Several neighborhood association members and Baltimore County leaders are at odds over rezoning practices after officials told activists they can?t include recommended changes in their community plan.
Members of the Greater Parkville Association ? an umbrella organization of nine groups representing 775 residents in Parkville, Cub Hill and Carney ? said county officials told them they could not include zoning changes in a community plan they?ve spent the past year drafting. Citing at least one recently approved community plan that included such changes, association members said the decision defeats the purpose of a plan altogether.
“We?re trying to bring the zoning down to what?s already existing in the community,” former association president Ruth Baisden said. “We were getting all kinds of development not compatible with existing use and we?re losing open space.”
The county?s planning board determines if plans encompass a broad enough region to include zoning changes and have not ruled on the Parkville-area plan, county spokesman Don Mohler said. He said a county-wide rezoning survey every four years is a more appropriate route for zoning changes.
“It doesn?t make sense to devote additional staff time to coming up with zoning recommendations in plans when the rezoning process begins this summer,” Mohler said.
Attorneys decried zoning recommendations in the Idlewylde community plan as illegal “spot zoning” intent solely on disrupting an unpopular development proposal. The council recently approved zoning changes included in the Towson Manor community plan.
But to Baisden, that four-year process, which requires residents who want zoning changes to submit petitions, constitutes spot zoning. She described the petitioning process as obsolete, vulnerable to corruption and time-consuming.
One lawmaker agreed. Councilman Vince Gardina, D-District 5, said he intended his 1994 bill authorizing community plans to sanction zoning changes.
“It?s useless to implement a plan if you can?t implement the zoning to go along with it,” Gardina said.
