Waterfront

THE OTHER evening I spent three hours on a Baltimore thoroughfare that has no street numbers. Out on a harbor dinner cruise with friends, we crisscrossed the familiar waters but ventured no farther east than Canton. There, the dazzling array of new harborside buildings, made all the more dramatic by night lighting, proved to me the Patapsco has to be the hottest address in town. Our harbor has been in the news lately, with a new city law ready to guard the busy industrial waterfront and the 15,700 jobs it holds.

Sign up for a newspaper subscription these days and you might get a free month of delivery or a desk calendar.But in the 1930s, The Washington Post offered a more intriguing gimmick. Buy a subscription and for an extra $25 you got a 20-by-100-foot lot in a waterfront community in Anne Arundel County, just three miles south of Annapolis."That's how London Towne was established," says Maryellen O. Brady, who vacationed in the community as a child and moved there year-round in 1968. "They thought of it as a summer place where people could put up a little cottage.

NAME A NEIGHBORHOOD in Greater Severna Park, and its residents will find something to brag about, whether it's water access, architectural style or proximity to shopping and schools. But one neighborhood, developed after World War II and considered one of Severna Park's most desirable locations, has a peculiar feature that could stop a modern developer in his tracks. The community of Linstead on the Severn, located on a former estate and farm of more than 100 acres, comes complete with a burial ground.

The city of Havre de Grace will hold a ribbon-cutting festival from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday to officially open the latest stretch of The Promenade, a waterfront walkway at the city's southern edge.This weekend's festival will feature five bluegrass bands, the 389th Army Band from Aberdeen Proving Ground and the Havre de Grace High School Marching Band playing at various points along The Promenade.The Havre de Grace Decoy Museum and the Susquehanna Lockhouse Museum will set up outdoor exhibits.

US Lacrosse hopes to move its headquarters from Johns Hopkins University to a new waterfront development adjacent to Fells Point. Officials say that with the sport proliferating rapidly, they've outgrown their 17-year-old space on the Hopkins campus. The proposed waterfront headquarters would cost about $25 million. US Lacrosse hopes to raise the majority of that from private donations and the sale of naming rights but will probably ask the state and city for $7 million. US Lacrosse officials acknowledged that might be a tough sell given the current tight budget times.

Many Baltimore-area residents may live their entire lives with nary a reminder that Charm City functions as an international maritime center. But for others, the port of Baltimore dominates their working and social lives."

A development team headed by Frank Favazza recently held a grand opening for Baltimore's newest waterfront development, $17 million, 102-unit condominium and town house complex in Fells Point called Belt's Landing.The first resident has already moved in, and two dozen more will be moving in this month and next, according to J. Joseph Clarke, a partner of Trammell Crow Residential, the project manager.In all, 26 of the residences are sold or under contract, and all work will be complete in the next 60 days, he said.

The city's Middle Branch and Canton waterfronts become a classroom and a party site, respectively, as the seventh annual Harbor Expo and Waterfront Festival gets under way today.The Expo, which runs through Saturday, features instructional tents for city students, water sport activities, crafts and exhibits and the unveiling of the first section of personalized bricks that will make up a 7 1/2 -mile-long promenade around the harbor.The Waterfront Festival is scheduled for noon to 9 p.m. Saturday (rain date Sunday)

Since 1971, John Baumgarten has spent $30,000 to erect a shed, install a water line, build brick steps and put in electricity and a patio on the sloping waterfront tract behind his Cape St. Claire home.Friday, an Anne Arundel Circuit Court judge ruled that the property belongs to the community, not to Mr. Baumgarten."I think it's wrong, and I disagree. But it's something I'll just have to live with," said Mr. Baumgarten, a construction contractor.Mr. Baumgarten was one of a group of St. Claire homeowners who sued the Cape St. Claire Community Association in 1992, asking a judge to declare them owners of the waterfront tracts behind the homes they bought in the 1970s and 1980s.

Lawmakers are expected tonight to amend a plan aimed at reducing the red tape required of waterfront homeowners who want to build decks and other additions.Although the plan, known as a "buffer exemption program," is widely supported by business groups and environmental activists, members of the Anne Arundel County Council have said they want to roll back an additional requirement that they say is too costly and difficult.The amendments will target a requirement that homeowners plant trees and shrubs to mitigate any environmental disturbance caused by construction.