Community Meeting With Councilman Walker Focused on Comprehensive Rezoning

Two dozen citizens showed up at the Southern District Police station on Stepney Lane in Edgewater on Wednesday for a community meeting hosted by Councilman Jerry Walker (R-Crofton, Davidsonville).

Walker started the meeting by saying that he has been learning quickly on the job. He was elected in 2010, and took the council seat in January of this year. The hot topics on the agenda for the meeting were the budget, which will be introduced by the County Executive on Friday, and the comprehensive rezoning plan for Districts 6 and 7, which will be introduced in mid-May. 

Comprehensive rezoning is a process that, under the county charter, happens once every 10 years, and is designed to force lawmakers and planners to look at the long-term land usage across the county.

But at the Wednesday meeting, it seemed that the budget was not foremost on the minds of attendees, who were squarely focused on the comprehensive rezoning issue. They had specific concerns about the proposal for rezoning the southwest corner of the intersection of Routes 2 and 214.

Citizen activist Suzan Cochrane of Edgewater was the first to speak in opposition to the rezoning request, which would take the parcel from residential to commercial. Cochrane said that Small Area Plan for Edgewater rightly designates the area south of Rte 214 as rural, and anything north of the intersection as commercial.

Walker stopped her in mid-speech and polled the audience, asking how many of the members of the community were there to voice opposition to the proposed rezoning.

Every hand in the room went up.

Walker said that of the 70 rezoning applications for his district, he has received multiple e-mails and phone calls on just three projects, they are:

1. The intersection of Routes 2 and 214 in Edgewater
2. Lothian Circle, where three of the four parcels that surround the circle are up for redesignation
3. Waysons Mobile Home Park in Lothian

Walker said that he has barely been contacted about any other projects, but has received hundreds of contacts about those three, with the majority focused on the Edgewater intersection.

Ray Gazelle, president of South River Colony's homeowner group said that their board of directors met with the developer who asked for the community's support. Residents of South River Colony, however, turned out at a meeting and strongly disapproved. Gazelle said that the vote from residents was 149 to 1 to oppose to rezoning.

Overall, all of the speakers urged Walker to consider the community opposition to the rezoning request, most noting that people moved to the area specifically for the rural character of the community.

Kevin Best, a former land use attorney who was at the meeting to voice opposition, said that any legislative decision made by the council would not be "appeal-able."

In all, each speaker tried to get Walker to take a stand on the rezoning.

Walker refused to say which way he will cast his vote.

"I got elected to make hard decisions," Walker said.

Walker added, however, that he had not met with the developer, who as yet, has not requested a meeting. Walker said that he would be happy to meet with anyone who would like to meet, for or against, and would be happy to walk around the parcels in question.

Walker added that he has returned thousands in campaign contributions from developers seeking rezoning before the council in 2011.

Walker urged residents to look at the comprehensive rezoning map, which will be available online. The map will be available after April 27.

Residents are invited to follow the process by attending the Planning Advisory Board meeting on May 11,  or any of the four public hearings on June 20, July 5, July 18 and August 1.

Editor's Note (12:17pm 4/15): This article was changed to reflect that the parcel in question is the southwest corner of the Edgewater intersection. In one part of the original report, it was reported as the northwest corner.