The leadership of the Dulaney Valley Improvement Association(DVIA) is unhappy with Baltimore County government, specifically with the Department of Permits, Approvals, and Inspections. This is the department that controls the development process in the county. Royal Farms Stores wants to build a convenience store at the south corner of York and Greenridge Roads. As is it’s right, Royal Farms applied for what is know as a limited exemption in which the applicant does not have to conduct a community input meeting or be faced with a hearing officer’s hearing on the appropriateness of the development. If the limited exemption is granted, and that exemption is discretionary on the part of the County, then the developer must only submit their plans to the county’s departments for review and approval.
This process of limited exemptions has been going on in the county for over twenty years, and it is very typical for commercial and manufacturing development projects to receive this limited exemption. Royal Farms received a limited exemption in this case, but the folks at DVIA felt the problems with this type of use at this site are so concerning that the county should have required a community input meeting at a bare minimum. As a result, they appealed the county’s decision, and recently the hearing at the County Board of Appeals was completed.
The County Board of Appeals conducted a deliberation, in advance of issuing a written decision, on August 24, and they ruled in favor of Royal Farms that the County was proper in issuing a limited exemption. The members of the Board of Appeals based this decision on the fact that this project required a minimal number of public improvements, which in turn would not require a Public Works Agreement, which is a written agreement by the developer to construct certain public improvements as required by the County. The only other subject mentioned in the public deliberation was that there were a number of zoning issues related to the case, but one board member specifically said that this hearing was not the place to resolve those issues.
I respectfully disagree with the conclusion reached by the Board of Appeals. The whole process allowing limited exemptions can be found in Article 32, Planning, Zoning and Subdivision Control, of the Baltimore County Code. More specifically, the process for requesting a limited exemption is found in Title 4, Development, of that article in the Code. In section 32-4-104, Scope of Title, the code reads under subsection (a), Applicability of Title, that “This title shall apply to the process of review for approval of all development.” Further, in subsection (b) of the same section, it states that “Proposed development shall be in compliance with the present zoning classification on the property to be developed.” This would be a condition precedent for any development that takes place, either under the limited exemption criteria or the more traditional/regular development process.
Now in this instance, the zoning on the property would allow for the building of a convenience store. Yet, the developer also planned to construct 12 Tesla, electric vehicle charging stations on the property. Legal counsel for DVIA tried to highlight that point at the Board of Appeals hearing, but the Board greatly curtailed testimony and/or argument to examine the charging station subject. This property does not have the zoning classification to allow for a fuel service station on the site, and the Department of Permits, Approvals and Inspections should not have allowed for the limited exemption to proceed without the proper zoning or the developer’s removal of the charging stations from the plan. The Zoning Regulations define a fuel service station as “a structure or land used or intended to be used for the retail sale of automotive fuel …” That is exactly what the plan shows, charging stations that will provide fuel for electric vehicles, and it is why the County agency and the Board of Appeals got it wrong in this case.
Baltimore County’s residential communities lost two champions for the cause of better residential aesthetics this past summer. On July 4th, Mike Pierce of Kingsville passed away from natural causes. He is survived by his wife and grown daughters. Mike was best known throughout the county as the “sign guy.” He would travel around the county looking for signs that violated the sign ordinances, take photographs of the violations, and then turn in complaints to Code Enforcement. He gained enough of a reputation that the Baltimore Sun ran an article about his pursuit of these zoning violations, and they reported that at one time approximately one-third of the code violations related to signage had come from Mike Pierce. He compared the offending signs to the problem of spam emails- both create a form of clutter that is unnecessary and annoying.
But Mike Pierce did not restrict himself to signage clutter. He would frequently testify about a variety of proposed legislation before the County Council if he thought the legislation would negatively impact residential communities. I even remember him getting involved in zoning cases here in greater Timonium, far from his home community. I will certainly miss his keen intellect and dedication to community betterment.
The other champion is still very much alive, but Barbara Hopkins, the executive director of NeighborSpace of Baltimore County, has elected to move on to another position with a national non-profit involved with food insecurity. NeighborSpace is a local, non-profit land trust that creates small park areas within the urban/rural demarcation line in Baltimore County. To date they have protected twenty-one sites, totaling ninety-nine acres, under either full ownership or a conservation easement. Barbara’s skill set was well suited for her role in NeighborSpace because she held both a master’s degree in landscape architecture and a law degree. Aside from her efforts to preserve open space in Baltimore County, Barbara was active in promoting the need for better zoning and development policies in the county. Her efforts to elevate NeighborSpace have left an indelible imprint on the organization and Baltimore County.
Eric Rockel
Vice President, GTCC