Board Of Appeals

The owner of a 103-acre wooded tract on the Marley Neck peninsula has gotten county rezoning approval for a 500-unit condominium and townhouse complex, despite school board opposition.The property, along Marley Neck Boulevard near Tanyard Cove, abuts a tract used by Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. for a fly ash landfill and was zoned for commercial, industrial and residential use.Land owner Jane Pumphrey Nes asked the Board of Appeals to rezone the entire tract for residential use to create a buffer between the Solley community and the landfill.

For now, Howard County Board of Appeals member Donald B. Messenger is resisting the County Council's order that he resign from the board."I've requested a meeting for next week," Messenger, an attorney from North Laurel, said Friday. "They may succeed, but there's a day to sit back and a day to fight. It's distasteful to me."County Council Chairman C. Vernon Gray, an east Columbia Democrat, declined to say if a date had been scheduled or if he was interested in such a meeting."It's not something I want to talk about," Gray said.

Some 20 Elkridge residents attended a Howard County Board of Appeals meeting last night in hopes of preserving the quiet residential flavor of their neighborhood, one of the oldest in the county. A Reisterstown developer wants to build a warehouse adjacent to the community. He is seeking permission from the Board of Appeals to reduce the required 150-foot setback between his land and the residential community that borders it. As of late last night, residents had just begun to testify, and the board had not yet made a decision.

Elkridge residents told the Howard County Board of Appeals last night that a 16-acre parcel of land next to their residential neighborhood isn't an appropriate -- or necessary -- place for a proposed warehouse. A Reisterstown developer wants to build the warehouse adjacent to the neighborhood, one of the oldest in the county. Dorsey Rock LLC is seeking permission from the Board of Appeals to reduce the required 150-foot setback between the proposed building and residences. Residents oppose the plan because they envision noisy and smelly diesel trucks driving too close to their neighborhood and endangering children.

A Severna Park optician's plans to build a home on the Severn River received another setback when a state appeals court refused to overturn the decisions of a lower court and county zoning officials.The Court of Special Appeals ruled that Circuit Judge Raymond G. Thieme Jr. was correct when he upheld a county Board of Appeals decision to deny a variance to F. Nicholas Codd to build on Sullivan Cove.Codd said yesterday that he would appeal the ruling to the Court of Appeals or scale back the size of the proposed house and reapply to the Board of Appeals.

The owner of a Sullivan Cove marsh who wants to build a house on stilts above his land says he will probably ask a judge to overturn the county Board of Appeals' rejection of his plans.F. Nicholas Codd, a Severna Park optician, said he is "90 percent" sure he will appeal to Circuit Court the written opinion issued last week.Mr. Codd, whose family has owned the quarter-acre lot for 32 years, has tentative approval from some state and federal agencies to build a 1,720-square-foot house on a platform above the marsh.

Former Baltimore County paramedic Debra Reynolds' predicament makes no more sense to a county circuit judge than it does to her, but she's not yet sure if that's good or bad news.The county Fire Department fired Mrs. Reynolds on grounds that a hand injury made it impossible for her to work. But the county Board of Appeals then denied her an accidental disability pension on grounds that she can work.Circuit Judge Alfred L. Brennan Sr., hearing Mrs. Reynolds' appeal of the pension denial, has ordered the case returned to the Board of Appeals for further consideration.

The Howard County Zoning Board made it easier last night for property owners to obtain variances by giving county planners wider authority to grant them.But the Zoning Board did not give planners as much authority as they had sought.At last night's work session, the County Council, sitting as the Zoning Board, gave tentative approval to an amended set of changes to zoning regulations.The 4-0 vote is nonbinding because regulations must be drafted and signed by board members to become official.

When the lawyer representing the owner of Frisky's Wildlife Sanctuary, a Woodstock animal shelter, fell ill this week and had to postpone a Howard County Board of Appeals hearing, the board gave the lawyer plenty of time to get better. Because of the board's backlog of cases, the hearing, originally scheduled for last night, won't be held for another four months, greatly frustrating opponents of the sanctuary. But, under legislation being drafted by county officials, such long waits at the Board of Appeals might soon be a thing of the past.

A Baltimore County judge ruled yesterday that the Baltimore County Board of Appeals violated Maryland's open-meetings law by conducting its deliberations behind closed doors."