Setting aside fears they were establishing undesirable precedent, members of the Baltimore County planning board approved a community plan that recommends zoning changes on a proposed development instead of the other way around.
If approved by the county council, the community plan for the run-down, student-populated Towson Manor Village will be amended into the county?s master plan, paving the way for the 160-unit housing complex that serves as its centerpiece. The plan recommends the county increase the number of houses allowed on a 13-acre tract at the heart of the neighborhood to permit 16 homes per acre instead of the 5.5 allowed under existing zoning.
But residents on the outskirts of the ambiguously-shaped development site called the plan unfair at a board hearing Thursday.
“My house will be an island of 5.5,” Dennis Matthews testified. “If the developer is getting 16, I want 16. I don?t want to be discriminated against.”
Other board members said they were hesitant to use community plans ? which county planners co-draft with residents at their request ? as a rezoning mechanism.
But project manager Kevin Gambrill assured board members the community worked closely with developer Tom Buzzuto and supported the project, which includes a mix of condominiums, duplexes, townhouses and “stacked” townhouses. Both parties signed a covenant and the sale of the property was contingent on the approval of the community plan, he said.
Community activists worked on the plan for 19 months and focused on ideas to decrease traffic and the number of student rentals while preserving the neighborhood?s historic character, Gambrill said.
The plan also calls for new streetscape and landscaping to improve pedestrian safety and more stringent code enforcement for absentee landlords.
