Development Review

After two years working amid the din of earthmovers, hammers and saws, employees of the County Office Building will be getting accustomed today to a new sound: peace and quiet.Today marks the completion of the $4.2 million enlargement and renovation of the County Office Building in Westminster, an expansion that officials promise will make government services more accessible and efficient.The County Commissioners will dedicate the building at noon today in the lobby at 225 N. Center St. An open house will follow.

Two major subdivision proposals, the first for Carroll since passage of the county's growth-control law, will be heard today by county officials.Joel C. Kaufman, a Westminster developer, seeks to build 41 more upscale houses on his Sun Valley Farms subdivision off Cherokee Drive near Routes 27 and 26 in Taylorsville. If approved, the custom-built houses would cost $300,000 or more each and sit on 1-acre parcels.Walter D. and Sylvia B. Dell of Finksburg hope to turn 70 acres of farmland into a 47-lot subdivision near Deer Park Road and Gamber Road (Route 91)

The county planning commission agreed yesterday to explore a proposal that would curtail the development review process for small businesses, saving them time and money.If the proposal wins final approval, it would trim up to two months from the review process, a bureaucratic labyrinth that takes up to a year to complete."It's a shortcut that's needed to cut out a lot of red tape," said Maurice E. Wheatley, a commission member.The Carroll County Planning and Zoning Commission took no formal action yesterday.

The Carroll planning commission voted unanimously yesterday to take the county Board of Zoning Appeals to court over its decision to allow a developer to build a $32 million shopping center near a busy intersection in Eldersburg.Although the Carroll County Planning and Zoning Commission has appealed more than a dozen board decisions in the past two years, yesterday's vote behind closed doors is the first case in which the planning commission was not directly involved.At least not yet.The shopping center project was on line to start moving through the county development review process next month and was expected to come before the planning commission for site plan approval in the fall.

Small-business owners might soon be offered a short cut through Carroll County's development review process, a bureaucratic maze that takes six months to a year to complete.The County Commissioners unanimously approved a proposal yesterday that would separate mom-and-pop operations from major projects, allowing the smaller businesses to win speedier approval for their construction projects."In my opinion, there is a lot of difference between building a Wal-Mart and an office in a home," said Commissioner Donald I. )

If you want to open a snowball stand or build a Wal-Mart in Carroll County, the development procedure is the same: long and often tedious.Both businesses must navigate a bureaucratic labyrinth of county and state agencies dealing with health, soil conservation, engineering, safety and environmental concerns. Both must appear before county boards and committees. And both could pay thousands of dollars in legal expenses and county fees.It can take six to 12 months for final approval.The County Commissioners will consider today whether to change this one-size-fits-all policy, allowing smaller businesses to take a short cut through the county's site development review process.

THE CARROLL COUNTY Planning and Zoning Commission wants to reconsider a proposal to rezone nearly 1,000 acres for industrial use, which it rejected four weeks ago. That is good news for economic development.The difference this time is that a seven-member review panel will take a closer look at these properties recommended by the Economic Development Commission. It will suggest ways to update county laws on industrial and commercial zoning, and to improve the process of site identification and approval.

Glass-is-half-full types will find much to praise in "Mysterious Voyages," the Contemporary Museum's newly opened show of recent photography, while glass-is-half-empty types can find a lot to fault.Considering the extreme haste with which it was put together -- about two months from genesis to finished product -- this is an impressive assemblage of contemporary photography. Organized by Contemporary director Gary Sangster, a widely recognized and respected curator, it amounts to a sampler, a collection of 52 works by 30 artists.

The county planning commission agreed yesterday to give qualifying businesses an even faster trip through Carroll's development review process -- 30 days from application to building permit.The county Department of Economic Development will determine which companies qualify "using whatever criteria they establish," Frank G. Schaeffer, chief of the bureau of development review, told planning commission members."I don't decide which company gets a 30-day priority review," Schaeffer said. "I work with it once that is decided."

Baltimore County officials halted construction of a $31.5 million expansion project at Villa Julie College yesterday after determining that the controversial project was larger than the school had said it would be.The stop-work order on the project -- which had for years been bitterly opposed by the school's neighbors in the rural Green Spring Valley -- was issued yesterday afternoon.It came just hours after officials realized they had overlooked discrepancies between plans approved by the county's Development Review Committee and those submitted as part of the college's building permit application.