Community members protest Abingdon Business Park to county, state officials

With more than 2.1 million square feet of planned warehouse space and even more commercial and retail space, the Abingdon Business Park, expected to generate about 1,000 permanent local jobs. But the benefit of future employment meant little to local residents who fear the project could bring numerous headaches to surrounding neighborhoods.

People made their concerns known to county and state officials who sit on the Harford County Development Advisory Committee during a three-hour hearing Wednesday morning and afternoon in the County Council chambers in Bel Air.

Amy DiPietro, of the Morris & Ritchie Associates engineering and planning firm in Abingdon, presented plans to create nine lots total on the 326-acre parcel near the Route 24 and I-95 interchange, as well as plans to build individual warehouses on three of those lots. Potential uses for the other lots are currently “speculative in nature,” so no site plans have been submitted for them yet, she said.

A road would be built within the site among the retail, commercial and warehouse properties, with the main entrance to the business park about half a mile from the highway interchange, DiPietro said. A plan posted on the county’s website shows the road starting at the intersection of Edgewood and Van Bibber roads, crossing the property and ending at Abingdon Road, just south of the St. Francis de Sales church.

Residents’ concerns about the project included air pollution and noise from tractor-trailer trucks coming in and out of the warehouse sites, noise from warehouse operations, bright facility lights, potential harm to water resources on the wooded site such as the Haha Branch stream, impacts to wildlife and increased traffic along nearby major roads that are already well traveled such as Route 7, Abingdon Road, Route 24 and I-95.

A number of speakers live in neighboring communities such as Autumn Run, which would be separated from a 600,000 square-foot warehouse by a small wooded buffer, expressed concerns about noise, lights, pollution and increased flooding on their properties with so much new impervious surface.

“I have to tell you, as it currently sits, its one of the nicest properties I’ve lived in,” Ray Zinser, an Autumn Run resident, said.

Zinser talked about his experiences working in the transportation and logistics field and what the neighbors could expect living near large warehouse facilities.

“This is going to be a constant flow of freight,” he said. “It’s going to be tractors and trailers coming and going.”

Several speakers made a push for scaling back the project considerably or canceling it.

Committee Chairman Moe Davenport said several times that county and state agencies will work with the developers to ensure they comply with all regulations that pertain to developing in a commercial/industrial zone, but the county cannot deny a permit — even if surrounding community members object — if developers meet all regulations.

“We hear what you’re saying and we’ve met with [the developers], and we’re trying to get the best product we can out of it,” Davenport said.

The various agencies will continue to review the multiple plans and studies submitted, such as a traffic analysis, and then make a determination on whether to approve the project. Davenport said people can view revised plans posted on the county’s website.