Zoning Board

Tuscany-Canterbury's long-standing aggravation with the lone fraternity house in its midst has come to an end, Baltimore's zoning board ruled last night. Phi Kappa Psi, among the last of the Johns Hopkins University's Greeks with a true fraternity house, has lost the right to remain in the mansion at 3906 Canterbury Road, its home for about 30 years. The zoning board unanimously agreed, after a heated two-hour hearing, that the fraternity cannot remain grandfathered in the residential neighborhood after it vacated the property for more than a year to fix a laundry list of code violations.

A man trying to develop the first floor of a former hotel on Taneytown's main square has been denied a zoning change until he can say exactly what kind of business will rent the space.But co-owner Keith Reed says the Zoning Board of Appeals' denial makes it harder to recruit retail and professional tenants and seems inconsistent with the city's stated need for more offices and shops."We need to know what we have before we come in and start doing a lot of work," said Reed, who, with his wife, bought the building this year.

The fate of nine strip clubs on Baltimore's famous Block will be decided in Circuit Court after the zoning board upheld yesterday the recommended shutdown of three establishments and the temporary closing of the rest.The action by the city Board of Municipal and Zoning Appeals is the latest in a series of attempts to crack down on the once-renowned burlesque strip that police say has become infested with drugs and prostitution.At a hearing before the board yesterday, the clubs in the 400 block of E. Baltimore St. appealed suspensions of their licenses after a zoning administrator upheld police citations that the dancers in the clubs solicited for prostitution.

A last-ditch effort to negotiate an agreement in the development of a proposed mixed-use community in Howard County has collapsed, with the developer and residents unable to agree on how to move forward.John Breitenberg, an attorney representing several community groups in opposition to Stewart G. Greenebaum's plan to develop the 507-acre Iager farm in Fulton, said negotiations broke down after the developer reneged on concessions he made to the community in previous talks."We felt that the developer wasn't negotiating in good faith," Breitenberg said.

The city zoning board answered a chorus of voices against new billboards in North Baltimore yesterday by rejecting applications for proposed billboards at two Crown Central Petroleum Corp. gas stations.The board made the decision after political and community leaders argued that billboards proposed for 4501 Falls Road and 5101 York Road would adversely affect their lives.The advertising company seeking to lease the billboard space is Eller Media Co."People sitting on their balconies could see the back of the sign," said Roz Goldner, a resident of the Deer Ridge condominium complex who opposed the proposed billboard at Falls Road and Cold Spring Lane.

The zoning board rejected a challenge yesterday to the planned demolition of four townhouses in Charles Village to make way for a CVS drugstore and a 16-space parking lot at 25th and Charles streets.About a dozen Charles Village residents protested the plan to demolish the vacant townhouses. They said they wanted to preserve the architectural and historical fabric of the neighborhood by persuading CVS to incorporate the buildings in the pharmacy's design.It was the latest development in a conflict over the design of a proposed CVS pharmacy across the street from a Safeway supermarket on 25th Street between Maryland Avenue and Charles Street that opened two years ago. That part of 25th Street became known as the "book block" because several used bookstores set up shop there.

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.

A hearing on one of the largest mixed-use communities proposed in Howard County since the founding of Columbia likely will be postponed until September.The Zoning Board was scheduled to hold a hearing tonight on Stewart G. Greenebaum's plans to develop the 507-acre Iager farm in Fulton, with 1,168 units of single-family houses, townhouses, condominiums, cottages, apartments and office buildings. But members of the County Council, which also serves as the Zoning Board, decided to postpone the hearing.

After two months of delays, hearings before the Howard County Zoning Board on a developer's plan to convert a 507-acre turkey farm in Fulton into a mixed-used community began last night.More than a hundred residents of the area -- many of whom oppose Stewart J. Greenebaum's plan to develop the Iager family farm into a community of single-family houses, townhouses, condominiums and office buildings -- appeared at the hearing in the county office building in Ellicott City."If this comes, there's going to be traffic everywhere," said area resident Kevin Lewis, adding that Greenebaum's plan for moderately priced housing would "bring down the general value of the neighborhood."

The Carroll Circuit Court has upheld a county zoning board decision that will allow construction of a $32 million shopping and theater complex on Route 32 in Eldersburg.Judge Raymond E. Beck Sr. issued his decision last week in the case that pitted Eldersburg residents against a Baltimore County developer. The Carroll Planning and Zoning Commission went to court in June after the county Board of Zoning Appeals ruled in favor of Talles-Robbins Development Co., a Pikesville investment company that plans to develop the shopping center.

