Office Of Planning

The county police team that takes over the assets of drug dealers wants more than $122,000 to refurbish the police firing range it uses for training and to hire two private investigators to work with the state's attorney's office.The County Council has scheduled a public hearing on the supplemental budget request, funneled through County Executive Robert R. Neall, at 7:30 p.m. tomorrow in the Arundel Center.The firing range at the police academy in Davidsonville, where the Forfeiture and Asset Seizure Team trains, was slated for an overhaul in the capital budget, but the request was not approved, said County Budget Officer Steven E. Welkos.

Changing a long-held policy, Anne Arundel County officials are making developers fix problems in land-use plans before deciding whether to support a variance request."

William G. Carroll, Harford County planning director for two consecutive administrations, announced Wednesday that he will leave his post after eight years for a position with the Maryland Office of Planning in Baltimore."

In an unusual move, an Anne Arundel County Council member has cited the Maryland Public Information Act - as newspaper reporters and government watchdogs are more likely to do - to gain access to public documents regarding a long-embattled shopping center project. Councilwoman Barbara D. Samorajczyk said Friday that she has serious concerns about the Parole Plaza renovation project near Annapolis but has had trouble getting public records on it. A Democrat who represents the Annapolis and Parole areas, Samorajczyk said she has tried to review key files at the county's Office of Planning and Zoning regarding the $250 million project, but that her requests have been ignored.

The Maryland Association of Counties will ask Gov. William Donald Schaefer and the state's growth commission to hold off on legislation that would require local governments to submit land-use plans to the state for approval.If accepted, MACO's suggestion most likely would result in a delay until at least 1992 of any adoption by the General Assembly of a plan to control growth statewide.Raquel Sanudo, MACO executive director, said a review of the legislation drafted by the Maryland Commission on Growth in the Chesapeake Bay Region caused alarm last week among members of MACO, which represents the governing bodies of all of the state's 24 jurisdictions.

Months before crews complete a 100-bed addition to the detention center, the County Commissioners learned yesterday that more jail space might be needed by 2010.The commissioners also discovered that the county -- projected to grow by 55,000 residents over the next two decades -- might need to spend $135 million to build three elementary schools, two high schools, a middle school and to renovate schools.The schools were among more than 100 projects outlined in the county's long-range wish list, compiled at the request of the Maryland Office of Planning.

A governor's commission developing a statewide growth management program is moving too quickly toward enacting legislation that could infringe upon local land-use planning rights, says Carroll's planning director.Planning Director Edmund R. "Ned" Cueman said he plans to present testimony urging a slowdown in the process at a public hearing sponsored by the Governor's Commission on Growth in the Chesapeake Bay Region Saturday in Annapolis."The time line is so compressed, it doesn't give you an opportunity to react in a real constructive way," said Cueman.

It was a simple exercise. Either you liked it, or you didn't. There was the slide image of a simple cottage home. An American flag hanging from the awning over the wooden front porch. A home of stone and shingle, mellowed by age and surrounded by trees and shrubs. A warm fuzzy feeling - home, sweet home. Give that one a thumbs up. Now the slide of the modern-day "McMansion." A dominating, protruding front-entry three-car garage. A home situated on a cul-de-sac that overpowers the streetscape.

An Annapolis developer has withdrawn its plan for a 500,000-square-foot Target-anchored shopping center in Waysons Corner, a move expected to delay the project for months. After failing to meet two county deadlines for submitting a storm-water management plan, Petrie Ross Ventures decided to pull the site plan rather than ask for another extension, said Charles F. Delavan, a lawyer representing the company. Once the plan is redrafted to county specifications, Petrie Ross will resubmit it. "Some storm-water management issues have proven a little more difficult to resolve than we had hoped," he said.

In an unusual move, an Anne Arundel County Council member has cited the Maryland Public Information Act - as newspaper reporters and government watchdogs are more likely to do - to gain access to public documents regarding a long-embattled shopping center project. Councilwoman Barbara D. Samorajczyk said Friday that she has serious concerns about the Parole Plaza renovation project near Annapolis but has had trouble getting public records on it. A Democrat who represents the Annapolis and Parole areas, Samorajczyk said she has tried to review key files at the county's Office of Planning and Zoning regarding the $250 million project, but that her requests have been ignored.