Zoning Officials

The plan to build a huge Wegmans Food Market at the location of an east Columbia warehouse where the hit HBO series "The Wire" is filming is the beneficiary of an abrupt about-face by county zoning officials. Three years ago, the same idea was rejected by county officials who said industrial zoning on the site, at the corner of Snowden River Parkway and McGaw Road, would not allow food stores. But Marsha McLaughlin, the county planning director, said yesterday that government officials changed their minds on zoning after months of discussion with county lawyers about what she said are the outdated definitions in laws written decades ago. In addition, Wegmans officials really wanted that site and continued their interest, she said.

Harry Millstein knows his flowers.The owner of Greta's Gardens in Elkridge knows that cauliflower and broccoli seeds planted in the fall can withstand Maryland winters. He knows that pansies thrive during the spring and fall and must be kept in the shade during the summer.Millstein also knows that marigolds and petunias need sunlight and that if he moves them to a covered porch in front of his nursery as Howard County zoning officials have ordered him to do, the annuals -- and his business -- will perish.

Tied on fences, stapled to poles, propped atop pumps and plastered on walls, cigarette posters and banners grow like kudzu at many gas stations and convenience stores.The signs are evidently effective, because such shops account for the majority of cigarette sales in the United States, tobacco companies say. And with the Marlboro Man and his cigarette-selling sidekicks scheduled to be booted off billboards and taxis in April under the states' tobacco settlement, such signs will soon become the most visible remaining outdoor tobacco advertising.

Planes but not gliders will fly again at Woodbine Airfield.The county's longest zoning battle -- which has dragged through six presidencies, numerous attorneys and weeks of testimony -- ended another round yesterday with the Board of Zoning Appeals granting Michael R. Harrison permission to run an airport on his South Carroll farm.Since the 1970s, neighbors of the grass airstrip northeast of Mount Airy have fought to close the airfield, noting numerous fatalities and accidents involving sky-diving, gliders and aircraft.

Woodbine residents opposed to reopening a glider port in their neighborhood will have to wait until next month to tell their story to the Carroll County Board of Zoning Appeals.But a 21-day delay is no big deal for people who have been fighting glider port operations at the Woodbine airfield for two decades.The land in the dispute is Michael R. Harrison's farm on Gillis Falls Road. Although opponents did not testify at yesterday's six-hour hearing, real estate appraiser James H. Dulany IV gave the board a preview of the testimony expected Sept.

Under different circumstances, Bernard A. Schwartz has no doubt that he could have been a friend to his neighbor, Michael R. Harrison.They both enjoy adventure, Schwartz says. He's an avid scuba diver; Harrison is a longtime pilot. They are both active in the 4-H Club. And for 25 years, they have lived just 500 yards apart.But that distance might as well have been 500 miles.For more than two decades, the men have been on opposite sides of a zoning dispute that has dragged on through six presidencies, countless attorneys and well into their middle-age years.

Worthington Way residents were supposed to make their case last night to the Howard County Board of Appeals for preserving a 10-acre lot in Ellicott City.Instead, residents and board members debated whether the community was adequately informed about how to challenge a decision by the Department of Planning and Zoning, and the case was postponed until Sept. 22.Neighbors planned to appeal the department's decision to allow the lot to be developed, arguing that the site is an environmentally fragile one that is not appropriate for development.

A Baltimore man convicted of helping to plan the ambush of a Dunbar armored truck last year was sentenced yesterday in federal court to 11 years in prison.Dana M. Jackson, 29, of the 4000 block of Sinclair Lane was one of five people arrested after the attempted theft of $460,000 from the armored truck that was hijacked as it was making a pickup at the McDonald's restaurant at 29th Street and Greenmount Avenue on March 20.Jackson, who was a Dunbar driver, had taken the day off to help stage the robbery.

On a quiet street in a modest Pikesville neighborhood, Nai Manle's blighted vacant house has been partially hidden for years by weeds that top 6 feet.Next door, 72-year-old Bessie Edelen warns her grandchildren to stay away from the fire-damaged cottage, frequented by vagrants and raccoons, marked by an abandoned Honda Accord -- and the subject of $128,400 in fines levied by county zoning officials.From Pikesville to Owings Mills, Dundalk to the wealthy Green Spring Valley, unresolved zoning cases are roiling Baltimore County communities, sometimes taking years to work their way through a bureaucracy fettered by appeals, hearings and court challenges.

