After months of serving legal motions back and forth like a tennis ball, a developer scored a point against Town Center residents challenging a planned high-rise in downtown Columbia.
The county Board of Appeals ruled Tuesday that the developer can question whether appellants Joel Broida, Lloyd Knowles, Stephen Meskin and Jo Ann Stolley have a legal right to oppose the building, said E. Alexander Adams, an attorney for the appellants.
The appellants have defended their legal standing in the case, arguing that the high-rise would result in lower property values, increased traffic near their houses, and less parking.
“It?s a lot of dancing on the head of a pin when you say that a 275-foot building isn?t going to affect someone living next door,” Adams said.
The board denied a motion to use an earlier decision by Hearing Examiner Thomas Carbo that the appellants lack the legal standing to appeal the development.
It will hear new testimony from the appellants, traffic experts, engineers and developer Renaissance Centro Columbia LLC of Virginia,beginning Dec. 18. Revisiting legal standing is a distraction from determining whether the county acted legally when it granted the developer the right to build the 275-foot Plaza Residences, Broida said.
“We are not getting to the real legal issue,” he said.
His original complaint accused the Howard County Planning Board of illegally permitting Renaissance Centro Columbia LLC to build a residences on land zoned for commercial use only.
An attorney for Renaissance Centro Columbia LLC declined to comment.
