Zoning Officials

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.

Traffic assumptions the Washington Redskins made in their quest for permission to build a stadium in Laurel are "highly optimistic," Prince George's County Executive Parris N. Glendening said yesterday.Mr. Glendening criticized in written comments to Anne Arundel County zoning officials the team's assumption that each private vehicle traveling to games would contain an average of 3.5 occupants. He also said the team underestimated the cost of necessary infrastructure improvements.In their request for a zoning exception, Redskins officials promised to ease traffic problems on roads into the stadium by encouraging fans to car pool or ride buses or trains to the games.

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.

For three years, Tim Frost resisted putting his $4,000 satellite dish on the roof of his Lutherville home, fearing it would be dangerous and more of an eyesore than it would be in his backyard.Mr. Frost, a computer specialist who lives in the 1300 block of McPhereson Court, even filed suit against Baltimore County after officials refused to grant him a variance to keep the dish on the ground.But last week, Tim Frost gave up. He had the satellite dish moved to the roof of his home to avoid a showdown with county lawyers.

In the two months since they stepped up enforcement of county sign laws, zoning officials have visited hundreds of shops and stores, ripped out truckloads of illegal signs -- and angered dozens of merchants.County zoning officials launched a crackdown on illegal signs Feb. 18, dispatching 125 county workers over a two-week stretch to serve "friendly notices" to businesses that had illegal signs near their shops.Richard M. Gauch, chief of zoning enforcement, said that 700 friendly notices were distributed by the volunteer team of road workers, filing clerks and utility crews that visited shops and stores two months ago.Illegal signs include all banners, posters, streamers, balloons, portable signs, sandwich boards and signs with flashing lights.

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.

A proposal to rezone land in Elkridge for up to 264 townhouses has come under attack from zoning officials who say the project would worsen crowding at nearby schools and fracture the industrial corridor along U.S. 1.Yesterday, the Planning Board postponed a hearing on the rezoning request to give Blue Stream Limited Partnership and Elk Partnership time to address the issues outlined in a March 10 Planning and Zoning Department report.The report, signed by Joseph W. Rutter Jr., director of the department, recommended that the Planning Board reject the Howard County partnerships' request to rezone 34 acres of a 79-acre site from light manufacturing to residential property.

A countywide civic group is asking Howard County zoning officials to reject Rouse Co.'s proposal for a Columbia-style village in North Laurel because it believes the developer violated county procedures in seeking approval for the project.In a Nov. 25 letter to the county zoning board, officials in the Howard County Citizens' Association (HCCA) said the Rouse "mixed-use" proposal -- a development project that would bring hundreds of single-family homes and multifamily units as well as retailers and a recreation area -- has two parts that should be reviewed as separate cases.

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.