A procedural decision by the Howard County Zoning Board on the Rouse Co.'s proposal for a Columbia-style village in North Laurel may hasten the project, a move that has angered neighborhood residents opposed to the development.The board decided last week to have one hearing on the Rouse Co.'s request for a rezoning of the 527.3-acre site off Gorman Road from a business district to a mixed-use category and on its specific plans for the development that call for hundreds of single-family homes and multifamily units as well as retailers and a recreation area.

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.

The plan to build a huge Wegmans Food Market at the location of an east Columbia warehouse where the hit HBO series "The Wire" is filming is the beneficiary of an abrupt about-face by county zoning officials. Three years ago, the same idea was rejected by county officials who said industrial zoning on the site, at the corner of Snowden River Parkway and McGaw Road, would not allow food stores. But Marsha McLaughlin, the county planning director, said yesterday that government officials changed their minds on zoning after months of discussion with county lawyers about what she said are the outdated definitions in laws written decades ago. In addition, Wegmans officials really wanted that site and continued their interest, she said.

THE ISSUE A county hearing officer heard last week the case of Daryl C. Wagner, who built a 3,500-square-foot home five years ago on Little Island without county approval. Wagner is seeking to acquire retroactive variances for the house on the nearly 2-acre island. Zoning officials, who originally opposed Wagner's request, have changed their position and now support him. YOUR VIEW Should Wagner's petition be granted? Should any retroactive request like that be granted? Tell us what you think at arundel.

Like many residents, Judy Blomquist is concerned about the future of Harford County as a place to live. More specifically, she is concerned about the potential loss of farmland that provides the beautiful vistas, rolling fields of corn and open space that add to the quality of life. That's why she has been paying close attention to the county's first comprehensive rezoning process since 1997. "If all the requests to change the zoning of agriculture to residential or commercial development are approved, we would lose our agriculture industry," said Blomquist, president of Friends of Harford, a citizen organization that monitors growth issues.

In Baltimore City Robbery victim shot in October dies of wound A 46-year-old man who was shot in the neck during a robbery attempt in October died last week, and his death was ruled a homicide by the state medical examiner, police said yesterday. Dennis F. Wilkerson was in the 200 block of W. Clay St. about 11:45 p.m. Oct. 19 when a man approached and tried to rob him at gunpoint, police said. Wilkerson hesitated and the gunman shot him once in the neck, police said. Wilkerson died Saturday at Deaton Medical Center on South Charles Street, where he was being treated for paralysis from the neck down, police said.

The Tunnel, a troubled downtown Baltimore nightclub long criticized by police for attracting violence, has been forced to shut its doors after city inspectors determined it was violating zoning regulations, officials said yesterday. Acting on complaints from the mayor's office and City Council members, zoning officials said they inspected the club - in the 300 block of N. Eutaw St. - on June 28 and found it was violating its "banquet hall" zoning designation. The violations were that the Tunnel was charging admission and operating as a nightclub, said Michael Savino, city superintendent for zoning enforcement.

Responding to the outcry of Poplar Point residents over a cell-phone tower they say has destroyed the character of their Edgewater community, County Executive Janet S. Owens ordered planning and permits officials yesterday to review the laws governing tower location and recommend changes within 60 days. Owens said she is particularly concerned that county laws do not require cellular carriers or county zoning officials to notify owners of adjoining property when cell towers are built on commercially zoned land.

Pia Vining took the call on her cell phone as she was driving home, and she heard an ominous tone in her husband's voice. "Honey, there's something I need to tell you," he said. "Before you drive into our yard, you should know that the tower is up." Vining said it hit her "like a blow to the stomach." As she pulled into her driveway in Poplar Point she was greeted by a 130-foot cellular telephone tower rising out of the landscape next door - despite an Anne Arundel County ordinance once seen as a model for curbing the proliferation of towers in residential neighborhoods.

The party's over. So say city zoning officials, who are cracking down on tailgate parties before Ravens home games in neighborhoods around PSINet Stadium. After complaints from community leaders, officials have shut down two of the largest tailgate parties, angering fans and event organizers, including one who says he will defy the order Sept. 10, the date of the Ravens' home opener. "I am going to fight and do whatever it takes to continue, even if they fine me every week," said Dave Rather, owner of Mother's Federal Hill Grille, which was fined $500 by Department of Housing and Community Development inspectors.

A task force targeting makeshift used-car lots is taking its first steps toward devising strategies to quash the illegal sales while continuing a crackdown on the lots. The fledgling group of Anne Arundel County and state officials and legitimate automobile dealers is preparing complaint forms for dealers and community groups to help identify lot locations and cars while looking at the possibility of changes in the law. It is also working on making consumers aware through a mix of police and zoning action and buyer education.