Council Hears Lengthy Rezoning Testimony

The rezoning process for Districts 6 and 7 moved a step closer to completion Monday night with a hearing at the County Council chambers in Annapolis that lasted over four hours. There remain at least two public hearings on the proposals (July 5 and 18).

In all, county planners from the Anne Arundel Department of Planning and Zoning sent forward 60 rezoning requests. The majority of those were to align zoning with current use or to correct Anne Arundel County Planning and Zoning errors.

The process began last year when landowners were expected to make rezoning requests in writing to give county planners time to visit properties and make their recommendations for the process to begin in early 2011.

The most controversial proposals, including bids to have the southwest corner of Routes 2 and 214 rezoned to commercial, and a proposal to rezone the Lothian traffic circle along Route 2 to commerical were not given the go-ahead by county planners. The complete list of 60 "approved" requests accompanies this story as a PDF file.

However, landowners were able to have a second chance to get their requests before County Councilmembers—who ultimately make the final decision as part of legislation 44-11. (The PDF for the bill is also attached to this story.)

To make such a request, landowners (or attorneys or lobbyists working on their behalf) simply submit an amendment to the legislation. The landowners may or may not have submitted a request during the first round before county planners, although it appears that the majority of the proposal applications to the county were indeed appeals that didn't pass muster with planners.

If the properties aren't approved through the County Council process, landowners are permitted to return to county planners and try for a "piecemeal" rezoning request, which is an administrative, rather than a legislative, process.

Zoning changes approved by the County Council cannot be appealed. The decision of the council is final.

At the first public hearing before the council on Monday, councilmembers remained mostly quiet throughout the evening's testimony. It wasn't for lack of curiosity—with 136 people signed up to speak (for two minutes each), interruptions would have the potential for dragging the night out even longer. However, on occasion, Chairman Dick Ladd asked petitioners (for and against proposals) to clarify details or facts regarding their testimony.

The 60 bills on appeal are not available in any one location, aside from hand-written, scanned documents on the County Council website, so we put together a list of all of the applications pending before the council in the Crofton-Gambrills area.

According to administrative protocol of the council, the final zoning requests that will be included in the bill to be voted on as a package should be available to preview by August 1. It will be available online at the County Council website. The final vote is currently slated to be held at the August 15 meeting.

Again, citizens will have two more opportunities to speak, on July 5 and July 15. Signups are at 6 p.m., the meeting starts at 7 p.m.

In other council news, prior to the public hearings on zoning, the council deliberated on a couple of bills. The first, a proposal by Jerry Walker to relieve secondhand gun dealers from having to report sales to county police, was defeated. Another bill to amend the income tax rate after property tax rates were increased, was amended and will come back before the council in July for a vote. A bill to allow homeowners to have multiple boats moored to a private pier was also amended and will return to the docket for a vote, also in July.

Here are the Crofton-Gambrills applications (36 in all) submitted directly to the council. Overlaps with approved submissions by county planners are indicated by double reference numbers.

#5-District 7            2490 Bell Branch Road, Gambrills            RA to C1 or SB

#6-District 7            1541 Defense Highway, Gambrills            RA to C1

#10-District 7            2256 Cox Road, Gambrills            RA to R5

#11-District 7            1300 Defense Highway, Gambrills            RA to C4

#14-District 7            2175 Cox Road, Gambrills            RA to R5

#15-Distrit 7            1191 Martha Greenleaf Drive, Gambrills            R5 to OS

#27-District 7            1308-1313 Defense Highway, Gambrills            RA to R1

#30-District 7            1117/1119-1131 Route 3, Gambrills            C2 to C4

#31-District 7            1685 Underwood Road, Gambrills            RA to RLD

#42-District 7            1506 Defense Highway, Gambrills            R5 to C1

#53-District 7            2355 Davidsonville Road, Gambrills            SB to C1

#60-District 7            2204 Cox Road, Gambrills            RA to R1