Columbia Pike.Under the special exception, Mr. Armiger can have a maximum of eight cars on the property and must screen a planned parking lot from public view.

An Anne Arundel Circuit Court judge ruled yesterday that the county Board of Appeals overstepped its authority in granting Halle Cos. permission to build a controversial 150-acre landfill near Crofton and revoked the approval.Residents in Crofton, who have been fighting the proposed landfill for years, expressed relief and satisfaction with Judge Martin A. Wolff's ruling."I'm not surprised, but I do feel a great deal of satisfaction right now," said Ed Dosek, president of the Crofton Civic Association.

Neighbors fighting against new apartment buildings at the Turf Valley development in Ellicott City are hoping for another shot at stopping the project, which is scheduled to go before a county appeals board Tuesday. A group of opponents led by nearby resident Marc Norman is challenging a planning board decision to approve two apartment buildings near two existing housing developments. Norman said the new properties will be placed too close to existing homes and will increase traffic on residential streets.

The Howard County Board of Appeals, already fighting T-Mobile in court over the location of a cellphone tower planned for a church property, is scheduled Thursday to hear the company's bid for another western Howard location on a small farm. T-Mobile wants to build a 127-foot-tall tower on Daisy Road in Woodbine. Residents have expressed concerns, speaking out at a community meeting in April, complaining about aesthetics and questioning the need for more cell towers. The site is one of about a half-dozen where T-Mobile has proposed placing towers in western Howard County.

Critics of development at Turf Valley attacked traffic studies of intersections along Marriottsville Road at a four-hour Board of Appeals hearing Monday night, but the developers contend that they have met all of Howard County's requirements. It was the latest installment in a seven-year campaign by Turf Valley resident Marc Norman and his allies to derail the project by Mangione Family Enterprises, based on arguments that the county does not do enough to ensure that major projects will have sufficient infrastructure such as roads and schools.

A years-long fight over whether to allow a gas station/convenience store and car wash in the Waverly Woods Village Center in Woodstock is a step closer to a resolution that some residents are unhappy about. Convenience Retailing LLC co-owner Rick Levitan won a 3-1 vote by the Howard County Board of Appeals on Monday night to approve conditional zoning, opening the way for a project that scores of residents have fought against at two other nearby locations. But Levitan, who operates gas station/convenience stores in Owen Brown and Dorsey Hall village centers in Columbia, was happy.

A petition challenging the Wegmans grocery store planned for east Columbia will take its appeal further after losing before a Zoning Board hearing examiner this week, the attorney for the appellant said. "The Planning Board made what in essence was a zoning decision," said Susan B. Gray, a civic activist attorney from Highland, who represents Carvel "Buddy" Mays Jr., president of United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, Local 27, whose members work for Giant and Safeway supermarkets.

Loyola College, which has been locked in a lengthy dispute over its proposal for a retreat center in northern Baltimore County, should receive approval for the project, the state Court of Special Appeals decided this week. The ruling reverses a decision by a Baltimore County Circuit Court judge, who sided with Parkton-area residents opposed to building the retreat center in an area designated for agriculture. A lawyer for the group that objects to the retreat center said he will ask the state's highest court to review the appellate decision, which was issued Wednesday.

The battle over a proposed expansion by First Baptist Church of Guilford has moved from one hearing room to another.The 95-year-old church has asked the Howard County Circuit Court to review the Board of Appeals' dismissal March 4 of the institution's plan to build a 2,000-seat sanctuary, a 636-space parking lot and a 34,000-square-foot community center on 8.5 acres at Guilford and Oakland Mills roads.James L. Rouse, an attorney representing the church who filed the request March 31, said the board violated its own bylaws by changing its original vote in September to approve the expansion.

Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. asked an Anne Arundel judge yesterday to throw out an order requiring the utility to spend $10 million to prevent fly ash from contaminating ground water in the Solley community.The hearing before District Judge Ronald A. Silkworth was the latest step in the long-running battle by Solley residents to stop the utility giant from using millions of tons of fly ash -- a byproduct of burning coal for electricity -- as fill under its Brandon Woods Business Park.The residents also claim that fly ash -- a powdery, gray substance that floats easily in air -- is a potential respiratory hazard.

The director of an organization representing unionized supermarket employees said yesterday the group will challenge last week's Howard County Planning Board decision that allows construction of a 160,000-square-foot Wegmans food store on an industrially zoned east Columbia site. "We will be appealing it," said Torrey Jacobsen Jr., executive director of the Mid-Atlantic Retail Food Industry Joint Labor Management Fund. The Wegmans store would be far larger than the typical 60,000- square-foot stores built by chains such as Giant, Safeway, Food Lion and Super Fresh in Howard County.

Man, 25, pleads guilty to robbing ex-employer A 25-year-old Baltimore man admitted yesterday to using a gun to rob his former employer -- Bowman Restaurant and Pub -- in May. Nathaniel Green pleaded guilty in Baltimore County Circuit Court to two counts of armed robbery. Green and another man entered the restaurant on Harford Road in Carney about 9:30 a.m. May 2 while employees were preparing for lunchtime customers. One worker escaped and ran next door to the Baltimore County Fraternal Order of Police Lodge No. 4, where a retired officer quickly called 911. Meanwhile, the two suspects -- armed with a shotgun and a knife -- demanded money, rifled through an open safe and locked the three remaining employees in a walk-in refrigerator, according to charging documents.