The Harford County Council approved a 51,000-square-foot expansion of the Fallston Village Center with a few caveats Tuesday night.
The council adopted the hearing examiner’s recommendation in a near-unanimous vote — six councilmen voted in the affirmative and councilman Joseph Woods abstained from the vote. When council president asked for a motion to take up the matter, there was a longer than usual pause before councilman Robert Wagner motioned for the project’s approval.
The expansion would include new buildings as well as additions to the existing ones to the shopping center, formerly known as the Fallston Mall. Located at the intersection of Routes 1 and 152, the center is home to Harvest Fare supermarket, Horizon Cinemas, Ace Hardware and Uncle’s Hawaiian Grinds restaurant, among other businesses.
In November, the expansion project was approved by Harford’s associate zoning hearing examiner. In December, a request for a final argument before the county council, sitting as the Board of Appeals, was filed by Wagner.
According to the company’s Board of Appeals application, the center’s expansion would enable it to better serve the community around it. The company provided figures showing the population within 5 miles of the shopping center grew by almost 16,000 people between 2000 and 2018.
The project was given approval to move forward, but Wagner still had concerns after Tuesday’s meeting. Some potential issues he saw with the development did not fall under the county council’s jurisdiction — the issue of traffic-light placement, for example, falls to the state — so the council addressed what it could within its purview. The council looked at changing other provisions but determined it did not have the authority to do so, Wagner said.
“There was not a whole lot there we could do,” he said after the hearing, “short of remanding it back to the [hearing examiner]."
The Arlington, Virginia-based company’s request for “flexibility” on the footprint of one piece of property, coupled with the parcel slightly overlapping a floodplain, concerned the council when it heard the original request. At a prior hearing, Wagner worried that the flexibility language gave the company too much latitude on where the building could be constructed.
Though the company stressed it was not seeking variances — special dispensations to change where a building can be constructed on a parcel of land — mention of flexibility was removed from the proposal and the council made sure to specify some restrictions.
The council modified the hearing examiner’s decision slightly, requiring buildings to be in compliance with the Board of Appeals’ site plan and a building to the property’s northwest satisfy “all floodplain regulations." That building shall also be subject to final approval by the planning director.
The northwestern building’s lot overlaps slightly with the floodplain. The company said it wanted to tear the building down to replace it with a car wash, which would be smaller than the existing building in the space. A bank currently sits on that piece of property.
The process is still not complete, though. A traffic study has already commenced per the county’s zoning guidelines.
Zoning Hearing Assistant Dottie Smith explained that the council’s decision will become final 30 days from the vote unless it is appealed. From there, the planning and zoning department will be able to begin the permitting process.