Anti-development activists in Baltimore County are tapping a comprehensive, once-every-four-years rezoning process to save more than 2,300 acres of threatened land.
The county received about 310 requests for rezoning before last week?s deadline for property owners, county agencies, developers and community groups, said Jeff Mayhew, the county?s community planning chief. Many parcels are already slated for development and requests for rezoning are builders? attempts to maximize space ? and opponents? strategy to stop them.
That includes a 153-acre tract in Freeland, where lawmakers in 2004 helped rezone the property to accommodate 20 new homes, in exchange for free public ball fields. Preservationists want it changed back.
“Four streams have springheads on this property and, obviously, any construction in this area is going to destroy that,” said Reb Scavone, president of the Freeland Legacy Alliance. “This is what constitutes contract zoning, which we believe is illegal.”
In Pikesville, activists have requested the county rezone about nearly 400 acres from a residential category to a “rural conservation” zone. At the same time, developers are requesting about 40 acres of the site be “up-zoned” to allow 16 homes per acre instead of just two.
“We don?t think the infrastructure supports the current zoning,” said Alan Zukerberg, president of the Pikesville Community Corps.
Community leaders will congregate Thursday at the Monkton home of Irving Spitzberg, president of North County Preservation, which created a satellite-mapping tool to help activists determine how zoning requests might affect their neighborhoods.
“It allows us to look at the impact of whatever is being requested ? green infrastructure, brook trout, various endangered species, that type of thing,” Spitzberg said.
Public hearings for each request are scheduled in March. The county council must vote on each item by September.