The Wilde Lake Village Center is the prime guinea pig for change after the Howard County Council voted this week for a new zoning process to redevelop Columbia's aging village centers, but no one knows what the result will be. The planned town's oldest retail center stands half-empty now, since a small Giant supermarket closed three years ago followed by Produce Galore and several other tenants. But Kimco Realty, the center's owner along with five others, no longer has a firm idea for what to do with it. Kimco Vice President Geoffrey Glazer made it clear after Tuesday night's County Council vote that this time he will be coming to the residents for a discussion, not presenting them with a plan.

Baltimore's zoning board could gain new authority under legislation Councilwoman Rochelle "Rikki" Spector plans to introduce Monday that supports a controversial live entertainment bill. Spector's measure would allow the Board of Municipal and Zoning Appeals to reverse the property-use permission known as "conditional use" that the city currently grants but can never revoke. "What is given can be taken," Spector said. The bill says that exemptions to underlying zoning rules are not "out there for perpetuity," she said.

Howard's state legislators and the Ulman administration are backing a General Assembly bill that would require people who apply for changes in county zoning laws to disclose political donations to county elected officials. It's a late addition to the list of local legislation for the 90-day session that starts this month. But the county delegation of state legislators won't vote on it until after their next public hearing Feb. 4. "It makes sense. You can't go wrong with full disclosure," said state Sen. James N. Robey, chairman of the Senate delegation.

Federal agents this week raided the offices of Milton Tillman Jr., a leading Baltimore bail bondsman who has been a repeated target of federal and state law enforcement and was convicted years ago of tax evasion and bribery. A spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein would confirm only that the federal agents raided 2332 E. Monument St., the headquarters of Tillman's 4 Aces bond company; 1101 North Point Blvd. and 1003 Greenmount Ave., both business addresses; and 3818 Kimble Road, which is in the same block where Tillman's son was wounded in a drug-related shooting.

David Hedleston Fulton, retired president and former owner of Plantabbs Corp., the Hunt Valley manufacturer of tablet plant food, and city zoning board watchdog, died Tuesday of a heart attack at his Tuscany Canterbury home. He was 82. Mr. Fulton was born in Baltimore and raised on St. Johns Road in Roland Park. His education at Severn School was interrupted during World War II, when he enlisted in the Navy in 1944. After being discharged from the service, he went to work for his father, David H. Fulton Sr., a Baltimore pharmacist who was a founder of Plantabbs.

Convenience stores, fast-food chains and other Baltimore businesses that stay open past midnight would be required to get a license from the city and address concerns raised by nearby residents under a bill introduced yesterday in the City Council. The legislation - which would not apply to bars and restaurants that sell liquor - would give the city more authority to intervene when residents complain about noise, loitering and crime taking place near late-night businesses, supporters said.

All five Howard County Council members want to limit the times county zoning regulations can be changed, even as they struggle with a difficult example of the practice they want to restrict. A bill set for introduction April 7 would restrict the introduction of Zoning Regulation Amendments, known as ZRA's, to September and March in an attempt to impose order on what chairman Courtney Watson said has become a distracting stream of proposals. A zoning regulation amendment changes the use of all land in one zoning category, a device used in the past by county zoning officials to clear up an ambiguity or alter the use of an entire zone.

A petition challenging the Wegmans grocery store planned for east Columbia will take its appeal further after losing before a Zoning Board hearing examiner this week, the attorney for the appellant said. "The Planning Board made what in essence was a zoning decision," said Susan B. Gray, a civic activist attorney from Highland, who represents Carvel "Buddy" Mays Jr., president of United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, Local 27, whose members work for Giant and Safeway supermarkets.

WALKERSVILLE -- The zoning board of this Frederick County town adjourned without reaching a decision last night on a controversial proposal by a Muslim group to use a 224-acre tract of farmland as a religious retreat. Although it was clear the board was leaning toward rejection of the request by the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community when deliberations resume tonight, officials of the group remained publicly optimistic. "I am hoping for the best," said Ahsanullah Zafar, president of the community, which has its headquarters in Silver Spring.

A plan to bring a gas station and carwash to the Waverly Woods Village Center in western Howard County died Wednesday when the county Zoning Board unanimously voted against a zoning change in the fifth hearing on the matter. "I'm obviously very disappointed in the outcome of the case," Rick Levitan, co-owner of the petitioner, Convenience Retailing LLC, said in an e-mailed statement yesterday. "I'm shocked that this Zoning Board showed no regard for the recommendations of its own Department of Planning and Zoning (DPZ)