Preston Capital Management is one step away from gaining zoning approval for a 122-acre mixed-use development across Route 100 from the MARC train station in Dorsey. But it is a very important step.
Howard County zoning board members want to know exactly what the developer wants to build and how the project would take shape before giving final approval to a site plan. The rezoning case continues at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday at the county's temporary offices in Columbia.
Preston's attorney contends that the firm has an easement that would allow direct access to the train platform via an existing street under Route 100, though permission for passengers to cross the CSX-owned tracks to the station is uncertain. Critics have said that, unlike the proposed mixed-use development on the existing MARC station parking lot in Savage, the Dorsey site is not next to the station and is much larger.
"We're prepared to address every one of the questions that have been raised," said Preston's attorney, William E. Erskine. He said board members, who are not allowed by law to talk about zoning cases outside the hearings, want to ensure a phased plan that provides commercial use upfront to generate county revenue and compensate for the drain on services that residential units bring.
"It protects the fiscal well-being of the county," he said.
Preston is offering $4 million, plus 20 acres for a badly needed new elementary school in the redeveloping U.S. 1 corridor as part of the deal. The zoning board is looking for assurances that the county school system wants the parcel.
School board member Frank Aquino said any site selection must go through the public process, which takes time.
Rezoning justified
The case seems to be going Preston's way, despite objections by two of the five zoning board members.
The board, made up of the five County Council members, has decided in two 3-2 votes that rezoning the property is justified and that Transit Oriented Development zone is the proper designation. A Coca-Cola bottling plant was originally intended for the site, which formerly was zoned for manufacturing.
"Goodbye, Elkridge; hello, city," was rezoning opponent Gail Sigel's reaction to the vote June 23. She fears the project will further change the character of Elkridge. Cathy Hudson, another critic, said she worries approval would mean lots more housing proposed along U.S. 1, straining county schools. "I think they're selling out to housing," she said.
Preston is offering concessions, but the haggling continues.
Instead of the 1,400 housing units the zoning allows, Preston proposes to build 954 units. The proposed school site, the cash incentive and Preston's promise to prepare the site with roads and grading infrastructure would be worth $11 million, Erskine said.
Preston is also offering to underwrite part of the cost of wastewater treatment, provide open space, conservation areas, pedestrian amenities and a transit connection, along with shuttle service to the MARC station. If the school is never built, Preston is offering 7.5 acres for a park, infrastructure to serve the park and $1.5 million cash to help build the park. Without the rezoning, Preston officials have said they would build a traditional office park.
But the board has consistently split over the contentions of board members Greg Fox and Courtney Watson that the county can ill afford to lose a large parcel zoned for industrial use, that the site is too far from the train station without guaranteed access and that nearby central Elkridge, which Watson represents on the council, is already burdened with new homes and apartments.
Land use concerns
"I'm still concerned about the loss of M-1 and M-2 [manufacturing-zoned] land. It's already limited, especially near transit," Fox said at the last hearing before the vote to rezone the land. "It's not a traditional Transit Oriented Development in any way, shape or form. It's development near a train station."
But zoning board member Calvin Ball, whose council district includes the site, noted that older county planning documents refer to possible transit mixed-use projects near the Dorsey station.
"We've been given enough reasonable evidence that TOD is an [appropriate] zone," Ball said.
"I just have this sinking feeling that this is not good TOD," Watson said. "Access [to the train station] is still a question."
She worried aloud that not enough retail services would be included in the project, forcing residents to drive elsewhere, creating more traffic, and that the rezoning, without waiting for the county's once-per-decade comprehensive rezoning process, would set a precedent for other landowners seeking to build homes.
"It's a very, very risky approval for the citizens of the county," she said.
But board member Mary Kay Sigaty, who represents West Columbia, pointed out that Transit Oriented Development zoning does not allow grocery stores. She said that if gasoline prices spike again, more people will be looking to use transit and perhaps live or work near a train line.
Jen Terrasa, a board member who represents the southeastern county on the council, including the Savage and North Laurel train stations, said the concern over the loss of land zoned for manufacturing might be misplaced.
"There are no jobs there now," she said. The land has sat unused for decades.
In the end, Fox and Watson opposed the rezoning to TOD, but lost to Ball, Sigaty and Terrasa.