Planning Commission

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.

Seton Hill residents and Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. yesterday settled their bitter two-year dispute over the appearance of a new electric substation in the historic neighborhood. The compromise design requires BGE to completely rebuild an existing brick compound, spending at least $3 million more than required by a plan presented to the Baltimore Planning Commission last month and fiercely opposed by area residents. "I'm not jumping up and down for joy," said Mico Milanovic, a member of the Seton Hill Community Association.

Developer Rob Scranton will go before the Mount Airy Planning Commission tomorrow to present a proposal to incorporate an adjacent property into the rebuilding of the Bohn Building, which was demolished recently after a three-alarm fire downtown. Scranton's redevelopment plan calls for a commercial plaza, set back from the Main Street sidewalk, combining the Bohn site and Scranton's neighboring property at 114 S. Main St., where he was scheduled to begin construction on a project just days after the Sept.

Huge glass tower diminishes Canton As a 20-year resident of an original Canton Square townhouse, I am certainly not opposed to progress. Indeed, my tiny house has increased in value tremendously with all of the rehabs and new construction in the area. But a 240-foot, sparkly glass tower does not belong here. Not only will it dwarf every other structure nearby, but with its modern design it will look hideous in historic Canton ("Panel OKs high-rise in Canton," Feb. 23). Modern glass, high-rise office buildings and condos are fine in downtown development areas set back from the waterfront.

In Baltimore CityPlanning Commission OKs plan for site at Locust PointA local developer's plan to convert the Procter & Gamble Co. soap-making plant into a $53 million office and retail complex called The Point passed a key hurdle yesterday when the city Planning Commission approved a bill that would allow the project to be carried out as an "Industrial Planned Unit Development."Conversion of the property at 1422 Nicholson St. by Struever Bros., Eccles & Rouse is expected to bring up to 2,000 jobs to Locust Point, an area decimated by closings of manufacturing plants.

WHEN IT WAS constructed in 1914 overlooking Druid Park Lake in Northwest Baltimore, the Riviera apartment building was hailed as one of the "handsomest and most costly" residences in the city -- Maryland's equivalent of a mid-rise on the French Riviera.Vacant and rundown, the building is being readied for a rebirth -- a $7.8 million renovation designed to restore much of its luster and make it an attractive anchor of the Reservoir Hill community again.Pennrose Properties of Philadelphia and Reservoir Hill HOPE, a local nonprofit, plan to acquire the six-story building at 901 Druid Park Lake Drive and rehabilitate it to create 55 apartments, most with views of the lake.

A decision on the Promenade, a proposed $32 shopping and theater complex in Eldersburg, once again falls to the Carroll County Planning and Zoning Commission.The county commissioners discussed the Promenade briefly yesterday but deferred comment to the planning commission, which must decide whether to appeal a circuit judge's opinion. Last week, the judge upheld a county zoning board decision allowing construction of the complex.The developer is preparing for the planning commission's review of a site plan for the 36-acre industrial site at Route 32 and Londontown Boulevard.

The Carroll County Planning and Zoning Commission approved yesterday Westminster's plans to annex 61 acres for commercial development just east of Weis Markets along Route 140.The tract is zoned for residential and industrial use and land conservation, Carroll planner Barbara Moser told the planning commission. Westminster officials are asking the property be zoned for commercial use at the time of annexation. Such a rezoning requires approval by the county commissioners.The county planning department reviewed the request and supported the zoning change.

Nearly 1,100 homes proposed for the Freedom Area, Carroll's most populous region, will not be built because the planning commission has delayed the necessary zoning.Reviewing a growth plan for Freedom, the Carroll County Planning and Zoning Commission has recommended no rezoning for residential development on 1,500 acres and approved the creation of a business district and an employment campus."We should leave property as it is zoned, not change it at all," said planning commissioner Grant Dannelly in a reference to a 295-acre parcel near Linton Road, which is zoned for agricultural use. "There is no valid reason to rezone."

