Report: Development on the Horizon for Lawyers Hill

More than 80 new homes will be cropping up on Lawyers Hill in Elkridge over the next three years, according to a recent article in the Howard County Times.

Ryan Homes is building 48 single-family dwellings, according to the article, and adjacent to that, Trinity Homes will be building 43 houses.

Elkridge residents told the Times that they were concerned about traffic and safety for bicyclists, as both developments’ egress is a winding part of Lawyers Hill Road between Levering Avenue and Old Lawyers Hill Road; however, a spokesperson for Trinity Homes maintained in the article that the project required a traffic study before development.

The sketch plan for the Trinity Homes project states "a traffic study is not required for this site," as does the equivalent for Ryan Homes. The plans also indicate that entry and exit points would be on Washington Boulevard.

In addition to traffic patterns, the two new neighborhoods—called Claremont Overlook and Cypress Springs—may be altering their historic surroundings, residents told the Times.

In 1993, Lawyers Hill was added to the National Register of Historic Places after residents pushed for the designation to preserve the area's heritage and in part to stave off development, according to the Baltimore Sun's coverage of the issue in 1994; developers, stated the article, would have to get approval for projects from the Maryland Historic Trust.

"Lawyers Hill," with its "gracious homes stretching out atop" it, was so named after a judge bought property there for his summer home and his lawyer friends followed suit in the early 19th century, according to Elk Ridge: A Bicentennial Journal.

The recent Howard County Times article indicated that the historic designation did not save some of the buildings on the development sites, where "a collapsed house, small barn and a dilapidated log cabin were demolished for safety reasons.”

There are four historic districts in Howard County, according to the National Register of Historic Places: Lawyers Hill, Ellicott City, Daniels Mill and Savage Mill.