Senior Housing

An Annapolis developer plans to build a $5 million rental home complex for moderate-income senior citizens in Sykesville.Homes for America, a nonprofit housing development corporation, is looking at a 5-acre property on Village Road in the town of about 3,500 residents. The company would build 54 apartments at Village and Sandosky roads, across from the town post office."We are building senior housing, targeting those with moderate income," said Nancy S. Rase, president of Homes for America.

Fifty years in Cherry Hill, and Sarah Hackett is ready to move.The 72-year-old widow complains that she has too much space in her two-bedroom public housing apartment. But she refuses to leave the southern Baltimore community.She might not have to go.Representatives from Philadelphia-based architects Wallace Roberts & Todd and developer Penn Rose Properties unveiled designs late Wednesday for a community senior housing center during a final planning meeting at Hemingway Temple African Methodist Episcopal Church.

THE VILLAS AT Wildwood Park officially welcomed the newest addition to the senior housing village at a ribbon-cutting ceremony Tuesday.Presiding at the event were Mount Airy Mayor Gerald R. Johnson and Canterbury Homes developer Michael Berman.About 5: 15 p.m., the mayor cut the ribbon at the entrance to Merry-Go-Round Way, the future site for 27 single-family houses and duplexes nestled on a cul-de-sac in Wildwood Park. The community is off Merridale Boulevard behind the library and the senior center.

A Columbia-based developer may be one step closer to converting the former Elkridge Elementary School building into an affordable housing apartment complex for senior citizens.Last week, the Howard County Council passed a resolution turning the aging county school building on Old Washington Road over to County Executive James N. Robey for disposition. Robey is expected to direct that the building be placed on the market and sold to the highest bidder.Jim Forster hopes to be that bidder. For several months, he has been eyeing the property with the hopes of constructing a 54-unit apartment complex and a community center that would be available for public use."

About two weeks after its plan for a senior housing complex in historic Ellicott City was rejected, the Howard County Housing Commission discussed last night whether to appeal the decision, reapply for the same site in a year or find another parcel of land for the project.The panel decided to get a recommendation from a lawyer on its chances of winning an appeal in Circuit Court and take up the matter at its next meeting in July."This is getting to be, in terms of time, a very expensive 12 units of housing," said Leonard Vaughn, executive director of the county Department of Housing and Community Development.

Crunched by a glut of senior housing construction, Marriott International Inc. announced yesterday that it will delay development of several assisted-living projects and cancel others.The Bethesda-based hotel operator's move, together with higher than expected start-up costs, pre-opening charges and higher reserves for accounts receivable, is expected to lower its fourth-quarter earnings by $12.3 million, or 5 cents per share.Marriott said the lowered earnings estimate stems from one-time charges associated with its senior-living business.

A Howard County housing official has announced that a 46-unit senior housing complex in the former Elkridge Elementary School building could open as early as 2000 if state funding is approved.Leonard Vaughan, an administrator for the county Office of Housing and Community Development, outlined the plan before about 40 members of the Greater Elkridge Community Association last week.Vaughan said at the meeting Thursday that in March the county plans to ask the state Department of Housing to help subsidize conversion of the antiquated school off U.S. 1 in Elkridge.

They are older, they are established and they have money to spend. But right now in Baltimore, senior citizens have few places to go.New-home builders were told yesterday that the active senior adult housing market has yet to be fully realized in the metropolitan market and it's time for area builders to seize an emerging opportunity."

As the doors to elegant Bluefeld Catering hall in Pikesville opened at 7 a.m. yesterday, about 350 weary senior citizens streamed inside, seeking answered prayers.Many had waited in a line that formed Saturday evening to be among the 86 to qualify for rental of a one-bedroom apartment in the new Weinberg Terrace, a housing development for the elderly scheduled to open in October in Pikesville."I'm gambling," said Sam Schwartz, an 89-year-old applicant, who just after noon was handed the dismal placement of No. 370 on the Weinberg Terrace waiting list.

The paint is barely dry on Trinity House, East Towson's newest subsidized apartment complex for seniors -- and the waiting list is already up to 101.That's typical for housing projects for the elderly in Baltimore County, where 20 percent of the county's roughly 700,000 people are 60 or older. Their ranks are projected to top 200,000 in 20 years.Today, the county planning board will hold a public hearing on a proposed change to the zoning laws that could help ease that demand. The change would make it easier to build apartments for the elderly in residential neighborhoods.

