Residents, planning board back Turf Valley condo plan

The development of Turf Valley in Ellicott City into a housing community — long embroiled in a battle over chemical contaminants in the soil that were used to treat the former golf course — could move forward.

A proposed seven-story condominium development received not only the support of the Howard County Planning Board, but also the nearby residents of the Legends of Turf Valley, the overwhelming majority of whom signed a petition in favor of the Oakmont community.

“We believe that the developers … have done ‘due diligence’ in considering the impact on traffic, area congestion, and the environment,” according to a statement from Helen Carey, chairwoman of the steering committee of the homeowners association’s board.

“We knew when we moved here development was inevitable, and we’re satisfied.”

The recently approved site plan calls for four, 48-unit apartment buildings in Ellicott City on the north side of Resort Road and east of Marriottsville Road.

However, Marc Norman, a longtime opponent to development at the golf course on Route 40, said soil being taken from adjacent land for grading and other work at the Oakmont site could be contaminated.

He was instrumental in getting a county law passed that required the fairways, greens and maintenance shed areas be tested because of high levels of arsenic were found near the golf course maintenance shed.

“The site development plan [for Oakmont] was inaccurate and incomplete and should have been withdrawn from the planning board’s consideration,” Norman said.

The soil that would be taken to Oakmont comes from land near the condo site across the Little Patuxent River and has been deemed free of contaminants by the county’s health department, said David Boellner, a planner with Howard’s Department of Planning and Zoning who’s reviewing the Turf Valley project.

“We feel the county and state have [verified there are no contaminants] and wouldn’t have given their approval if it wasn’t safe,” Carey said.

The condos will be built by Timonium-based James Keelty and Co. Inc.

The Oakmont project has been designed to avoid negatively affecting the environment, by not disturbing the non-tidal wetlands, wetland buffers and 100-year flood plain associated with the nearby Little Patuxent River and its tributary, said Boellner.

The Oakmont site is expected to be graded this fall and construction would begin next spring.

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