Critical Area

Responding to criticism by a state commission that they weren't doing enough to protect the shoreline from development, Anne Arundel County officials have launched an ambitious enforcement program, including the use of a helicopter to locate waterfront trouble spots. Last year, the county was rebuked by the Critical Area Commission, which enforces a state law limiting development within 1,000 feet of the bay, for failing to properly enforce the law and follow up on reported violations.

The state's Critical Area Commission yesterday cleared an environmental hurdle to an African-American history museum's proposed addition in Annapolis, but opponents immediately vowed to appeal. The commission found proposed environmental controls met state standards. Because the planned $5.5 million addition to the Banneker-Douglass Museum is considered a state project, the project did not need to meet the Annapolis city standards that would apply to a project on privately owned land. "We are looking forward to starting construction soon on the addition," said J. Rodney Little, director of the Maryland Historical Trust.

AFTER YEARS of focusing on the revitalization of the area around East Baltimore's Patterson Park, Ed Rutkowski is setting his sights northward and westward -- if only for a few blocks. The executive director of the Patterson Park Community Development Corp. has come up with a tentative proposal for redeveloping what he calls "East of Hopkins" -- a 15-square-block swath of mostly abandoned and dilapidated properties adjacent to the Johns Hopkins medical complex. Rutkowski sees the revitalization of East of Hopkins as a way to build on the strength of the medical complex and the proposed biotechnology park to its north as well as a way to preserve the progress of renewal made in the Butchers Hill and Patterson Park neighborhoods to the south.

The state Senate gave final approval yesterday to one of Gov. Parris N. Glendening top environmental priorities, a bill designed to protect the Chesapeake Bay from waterfront development. The legislation attempts to clarify the state's 18-year-old Critical Area law after recent court decisions made it easier for people to receive permits to disturb the shoreline. "This bill corrects recent court decisions that undermined the original intent of the law and created loopholes big enough to drive development bulldozers through," Glendening said.

STEVENSVILLE -- Just north of U.S. 50, there's a spot where two branches of Cox Creek wind past a point covered with loblolly pines, reeds and holly trees before flowing south together under the highway toward Eastern Bay. Farther east, a flock of Canada geese feeds in a cornfield of brown and black stubble that stretches for at least a mile to old barns, a farmhouse and the broad mouth of the Chester River. A few years from now, the cornfield and the reeds and the forest will be gone, replaced with single-family houses on small lots, and with townhouses, condominiums, offices and shops.

THE 31-ACRE tract on Cape Knoll by the Bird River would make a handsome addition to Mariner Point Park in southern Harford County. But the environmentally sensitive land in Joppatowne could also be used for residential development. The decision depends on the price - and on enforcement of state environmental laws. With wetlands, steep slopes, wildlife habitat and coastline, the land faces significant legal restrictions on development, regardless of county zoning designation. Those important protections should be enforced.

Disappointing a community of parents, a state environmental commission panel declined yesterday to endorse the parents' proposed site for a new Mayo Elementary School. The parents had proposed building the school across the street from the old one. They strongly opposed rebuilding the school on its existing site because students would have to be bused to Annapolis for two years. A five-member panel of the Chesapeake Bay Critical Area Commission said yesterday that it can not support the parents' proposal because the commission had previously approved the district's plan to build on the site of the existing school.

Acknowledging that they already have approval from a state environmental commission to overbuild a school site in Mayo, Anne Arundel County school officials implored the panel Wednesday to grant another exception to build the school on what the community considers a better site - even if it is more sensitive land. "There are special circumstances existing here," school board attorney P. Tyson Bennett told members of the Chesapeake Bay Critical Area Commission at a rare public hearing. "Without your approval, ladies and gentlemen, this school project on this site cannot occur."

The Baltimore school board approved significant pay raises last night for all of its principals, saying that attracting and retaining quality leaders is key to successful systemwide reform. The raises, which go well beyond a 3 percent increase scheduled to take effect this summer, range from about $8,000 a year to more than $19,000 a year, depending on a principal's assignment, performance and level of education. The additional increases will make principal salaries at the city's more than 180 schools competitive with those in surrounding jurisdictions, where annual principal pay has averaged about $10,000 more.

Greasing skids for developer is wrong approach While many in the community support redevelopment of the David Taylor Center, we are appalled at how Anne Arundel County is handling this process ("Thwarting economic growth," editorial, March 2). We have seen the administration of County Executive Janet S. Owens administration continually bend the rules and grease the skids to accommodate the developer, Annapolis Partners. This began with the county ramming special-interest zoning legislation through the county council without seriously considering even one amendment.