Planning Commission

Jack Coe, former manager of the town water and sewer systems, is the newest member of the New Windsor Planning Commission.The Town Council approved the appointment last week.Mr. Coe, a self-employed plumber, replaces Bob Eaves, whose term expired in December. The five-member commission meets at 7 p.m. the fourth Thursday of the month.PoliceNew Windsor: A resident of Church Street reported to state police Friday that someone pried open the rear door to her basement and stole three packs of cigarettes and $25.Taneytown: A resident of Roop Road reported a theft to state police on

The Baltimore City Planning Commission approved legislation Thursday that would overhaul Baltimore's zoning code if passed by the City Council. The legislation, the first comprehensive zoning law to come to the City Council in 40 years, went through several drafts in recent years before it was introduced to the council in October. Even then, it was approved by the commission with dozens of amendments based on public input. The law is designed to make the city's zoning more comprehensible by including maps, diagrams and charts for quick consultation.

Carroll Commissioners Donald I. Dell and Elmer C. Lippy said yesterday the board will nominate Westminster attorney Robert H. Lennon for a five-year term on the county Planning Commission.Mr. Lennon, 45, said yesterday he had not formally been asked to take the volunteer position, so could not say whether he would accept.The attorney would replace Barbara J. Dixon of Mount Airy, who is finishing her second term, Mr. Dell said."She's been very dedicated," he said.Mr. Dell said he suggested Mr. Lennon, whom he has known for 15 years.

Baltimore has so many hidden streets and lanes, it is no surprise that a place called Crittenton Place stumped the members of the Baltimore City Planning Commission. For the better part of two hours Thursday, I listened to an urban saga about a piece of property and its aged stone buildings that tell an amazing history. It's a story that is not often told, and you need a degree in advanced urban geography to find the the street and the charity that flourished here. Setting the tone for the neighbors who mounted a defense for the old Florence Crittenton Home was Mark Thistle, who lives near the old stone house built on the side of the Jones Falls Valley in Hampden.

Baltimore Planning Commission Chairman Sotirius Stylianos Spiliadis is expected to head a search committee that will seek a replacement for Ernest Freeman, the city planning director who resigned last month to head the planning department in San Diego.Mr. Spiliadis said a subcommittee of the planning commission will also name an interim planning director to run the city agency after Mr. Freeman leaves his job July 10.The city planning department director is one of several city agency heads who are appointed by public bodies rather than by the mayor, along with the school superintendent and the executive director of the Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation.

In recent press statements, Joseph Mettle of Eldersburg has stated that his anger with me was that I had an argument with him over a planning commission decision he made. Nothing could be further from the truth. Mr. Mettle is one of seven planning commission members. If you examine the records, He has voted as part of a three-member "no growth" cabal. Not once has his negative vote been a deciding vote.A county employee upset by the actions of Mr. Mettle and fellow commission member, Grant Dannelly took a very daring step.

After months of working around absences, the Sykesville Planning Commission will be up to full complement when it convenes with four new members today.The seven-member volunteer panel, which reviews development plans and makes recommendations to the Town Council, lost three commissioners in less than two months.Another member, Christine Jenkins, requested alternate status.After a November planning meeting at which a lack of a quorum curtailed action on agenda items, Mayor Kenneth W. Clark called for volunteers.

Surrounded by maps, charts, traffic studies and their own Small Town Planning Guidelines, the Sykesville Planning Commission met in a work session last night with county planners. All discussion was geared to finding a solution to the Obrecht Road controversy."This is like a rap session, only for dialogue to get commission members' thoughts together," said Town Manager James L. Schumacher.The Town Council has charged the commission with making a recommendation on realigning the road by June 14. The Planning Commission will meet Monday for one final discussion with town residents before making its decision.

The Carroll Planning Commission should use new standards to determine whether schools, water and sewer systems and other public facilities are adequate to handle growth, the Board of Carroll Commissioners decided yesterday.They voted unanimously to ask the Planning Commission to use standards written by a citizens committee and submitted to the commissioners in February 1993.State law says the Planning Commission does not have to follow any standards recommended by the commissioners.But if the Planning Commission were to follow the recommendations, seven schools would be considered overcrowded and seven others would be approaching that point, General Services Director J. Michael Evans said yesterday.

