Vacant Lot

Developers planning subdivisions in eastern Howard County or projects that require conditional-use permission must meet with neighbors before submitting plans to the county. The next meetings are: Wednesday at 6 p.m. at Reese & Carney LLP, 10715 Charter Drive, Suite 200, Columbia, for a conditional-use proposal for the Church of Latter-day Saints, 6020 Ten Oaks Road, Clarksville. Thursday at 6 p.m. at the Savage Volunteer Fire House, 8925 Lincoln St., Savage, for a proposal to build eight homes on 1.93 acres of the Scovitch property on Washington Avenue in North Laurel.

For 10 years it has been just another vacant city lot. But in a few years, nearly 10 acres at Scott and McHenry streets in Washington Village/Pigtown is to become a bustling residential community with 150 town homes and a park. Yesterday, Mayor Martin O'Malley, other elected officials and city leaders attended a groundbreaking ceremony at the site, one of many such ceremonies for the mayor this week as he continues his re-election campaign. O'Malley is expected at a groundbreaking ceremony today for Frankford Estates in Northeast Baltimore, which will consist of 67 single-family homes, 54 duplexes and 49 town homes.

Anne Arundel County planning officials released yesterday the first part of a long-awaited survey intended to produce an accurate count of vacant residential and commercial lots with an eye toward smoothing the development planning process. "When completed, the lot inventory will give county planners a tool for forecasting residential and commercial growth and the potential impact on schools and infrastructure," said Pam Jordan, a spokeswoman for the county, in a written statement. The survey, produced by RESI/Atlantech Solutions Inc. at Towson University, cost the county $207,120.

Sandra Smith grew up in Sandtown-Winchester when things were nicer - when vacant lots weren't scattered everywhere, magnets for trash and crime. Yesterday, she and several dozen others attacked one of those pockets of blight and turned it into a beautiful spot, vowing to do the same throughout the gritty community they love. "We're taking back our neighborhood," said Smith, 52, as two of her young adopted sons raked beside her in the 1000 block of N. Carrollton Ave. "We'll get it done."

They've tried "zero tolerance." They've tried empowerment zones. They've tried demolishing public housing high-rises. Now, Baltimore officials are trying the latest proposed cure for drug-ridden streets and urban blight: garden mulch. Hoping to bring a fresher look and perhaps even a whiff of woods to some of Baltimore's 12,573 vacant lots, a new program aims to scatter several tons of mulch throughout the city's most dilapidated neighborhoods. Mayor Martin O'Malley imported the earthy strategy from Chicago, hoping that it will boost morale in city blocks besieged by crime and rubbish.

They've tried "zero tolerance." They've tried empowerment zones. They've tried demolishing public housing high-rises. Now, Baltimore officials are trying the latest proposed cure for drug-ridden streets and urban blight: garden mulch. Hoping to bring a fresher look and perhaps even a whiff of woods to some of Baltimore's 12,573 vacant lots, a new program aims to scatter several tons of mulch throughout the city's most dilapidated neighborhoods. Mayor Martin O'Malley imported the earthy strategy from Chicago, hoping that it will boost morale in city blocks besieged by crime and rubbish.

ALBANY, N.Y. - A 4-foot-deep, T-shaped cavity dug from weedy ground in the shadow of Interstate 787 overpasses here may reveal well-preserved stonework of what was once the nation's most important transportation artery. Two professors from Union College in Schenectady say that after two years of searching, they have found the 160-year-old eastern terminus of the Erie Canal in the vacant lot near the Hudson River in Albany. `Buried quite carefully' "Previous studies said that the canal was destroyed from Cohoes on down," said Denis Foley, a Union research professor in anthropology, who joined civil engineer and assistant professor Andrew Wolfe for the project.

ALBANY, N.Y. - A 4-foot-deep T-shaped cavity dug from weedy ground in the shadow of Interstate 787 overpasses here may reveal well-preserved stonework of what was once the nation's most important transportation artery. Two professors from Union College in Schenectady say that after two years of searching, they have found the 160-year-old eastern terminus of the Erie Canal in the vacant lot near the Hudson River in Albany. `Buried quite carefully' "Previous studies said that the canal was destroyed from Cohoes on down," said Denis Foley, a Union research professor in anthropology, who joined civil engineer and Assistant Professor Andrew Wolfe for the project.

KOZENKI, Russia - Acrid clouds of smoke drift through the sky from stubborn peat fires smoldering here northwest of Moscow. But standing in a stubbled field next to the New Riga Highway, Alexander Golod claims that the air is healthier than anywhere else in the region. It's because, he says, of the 144-foot pyramid towering behind him. The 53-year-old former guitar-string manufacturer says his pyramids - which can be ordered from a Canadian firm - don't just purify the air by somehow concentrating the "energy" of the space around them.

In a case that has escalated into a countywide fight pitting preservation against property rights, Baltimore County's Landmarks Preservation Commission will hear arguments tonight on whether a vacant lot can be brought into a historic district against the owner's will. On one side are six homeowners on Parkton's Hillcrest Avenue who have put their late-19th-century Victorian homes into the county's historic preservation program but worry about the future of a 1-acre vacant lot in their midst.