Zoning Code

Increase housing for those with moderate incomes and create a loan program for low-income homeowners in historic districts to renovate their properties. Create transit hubs in areas where people have few cars and increase the number of water taxi stops. Plant more trees and establish wireless technology zones in select parts of the city. These are among the dozens of development strategies for the city over the next six years that are laid out in a draft copy of Baltimore's comprehensive master plan.

The Anne Arundel County Council will hold a public hearing tonight on proposed changes in the county zoning and subdivision codes. The revisions, proposed by the county land-use department, would constitute the most far-reaching overhaul of county building and development laws in 30 years. A vote on the lengthy and complicated revisions could be held as soon as Monday night. Although many of the proposed changes involve technical points or wording changes, some farmers are upset about a proposal that would reduce their ability to give land for homes to their relatives.

The City Council is considering two bills that would allow drug treatment clinics and group homes to open without public approval, a move Mayor Martin O'Malley's administration says is required by federal law but one that communities fear could tear apart fragile neighborhoods. Drug treatment and disability advocates say the legislation would help to bring in needed social services providers. They have threatened to sue the city unless it complies with the federal Fair Housing Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act. The proposals would allow drug treatment clinics to open in areas zoned for medical offices, such as those of dentists or pediatricians.

Wicomico County Council approves zoning code The Wicomico County Council approved a new zoning code last month, the first major changes to the county's development law since the 1960s. The changes are the culmination of a year of review by county planners. They picked up a process that started when the council formed an advisory committee to examine updates in 2001. The changes were prompted by the council's passage of a comprehensive plan in 1998. Zoning must conform to the ideas laid out in the plan.

In Baltimore City Woman stabbed, man, 22, shot in separate homicides A woman described as in her 60s was found dead with multiple stab wounds last night in her apartment - one of two homicides reported yesterday by city police. Shortly after 8 p.m., Northwestern District officers checking a report of a "suspicious condition" found the woman's body in her first-floor apartment in the 2600 block of N. Hilton St. Her name was withheld pending notification of family members. How long the woman had been dead was not known, and police were attempting to determine if she was killed during a burglary and what, if any, property was missing.

BALTIMORE'S ZONING BOARD sought in 1959 to close two homes for alcoholics operated by the Flynn Christian Fellowship Houses on grounds that rehabilitation homes did not belong in residential areas. This sparked a controversy that the City Council resolved three years later by requiring that such homes receive council approval before opening in residential areas. Baltimore is wrestling with this issue again, but in a very different context. The region's substance abuse addiction problem now includes heroin and cocaine as well as alcohol, and drug treatment is widely recognized as effective and essential to the future of the Baltimore region.

As part of a sweeping proposal to revise the Anne Arundel zoning code, the county planning department wants to eliminate a provision that allows farmers to build houses on their land for family members. Planners say the provision has been used as a back-door way to subdivide land intended for agricultural use. "It's been so abused that we decided to eliminate it entirely" in the department's recommendations, said Joe Rutter, the county's planning and zoning officer. But County Executive Janet S. Owens is taking a more moderate position for now. "I share the concerns about the history of abuse under family conveyance," said Owens, who grew up on a farm.

The Anne Arundel County planning department released yesterday a comprehensive series of proposed revisions to the county zoning code that would condense the code and standardize definitions, planning officials said. Officials expect to submit a similarly comprehensive revision of county subdivision rules in the spring. The zoning code was last fully revised in 1971. "It is my hope that this new legislation will make the zoning process more clear to the citizens and development community," said County Executive Janet S. Owens in a statement.

Anne Arundel County should target its agricultural preservation efforts at land owned by longtime farming families and give those families more options for using the land once it is preserved, a panel of farmers and farm experts recommended last week. Such measures would help the county preserve its farming industry, instead of just preserving open land, said Jeff Opel, the chairman of the panel. "We've done a very good job of preserving our land base, but it's equally important to preserve the farmer," said Opel, who is also director of the county's soil conservation district.

The developer of a planned seven-story apartment building in Remington is fighting a court-ordered freeze on the $7 million project on Cresmont Avenue that a Baltimore judge ruled was illegally approved by the city. City Circuit Judge Albert J. Matricciani Jr. ruled recently that construction could not continue without specific city legislation to build a 33-space surface parking lot next to the proposed apartment building. That ruling surprised Orchard Development LLC, which had obtained a city permit to move ahead and had begun work at the site.