The county Planning and Zoning Commission approved site plans yesterday for the expansion of two Westminster businesses and ordered a study of road development in the Freedom Area.By unanimous vote, the seven-member commission approved plans by Random House Inc. to expand its facility on the northeast edge of Westminster. The project calls for the construction of a 278,500-square-foot warehouse.Work on the building, which will be attached to an existing warehouse on the site, is expected to begin in June, according to Randy Bachtel of BPR Inc. The Westminster engineering firm has been working on the project for several months.

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.

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.

Landmark status will protect theater The controversy over the future of the Morris A. Mechanic Theatre continues, and tomorrow, the Planning Commission will decide whether to support a landmark designation for the Mechanic. In its recent editorial "Landmark in all but name" (Aug. 17), The Baltimore Sun was correct in stating that the theater "qualifies as a genuine architectural landmark" but wrong in recommending against a formal landmark designation. On Aug. 14, 2007, the city's Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation (CHAP)

A century-old brick building on a downtown block long-slated for redevelopment would be preserved as a landmark over the objections of the property's owner if a Baltimore preservation panel's recommendation wins approval. The city's Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation has recommended landmark status for the now-vacant three-story building at 200 E. Baltimore St., built for the Pennsylvania Railroad Co. in 1905 after the Great Baltimore Fire. But owner Edison Properties of Newark, N.J., which has been buying property in the block for a decade to eventually build a mixed-used office or residential tower, says the recommendation goes against previous agreements with city officials.

As many as 485 new luxury apartments are being planned for two blocks of Baltimore's Brewers Hill neighborhood, the mixed-use redevelopment of two shuttered breweries. A Houston-based apartment developer has a site south of O'Donnell Street under contract and plans two four-to-five story residential buildings that would include street-level shops and parking. The plan is scaled back from a much larger residential component envisioned when city planners approved development in Brewers Hill about five years ago. The developer, the Hanover Co., also is building Brewers Hill's first new housing component, a 180-unit apartment complex on the west side of South Conkling Street that is scheduled for completion in about a year.

Baltimore is proposing to condemn and buy seven homes with arsenic pollution in their yards beside contaminated Swann Park as part of a large waterfront development. The plan for the 50-acre West Covington project in South Baltimore would include hundreds of homes and more than a million square feet of retail and offices beside a cleaned-up and reopened park, city officials said. "It's pretty clear that this part of the city and the whole Middle Branch area offers a very exciting opportunity for development that doesn't exist now," said City Solicitor George Nilson.

Licien "Lun" Harris, a retired fashion illustrator who was a voice for neighborhood preservation and beautification through tree planting, died of a stroke April 8 at Gilchrist Center for Hospice Care. She was 89. A resident of Bolton Hill for nearly six decades, she was a former board member of the Baltimore City Planning Commission, where she cast negative votes when plans for an interstate highway were discussed at its meetings. She was a founding member and former president of Baltimore Heritage, a preservation advocacy group.

In a rebuff to city economic development officials, Baltimore's Planning Commission has refused to approve creation of an urban renewal district in the West Covington area of South Baltimore, saying redevelopment plans should go forward but condemnation should not be used to forcibly displace thriving businesses and occupied homes. Panel members voted, 7-1, late Thursday not to recommend an urban renewal bill that would enable the city to use its power of eminent domain to acquire the mostly industrial property on 50 acres along the eastern shore of the Middle Branch and offer it for a privately developed mixed-use project.

Baltimore officials are paving the way for an extensive mixed-use project along the eastern shore of the Middle Branch with a plan to acquire the mostly industrial property and offer it for private development. A proposed urban renewal plan for West Covington, bounded by Interstate 95 on the north, Hanover Street on the east and the Middle Branch of the Patapsco River on the west, would enable the city to acquire about 50 acres in a part of the city targeted for redevelopment. But industrial businesses that would be displaced are fighting the plan, saying they already provide the jobs and economic development urban renewal is designed to bring.