Seniors having trouble selling their homes are seniors who can't move, so Erickson Retirement Communities rolled out a plan of attack last year: personal moving consultants to help prospective clients find buyers in the toughest housing market in decades. It's starting to pay off now, the company says. Seniors are moving into 200 to 300 of its apartment homes a month, up more than 10 percent from a year ago, said Tom Neubauer, executive vice president of sales. But that improvement - after several years of worsening economic conditions - wasn't quick enough to prevent the Catonsville-based senior-living provider from filing for bankruptcy protection this week in order to reorganize.

With the recession continuing to freeze even one of the most reliable housing sectors, Erickson Retirement Communities has dropped plans to buy and develop up to 188 acres of historic Doughoregan Manor in Howard County as a senior living complex. Erickson's decision to abandon a nearly two-year-old plan to build 2,000 senior housing units on the parcel creates uncertainty for the manor, the only home of a signer of the Declaration of Independence that remains in family hands. The family of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, the only Catholic signer of the declaration, had hoped to use money from the sale of the parcel to restore and preserve the nearly 300-year-old family mansion and other historic structures once occupied by their famed ancestor.

Retirement communities have a positive impact I have been puzzled by the contrasting views communities and governments take toward continuing care retirement communities (CCRC). Just recently, we have seen Howard County government and its communities embrace the proposed development of a CCRC ("Doughoregan senior housing stirring no ire," Sept. 28) and a decidedly opposite reaction in a Baltimore neighborhood, Roland Park, which has rallied against a much smaller senior housing proposal ("Keep country club as city green space," letters, Oct. 22)

Residents of Abingdon Senior Housing gathered in their community room for a blessing on their new home, a ceremonial ribbon-cutting, and a reception marking the completion of another residential project for Catholic Charities. The $8.1 million four-story building, which is fully leased, includes 76 one-bedroom apartments for older adults, several community rooms and landscaped grounds. Abingdon, at the intersection of Singer Road and St. Clair Drive, has been open for a year, allowing the 83 residents to become well acquainted.

Though the apartment complex for low-income seniors in Woodlawn is being built by Catholic Charities and named after a Korean church, preference will not be given to church members. That's what officials with the religious nonprofit organization told citizens who raised concerns about who will live at the 74-unit complex at Security Boulevard and Mount Vernon Drive, questions that prompted the emergency community meeting Wednesday night. "I want to make sure the community doesn't think it's a Korean-only building," Rosemary Horstman, director of property management for Catholic Charities, told Woodlawn community leaders.

Not everyone who is retired or nearing it is in the market for one of the luxury units that are dominating the landscape. A report says that 70 percent of Howard County's aging adults wish to remain in their homes, or nearby. "The need to preserve and create housing for the county's older adults is becoming more profound," says a report by a county-appointed task force on senior housing. "High land prices, as well as the older adults' declining mobility, health and resources have made it more difficult for many seniors to find housing that meets their various needs."

Nell Crawford, by her own admission, created a "monster" with her passion for cultivating enormous and colorful exhibits of flowers, plants and shrubs patterned after the Great British gardens. Her pursuit ultimately consumed half of the 3 acres that Crawford and her husband, Larry, lived on in Baltimore County. That was not a problem until age began creeping up on them. "I frankly drove us to the point where we couldn't physically take care of it any longer," Crawford says. The Crawfords sold the house and recently moved into the Evergreens, a luxurious, age-restricted apartment complex in Columbia.

Pointing to the lack of support from community and political leaders, officials of the Community College of Baltimore County said yesterday that they have dropped plans to allow a private developer to build a senior housing complex on the Essex campus. Mary C. DeLuca, a CCBC spokeswoman, said the board of trustees saw a "lack of external support in the surrounding communities and in government" and decided to eliminate the proposal, called CampusView. The $13.5 million facility would have been developed by Friends Care Inc. Officials said in a release that board determined "it was in the best interest of the college and community to withdraw consideration at this time."

The Harford County Council voted last night to impose a 90-day moratorium on the approval of preliminary plans for construction of senior housing. The panel approved the action by a 5-2 vote. The move is designed to give the council members time to determine whether developers are using the senior housing zoning designation to circumvent a law limiting residential growth in crowded school districts. Under changes in the county's Adequate Public Facilities laws approved by the council this year, preliminary approval for new housing development is banned in the district of any school exceeding 105 percent of its student capacity.

The Howard County Zoning Board will hear final arguments and decide on a proposed 102-unit, moderate-income senior housing building in Waverly Woods at 6:30 p.m. Monday in the County Council chambers. The board members completed their third evening of hearing testimony Monday night, adjourning about midnight after hearing six Waverly Woods residents who oppose the four-story building planned for a 2.3-acre site across from the community's shopping center. A rebuttal witness, developer Donald R. Reuwer Jr., also spoke.