Oella

Oella Mill conversion is Smart Growth The clatter of looms no longer echoes through the Patapsco Valley at Oella. A different sound is heard as some newer residents in the community fight the sale of the old mill property for restoration and conversion into upscale loft apartments ("Altering area's fabric," July 29). The project has passed through the labyrinth of government agencies and earned the approval of the zoning commissioner after an extensive public hearing and expert testimony.

In the basement of Oella Mill - through the chain-link fence and down steep, rickety steps, beyond the gaping concrete doorway and just around the corner from the half-finished walls - is a fantasy-fed factory where jousting and dragons are part of daily life. But the brothers who run it don't deal in dreams. They deal mostly in weapons. Inside, in the damp, stifling heat, Kerry and Matt Stagmer hammer swords from sheets of steel, wrap rapier handles in leather, forge medieval-style armor and piece together intricate jewelry from platinum and gold.

In Baltimore City City reminds suburbs that water ban applies to all Baltimore officials are reminding residents of Howard, Harford, Carroll and northern Anne Arundel counties that they should also stop watering their lawns and washing their cars to preserve the region's water supply. City public works Director George L. Winfield, whose department pumps water for 1.8 million people in the greater Baltimore area, announced Thursday that the city and Baltimore County are imposing mandatory water restrictions because this summer's dry weather has severely taxed the water supply.

In 65 years of living in Oella, Shirley Mellor has seen the historic village survive three floods and weather the 1972 closing of the woolen mill that employed her, her parents and much of the community. Now Oella is poised to take on a new challenge. This month, the Baltimore County zoning commissioner approved Forest City Residential Group's proposal to transform the 194-year-old mill from an eclectic collection of art studios and antique shops into 175 luxury apartments that would rent for as much as $3,000 per month.

The remaining artists at Oella Mill are counting on a miracle. "The thing is, the mill still has not been officially sold," said Joan Bevelaqua, volunteer director of the rent-free 8,000-square- foot Mill River Gallery housed within the historic building. "The gallery is booked through 2003, and I don't want to cancel any of the shows until I know for sure. ... Something could still happen." But it's not likely. What is likely is that the current owners soon will sign over the 193-year-old former mill to the Forest City Residential Group, a Cleveland firm that plans to divide the site into 175 upscale apartments.

The Baltimore County zoning commissioner has approved plans by a Cleveland developer to transform the historic Oella Mill into 175 upscale apartments. In a 26-page opinion, Lawrence E. Schmidt said that opponents' concerns about things such as parking, traffic congestion and the number of units to be created were unfounded. The ruling opens the way for renovation of the 193-year-old building, now home to an eclectic mix of art and antiques dealers, unless neighbors appeal to the county's Board of Special Appeals.

Program shoots for higher goals than basketball Some say that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, but a local group believes that the way to a young man's mind -- especially a teen-ager's -- is through basketball. The Baobab Tree Project Inc., a nonprofit organization in Columbia, has started a nine-week program designed for boys in eighth through 12th grades. It is a leadership program in the guise of an anti-tobacco program under the auspices of a basketball program. It might sound complex, but the components mesh and build on one another, said Peter Taiwo, one of the group's founders.

More than 100 residents of the quaint and sleepy Patapsco riverside village of Oella jammed into a nearby school lunchroom last night to hear details of a controversial proposal to transform the old Oella Mill into 175 apartments and to protest the dangers they see from it. The developer told them the apartments will turn Oella into an upscale community, raising the values of the mill and existing homes in the Baltimore County neighborhood just across...

More than 100 residents of the quaint and sleepy Patapsco riverside village of Oella jammed into a nearby school lunchroom last night to hear details of a proposal to transform the old Oella Mill into 175 apartments and to protest the dangers they see from it. The developer told them the apartments will turn Oella into an upscale community, raising the values of the mill and existing homes in the Baltimore County neighborhood across the river from Ellicott...

At a time when slavery was still legal in Maryland, two African-American families lived and owned land in Oella in western Baltimore County. "I just found that amazing," said Louis S. Diggs, a self-made genealogist and historian who has spent nearly a decade studying and writing about African-American communities in the county. The presence of free blacks in Oella is one of the findings in Diggs' latest book, Surviving in America, which traces the roots of African-Americans in the Patapsco Valley.