After making minor revisions, the Carroll County Planning and ZoningCommission voted yesterday to OK a proposed mineral mining plan and send it to the Board of County Commissioners.The commissioners have scheduled a hearing at 7 p.m. Feb. 13 at Francis Scott Key High School in Uniontown to take comments from the public before they vote on the plan.The Comprehensive Mineral Resources Plan, developed in the last year by a citizens committee, will dictate where mining may occur in the county.

Baltimore is about to adopt a "climate action plan" that among other things calls for increasing energy efficiency in city homes and buildings, developing more renewable energy, getting more people out of their cars and planting more trees. The plan, drawn up over the past 11 months, spells out a laundry list of measures aimed at reducing climate-warming emissions of carbon dioxide 15 percent by the end of the decade.  The plan is scheduled for a final hearing before adoption by the city Planning Commission on Thursday, Nov. 29 at 2:30 pm at the Office of Sustainability, 417 E. Fayette St., 8th floor.

WESTMINSTER - The Carroll County Planning Commission will host its next work session on the county's Master Plan update Monday, Sept. 26 at 6 p.m., in room 003 of the County Office Building, 225 N. Center St., in Westminster. On the agenda is a discussion of several components of the plan, including its overall "vision statement" and community involvement, as well as aspects relating to agriculture in the county. Documents related to the master plan are available for review online at ccgovernment.carr.org/ccg/compplan/masterplan2011.

As Carroll County commissioners Richard Rothschild and Robin Frazier spoke recently during a slide presentation on their goals/visions in the 2010 Master Plan, I found myself thinking, "I've heard this tune before. " But I hadn't heard it on WTTR - no, it was at the public meetings where the commissioners tried to explain in January why the a land-use plan submitted by the Planning Commission in January was dead on arrival. Seven months passed before the commissioners got around to making recommendations they considered necessary to gain the board's approval.

As the Baltimore County Council prepares to consider new regulations for wind turbines in residential neighborhoods, at least one member is strongly opposed to the idea. The Planning Board voted unanimously recently to recommend allowing one wind turbine no taller than 60 feet per one-acre property. The recommendation - which came in response to a council request for new regulations - would set rules for residential areas only. The Planning Board said it did not intend to limit the prospects for wind energy in industrial and commercial zones.

The Annapolis Planning Commission has finished making revisions to the draft of the city's Comprehensive Plan, adopting a series of changes after receiving public input. The commission began updating the plan, which guides the city's policies for the next decade, in 2006, and a Citizen Advisory Committee spent more than two years working on the draft, which was released to the public in December. The plan, with the revisions, will go before the city council in May. The revisions made by the Planning Commission include: * a recommendation that the study of City Dock include in its objectives a plan to minimize parking from Market House to the water's edge at the end of the dock; * additional recommendations for four "opportunity areas," which are places in which redevelopment and growth are expected in coming years; * a recommendation that 10 percent of public housing units in reconstruction or rehabilitation be reserved for mixed-income; * an emphasis on improving bike and pedestrian facilities.

Juanita B. Nicholson, a retired Baltimore public school educator who later was a member of the Baltimore City Planning Commission, died Thursday of a heart attack at her Pikesville home. She was 83. Juanita Brown, a great-great-granddaughter of slaves, was born into a Cowpens, S.C., farm family. She attended a one-room school and, after graduating from Cowpens High School, attended what was then the North Carolina College for Negroes in Durham, now North Carolina Central University. "Education was very important to her father, and he wanted his children to attend college," said a daughter, LaVerne Nicholson-Sykes of Baltimore.

Baltimore's Morris A. Mechanic Theatre will not be added to the city's landmark list, even though the city's preservation commission determined more than a year ago that it met the criteria for designation and recommended that it be listed. Baltimore's Planning Commission voted 7-0 yesterday to keep the shuttered theater at 1 W. Baltimore St. off the landmark list, after hearing testimony that its owners didn't want it to be added but do plan to preserve "80 to 90 percent" of its shell as part of a large redevelopment project.

The shell of Baltimore's long-dormant Morris A. Mechanic Theatre would be partially preserved as part of a mixed-use complex containing a 30-story residential and hotel tower and commercial space, if its owners can obtain city approval and financing to carry out their latest plans. Renderings of the proposed development were filed with Baltimore's planning department this summer in preparation for a public hearing at 1:30 p.m. today by the Baltimore Planning Commission. The project is the latest of several hotel and residential towers proposed for construction in downtown Baltimore despite the uncertain real estate market.