Baltimore County officials are offering to pay $2 million for development rights of a patch on the Country Club of Maryland?s golf course, helping club leaders and its neighbors end more than a year of debate on controversial housing plans at the site.
A revised plan for development on club-owned property calls for 36 new homes instead of the 46 originally proposed, and a bigger buffer zone between construction and existing homes, officials said. Club leaders said they also will agree not to develop about 95 acres of its property for at least 25 years.
The county is willing to pay $2 million for the development rights to 55 acres in the middle of the club?s course to preserve as parkland, according to county spokesman Don Mohler.
“As long as it remains a golf course, it remains a golf course,” Mohler said. “If it ever stops being a golf course, we take the deed for a park.”
Residents, who have fought the club?s plans citing traffic and school capacity concerns, were hesitant to confirm their satisfaction with the new plan.
Idlewylde activist Cynthia Jabs called the revision a “work in progress,” and community attorney J. Carroll Holzer said he needs time to “digest” the revised proposal.
Holzer said last month that county planners were trying to rush the proposal through the approval process. At one point, residents were racing to get their community plan ? which would force the club to downscale its proposal ? adopted before the housing project was approved.
Club attorneys called the community plan illegally isolated zoning solely intent on disrupting the club?s proposal.
“There are a few details we haven?t come to an agreement on,” Holzer said. “And there are some sticking points.”
