Special Exception

The Howard County Planning Board is to hear testimony this morning on whether a Daisy property can be used as a retreat for people who care for the terminally ill.Terrific Inc. -- Temporary Emergency Residential Resource Institute for Families in Crisis -- is seeking a special exception to allow it to operate a retreat center on a 32-acre parcel on Ed Warfield Road.The private, nonprofit organization provides housing and services for terminally ill inner-city children,the elderly and the disabled.

Pasadena residents who lived near a wood-recycling business thought they had found middle ground in 1999. They agreed to pull their lawsuit that sought to close A-A Recycle & Sand, and the Anne Arundel County Council passed a measure requiring that the plant be relocated within three years. But A-A Recycle's owner, William H. DeBaugh Jr., didn't follow the law. The county didn't enforce the law. And this week, the County Council reversed itself, approving a zoning change that could let DeBaugh's business operate legally.

A County Council bill that could make it tougher for a longtime oil recycling business to operate in North Point is the best way to ensure that council members yesterday. With a vote on the bill scheduled Monday, members of the communities adjacent to the proposed site for a U.S. Filter Recovery Services plant near Back River and officials with the company used the council's work session to vent their concerns. The bill would force plants that recover or process oil and oil recycling plants like the one to be run by U.S. Filter to obtain a "special exception" from a zoning commissioner to operate in the county's heavy manufacturing zones.

The County Council approved a bill last night that will make it tougher for a longtime county oil recycling business to operate a new plant in North Point. The change to the zoning regulations, which passed unanimously, now forces U.S. Filter Recovery Services to seek a zoning commissioner's approval before starting up at its new site - and appears to render moot questions of whether the company is in the business of refining or recycling oil. Under the bill, businesses that recycle, process or recover oil must obtain a special exception to operate in the county's heavy manufacturing zones.

Frustrated by a Columbia developer's failure to improve an Elkridge flea market site, Howard County planning and zoning officials have taken steps to revoke his special exception to operate the business.Last week, the county Department of Planning and Zoning filed a request to revoke Barry Mehta's special exception because he did not make required site improvements -- including paving or applying an asphalt preservative to the parking lot and providing better access to roads -- before opening the Elkridge flea market April 2."

Ellicott City residents who fought a proposal to convert a historic home into offices promised yesterday to keep a close eye on the property after a county Board of Appeals decision to approve the project.Housing developer L. Earl Armiger was granted a special request to move his company, Orchard Development Corp., from 3300 North Ridge Road in Ellicott City to a two-story home in the 3900 block of Old Columbia Pike.Under the special exception, Mr. Armiger can have a maximum of eight cars on the property and must screen a planned parking lot from public view.

WESTMINSTER - The city's Board of Zoning Appeals has approved the first day-care special exception since charging a $400 fee for the process, allowing a resident of The Greens to care for more than six children in her home.Dolly Sentz, of the 600 block of Johahn Drive, said she plans to care for one more child two days a week since she received approval, the last step in a long process involving acceptance by the state Department of Social Services and the fire marshal.Board members approved the increase in the belief that it would not adversely affect the neighborhood.

Ellicott City residents trying to preserve the picturesque Keewaydin Farm House on Old Columbia Pike from development received a setback last week when the Howard County Board of Appeals cleared the way for a 60,000-square-foot elderly care facility to be built on the property.Last month, Circuit Judge Lenore R. Gelfman upheld the board's decision to grant a special exception for the facility.But she remanded one point for review. She was concerned that the board had voted on a plan that might have had "substantive" changes from the original one considered by the county planning and zoning boards.

Belle Forest residents object to plan for Mountain Road golf 0) driving rangeResidents of the Belle Forest community have objected to a neighbor's plans to build a golf driving range near the intersection of Mountain Road and Route 100.They will ask during a hearing Sept. 29 that the county Board of Appeals deny Richard Fine, whose family owns a Brooklyn Park car wash, a special exception to operate a recreational facility on 32 acres on the northeast side of Mountain Road.An administrative hearing officer granted Mr. Fine a special exception last year to operate the driving range in a low-density, residential district.

Mount Airy's Planning and Zoning Commission voted last night to recommend a special exception for a proposed gas station and tourism center off state Route 27.Ewing Oil Co. has proposed building the gas station -- which also would serve as a tourism center for Carroll, Frederick, Howard and Montgomery counties through a public-private venture -- on the proposed extension of East Ridgeville Boulevard.The commission was deadlocked on the request last fall, after some members argued that the special exception was pointless until the State Highway Administration approved access to Route 27.However, SHA officials have since approved access from the proposed East Ridgeville Boulevard, although access at Ridgeville Boulevard will be closed, town officials said.

