This infant development is so big that it needs two ZIP codes, one for Marriottsville and one for Woodstock. But in the two years since its painful delivery, it hasn't made a peep.
The new year, however, will bring the first activity for Waverly Woods II, a planned 682-acre development of nearly 1,000 homes, 1 million square feet of business space, a golf course and shops. That's when the bulldozers will begin clearing and grading for the golf course and the first homesites.
The project is the county's most ambitious development since Columbia, and it is still being fought over in the courts. The latest hearing on opposition to the project is set for tomorrow.
Hundreds of residents turned out three years ago to oppose plans to change this community of horse pastures, rural homes and subdivisions filled with $250,000 and $300,000 houses. Fourteen days and nights of zoning hearings were often a forum for vitriolic exchanges between supporters, opponents and the County Council members who sit as the Zoning Board.
It was approval of the Waverly Woods II project that helped seed support for Susan Gray, who represented Waverly opponents and won the Democratic nomination for county executive. But Republican incumbent Charles I. Ecker easily defeated her in last month's general election.
Waverly Woods II -- to be built in phases over about 15 years -- is bounded by Interstate 70 and Route 99. The development is patterned like a Columbia village: It will have a mix of condominiums, townhouses and detached houses, a business "campus" and a central shopping center much like a village center.
At this point all that many west county newcomers know about the project is its planned golf course -- a selling point for their new houses.
The project's golf course will back up to many existing homes, but the first phase of the project will also bring 216 condominiums, 72 townhouses and 42 detached houses. They are expected to start at about $130,000, $210,000 and $300,000, respectively.
The project's developer, Donald R. Reuwer Jr., said last week that he hopes to break ground for the homes and golf course in late spring and begin selling homes next fall.
"It's actually running very smoothly, and that's probably because of all the work we did up-front for the site-plan zoning," he said.
It is the county's innovative site-plan process that allows the government to exercise a greater degree of control over how a project is built.
County Council members cut back on commercial space by a third in approving the project. Because the site plan is part of the rezoning, the developer is required to follow it unless council members agree to change it.
Even before the zoning was approved for the project, Mr. Reuwer said, "we put close to $1 million into the planning of it."
The county's newest land-use innovation was created to do just what Mr. Reuwer and the Waverly owners planned: provide mixed-use zoning with the hope of creating a community where people could live, work and play.
The concept also met with almost as much resistance in rural Fulton last year as it did in Marriottsville and Woodstock. Hundreds of residents there protested when 820 acres was rezoned by the council last year to allow apartments, houses, shops and other businesses where previous zoning permitted only 3-acre homesites.
Although the residential components of the Waverly plan must follow a schedule, the timing of the commercial development is much less certain.
The aim is to create a "campus-like atmosphere" along the interstate to attract major companies looking for a corporate home. "That could happen tomorrow, or that could happen 10 years from tomorrow," Mr. Reuwer said.
In the meantime, Mr. Reuwer will have to contend with a lawsuit that challenges the Zoning Board's approval of the Waverly Woods II plan.
County government attorneys will appear in court tomorrow with the latest motion urging that the suit be dismissed before trial.
"If we ever get into court [for a trial], it'll be a miracle," said Jean Quattlebaum, a leading opponent.
"We're going to proceed with our appeal," she said. "We can always continue to fight, and that's exactly what we intend to do."