The Anne Arundel County Board of Appeals has refused to allow a South County developer to get out of an agreement with the county to build fewer houses in a controversial development near West River.
The developers of Back Bay Beach, a 22-acre subdivision on the West River, agreed last year to build only four houses on eight lots in one section of the subdivision. But attorneys for the BMCN Joint Venture, the developer, complained at a board hearing yesterday that their clients were coerced into the pact by officials who would not allow them to start building until they signed it.
The board unanimously dismissed the claim.
Robert Pollock, senior assistant county attorney, argued that BMCN could not sign a contract and build houses on the lots, then turn to the Board of Appeals and claim the contract was invalid.
"They got their permits. Now they have to live with it," Mr. Pollock said. "They did it to themselves."
"It's a contract. It's an agreement," said Thomas J. Wohlgemuth, attorney for the West River Federation, which has vehemently opposed efforts to exempt the project from county zoning laws and shoreline protection requirements.
"They signed it, then they said, 'We really didn't mean it,' " Mr. Wohlgemuth said.
The contract, signed under a 1986 law that requires builders to combine old lots if they are smaller than what current zoning allows, stipulated that the developer of Back Bay Beach would combine four lots with lots that are behind them.
Back Bay Beach was subdivided in 1921, more than a generation before the county adopted zoning laws that required larger lots than were in the subdivision.
The board's ruling affects only the lots under the agreement. If it is extended to the rest of the development, BMCN would be required to consolidate 96 lots into as few as 71.
"They didn't do their homework very well on that," said George Dattore, a member of the West River Federation's board.
"They are trying to squeeze every last nickel out of this parcel of property."
Based on the lot consolidation agreement, the county issued building permits for four houses, then turned down a fifth because it was not covered by the agreement.
Mr. Pollock said BMCN could have sought a variance, or could have gone directly to the Anne Arundel Circuit Court to protest, or could have asked the county to turn down its build permit requests and appealed that to the Board of Appeals.
Lawyers for BMCN said they would wait for the appeals board's written opinion, expected within a month, before deciding how to proceed.
"I don't know how they could have made this decision," said H. Bissell Carey III, one of the lawyers.
Back Bay Beach became controversial because it was one of the last grandfathered subdivisions in the county. Its developers did not have to adhere to new critical-area laws.