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Business & Developmentby Fern Shen12:26 pmJan 30, 20140

Developers quietly pushing ahead on 25th Street Wal-Mart project

Opponents seek a judicial review of the city’s decision to approve a revised Wal-Mart plan

Above: A meeting last fall in Charles Village about the proposed Wal-Mart development in Remington.

In the wake of the Planning Commission’s November approval of plans for the 25th Street Station project in Remington, developers have obtained several waivers from subdivision rules while opponents have asked for a city Circuit Court review of the commission’s action.

These may be quieter moments in the at-times raucous saga of the planned shopping center anchored by Wal-Mart, but tempers still flare. This week, for example, the parties came to City Hall to appear before the Board of Municipal Zoning Appeals.

The board was to inform residents of how it is going to handle their appeal of the commission’s action – technically its approval of the “Minor Amendment and Revised Final Design” for “the Planned Unit Development (PUD) for Development Site 1” of the project.

When Joan Floyd, of Remington, and other residents, saw that only three of the five BMZA board members were present, Floyd protested, saying the board could not legitimately take action.

“Since there are only three members present, I would object,” she said, prompting Chairman Frank C. Bonaventure Jr. to postpone the matter.

Who’s the Obstructionist?

The postponement didn’t go over well with attorney Jon M. Laria, who represents the development team.

“More obstruction! Way to go!” he said afterwards, putting on his coat to leave. “Write that down!”

The residents meanwhile, were angry about the characterization, arguing that the developers brought the procedural impediments on themselves by not being more open to neighborhood concerns about traffic, noise impacts and the needs of pedestrians.

“We offered a sensible site plan to the Review Committee,” said John Viles, who lives on 23rd Street near the 11-acre site. “Mr. Laria and his clients did not want to consider it.”

Viles and other neighborhood opponents have objected to changes made since the project’s approval by the City Council in 2010. Now thatthere’s a single anchor store, a new architectural design, less density, a removed parking garage and a different vehicle entrance configuration, they argue, the changes are significant and the impacts on the nearby Fawcett neighborhood could be serious.

“Did they choose the driveway closest to houses to get rid of? No! They chose the other one,” Viles said, predicting traffic gridlock for his North Baltimore neighborhood.

“They just blew the neighborhood off,” said Remington’s Doug Armstrong. “It was nothing but women talking about the safety of children in the neighborhood and from the beginning they just blew them off.”

A Break on Deadlines

The residents’ formal petition for judicial review, filed on December 20, will question the commission’s approval of the plan as a “minor amendment.” (“Major amendment” approval would have triggered more review and a return to the City Council.)

The group’s lawyers are also considering raising the issue of the developers’ apparent failure to meet a deadline to file “a detailed time schedule” for the project with the city.

“We are looking into that,” said G. Macy Nelson, of Towson, one of the attorneys representing residents.

Meanwhile, the developers have been taking a more proactive approach to deadlines. Meeting with the city Planning Department last week, they received several waivers from the rules regarding major subdivisions.

One waiver was for a block that is 800 feet long (the rule is 500 feet). They also were also going to miss a deadline for recordation of the final subdivision plan, and they needed a waiver because the plans were set to expire. (They were given a two-year extension, so the expiration is now December 2015.)

A Planning Department staff report explains that the longer block is permissible because the formerly residential area is now industrial and will be considered commercial under a pending zoning code rewrite. The staff report said the waiver is not technically needed, but would be granted “in order to be completely clear and to avoid further misunderstanding.”

As for the recordation delay, the report notes that the agency “understands the reasons [it is being sought] and does not object.”

“There are several property owners involved with this project, and they wish to delay the recordation of this subdivision until just before the closing date for the transaction,” the report says.

“In the event that the closing does not occur for some unexpected reason, the risk of the subdivision being filed unnecessarily is minimized.”

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