Zoning Law

The Howard County Planning Board voted last night to recommend County Council support for amended regulations to restrict where adult bookstores can open and operate. The new law would require that adult-oriented businesses be a minimum of 1,000 feet apart and at least 300 feet from homes, schools, churches, parks and residential areas. It also would change the procedure for those businesses to be licensed. The three members voted unanimously to support the legislation after little discussion.

A mining company that wants to dig a limestone quarry in Wakefield Valley took its zoning dispute with the county to the state's highest court yesterday.The Maryland Court of Appeals heard oral arguments from The Arundel Corp. and Carroll County in a case that is 3 yearsold.Arundel says a zoning law adopted by the county in 1988 is "grossly unfair" and should not be applied to the company. Arundel would have to spend at least $500,000 to comply with the law and still wouldn't have a guarantee it could mine, its attorney said.

THE STATE'S move to cut off farm preservation funding for Carroll County because of a controversial local zoning law sets a serious precedent. It expands the range of state funding powers that can be used to influence local government decisions on zoning and development. Under the 1997 Smart Growth laws, the state's primary threat to curb local sprawl development had been denial of funds for infrastructure projects, such as roads, water and sewer, and schools. But the state planning department has told Carroll authorities to repeal the new zoning law or lose farmland preservation money.

The Carroll Planning and Zoning Commission told Ed Primoff yesterday that he can use a contentious new zoning law to create a subdivision plan for his Woodbine farm. The commission stressed, however, that its action constituted neither approval of Primoff's plan nor a position in the debate over the law. The law in question allows landowners to transfer development rights from land zoned for conservation to their agricultural land, meaning landowners could develop one residential lot for every 3 acres instead of one every 20 acres, as is normally allowed under agricultural zoning.

A crowd filled a Carroll County hearing room last night to register disapproval of a new zoning law that many say will spur unwanted development across the county's rural landscape. Residents filled every seat in the room, and the crowd spilled into the hallway. An overwhelming majority of the more than 40 residents who spoke said they want to see the law repealed. The crowd of about 100 cheered each time someone bashed the law and booed whenever someone spoke in favor of it. "This [zoning law]

MASSEY -- The Kent County planning board has approved plans for building an asphalt plant in a cornfield on the edge of this town near the Delaware line. Neighbors fear an environmental disaster.The approval came last week after the county commission rewrote the zoning law in July to accommodate David C. Bramble, a prominent Eastern Shore paving contractor.Opponents say a plant at the headwaters of Swantown Creek, a tributary of the Sassafras River, would destroy wetlands and habitat for salamanders, pollute water and affect the flavor of the milk from Lester "Bucky" Jones' cows on an adjacent farm.

In an unprecedented action, the state of Maryland has issued an ultimatum to Carroll County commissioners: Repeal a contentious new zoning law by Jan. 15 or funds for your vaunted farmland preservation program will be cut. The zoning law, now 3 months old, counters the goals of the state's farmland preservation program and, more broadly, Gov. Parris N. Glendening's Smart Growth agenda, said Roy W. Kienitz, Maryland's secretary of planning. "Indeed, this appears to be the single largest step backward in rural land protection in Maryland in recent memory," he wrote in the letter dated yesterday to the commissioners.

The way Ed Primoff sees it, he's doing Carroll County a favor by developing his 190-acre property under a contentious new zoning law that will afford him a few extra lots. The math is simple, Primoff said last month on a drive around his heavily wooded property in Woodbine. Under the old law, he would have developed between 34 and 37 homes across about 100 acres. Under the new law, he will develop 40 homes on 40 to 50 acres, leaving an extra 50 acres of woods and farmland untouched. Better still for the county, he argued, the law will require him to keep the remaining 150 acres of his property undeveloped forever.

A series of zoning law changes that would make it easier for Howard County's citizens to gain equal footing with developers may have died an ugly death at Monday night's County Council meeting, but reincarnation appears imminent. Despite the partisan bickering during this week's voting session on 45 amendments to a long zoning revision bill, a bipartisan trio of councilmen plan to craft the measures into a new bill. The new measure would be reviewed by the Planning Board before a council vote in several months.

Despite a state ultimatum that could cost Carroll County $400,000 for farmland preservation, two of the three Carroll commissioners remain steadfastly in favor of the zoning law that has raised the state's ire. Commissioners Donald I. Dell and Robin Bartlett Frazier have reaffirmed their support for the law. But Commissioner Julia Walsh Gouge will push for its repeal at a Tuesday night meeting with Carroll planning officials, preservation groups and...