A County Council bill that could make it tougher for a longtime oil recycling business to operate in North Point is the best way to ensure that council members yesterday. With a vote on the bill scheduled Monday, members of the communities adjacent to the proposed site for a U.S. Filter Recovery Services plant near Back River and officials with the company used the council's work session to vent their concerns. The bill would force plants that recover or process oil and oil recycling plants like the one to be run by U.S. Filter to obtain a "special exception" from a zoning commissioner to operate in the county's heavy manufacturing zones.

Baltimore County's zoning commissioner ruled yesterday that Loyola College can proceed with plans to build a spiritual retreat center on 53 acres of forest and farmland in northern Baltimore County, despite the objections of some neighbors who worry the facility will ruin the rural character of their community. In granting the Baltimore college's request for an exception to build on land zoned for agricultural use, Commissioner Lawrence E. Schmidt determined that the retreat center would be similar to a camp, a land use allowed as a "special exception" under the county's zoning regulations.

A Pasadena engineering firm is suing the would-be developer of a Glen Burnie fun park for more than $115,000 in back fees. Lawyers for John E. Harms Jr. and Associates Inc. allege that Les Jenkins has not paid for surveying services, materials and grading plans that the firm provided last year as Jenkins lobbied the county for permission to build a fun park off Ritchie Highway. The project, alternately called the Thunder Bay USA Family Fun Park and the Les Jenkins Family Fun Park, was to have included go-cart tracks, a skate park, BMX bike tracks and water slides.

For the Les Jenkins Family Fun Park, the last six months have been a strange ride indeed. In May, when developer Jenkins proposed his project - to include go-cart tracks, waterslides, BMX bike tracks, a skate park and an arcade next to the Glen Burnie waste disposal site - he piqued the interest of county officials who thought area teen-agers needed more entertainment options. But this week, some of those same officials helped push through an emergency bill banning go-carts from commercial recreational facilities, abruptly scuttling the project hours before a scheduled Board of Appeals hearing on the issue.

A waiver is still a waiver in Howard County. Some members of the County Council don't like using that word to describe the deals sometimes struck with subdivision developers seeking relief from normal zoning rules. But finding the right alternative has proved daunting. Planners think "waiver" is inaccurate because the developers are usually required to meet specially shaped terms in lieu of the usual regulations. They proposed that the name be changed to "alternative compliance." But a majority of the five-member County Council decided Monday evening that alternative compliance would sometimes be just as wrong.

The stumps can stay. Over the objections of neighbors, Howard County's Board of Appeals unanimously approved a special exception late Tuesday for a long-contested mulching and composting business in Clarksville that processes wood cleared from developments. The board attached 17 conditions, an unusually high number, for the business, including one that sets the hours of operation. But the conditions - and even the vote - are not final until the board signs a written "decision and order."

Planning board mulls gas station-tourism centerThe Mount Airy Planning and Zoning Commission will consider a special exception tonight that would allow a gas station and tourism center off Route 27.Ewing Oil Co. has proposed building a gas station -- which also would serve as a tourism center for Carroll, Frederick, Howard and Montgomery counties through a public-private venture -- on the proposed extension of East Ridgeville Boulevard off Route 27.A special...

Howard County's longest-running zoning dispute - a 19-year-old case about composting that's been punctuated with lawsuits, hearings and accusations - is approaching the light at the end of at least one tunnel. The county Board of Appeals heard closing arguments last night about the Forest Recycling Project in Clarksville, two years after its first meeting on the issue. Board members, who were considering whether to grant a special exception for the operation, had not voted by 9:15 p.m. and did not expect to do so until their next meeting.

Plans for a Glen Burnie amusement park that would include several go-cart and BMX bicycle tracks cleared a major hurdle yesterday when it won a special exception from a zoning hearing officer - over the objections of several neighborhood associations and planning and zoning officials. Anne Arundel County hearing officer Stephen M. LeGendre's 27-page decision in favor of the Les Jenkins Family Fun Park comes a month after he presided over a daylong hearing, where developers presented their plans and neighbors raised concerns about traffic, noise and pollution of nearby Furnace Creek.