A Baltimore County hearing officer approved yesterday plans by the Har Sinai congregation to build a 62,500-square-foot synagogue, school and day care center on the site of a former dump in Worthington Valley, provided the property is cleaned up.

"It's a tremendous victory for the synagogue," said David S. Thaler, project engineer.

Stuart D. Kaplow, a lawyer representing opponents of the project, said: "Approval of this project is the worst kind of sprawl. It's an institution abandoning the city for a rural area."

The decision to approve the project at Greenspring and Walnut avenues came as no surprise to project opponents who vowed to appeal the decision. "We are going to appeal until we prevail, and we will prevail," said Sandy Elkin, spokeswoman for Worthington Preservation Group, a consortium of area homeowner organizations.

Elkin said residents believe the project is too large and the day care center would be an illegal commercial use on the 17-acre parcel zoned for rural conservation.

In his 36-page opinion, hearing officer Lawrence E. Schmidt brushed aside most of the opponents' concerns about the project. He questioned their motives for raising environmental issues, noting they displayed no interest in the property's history as the site of an unregulated dump until after Har Sinai's proposal was unveiled.

Schmidt attached several condi- tions to his approval. In addition to cleaning up the property subject to state and local environmental regulations, Har Sinai will be restricted from renting banquet facilities at the synagogue and will be limited to 120 students at the school. Extra parking on the site will be on grass, not pavement, and lighting and air conditioning units will be positioned to minimize the effect on the neighborhood.

'Personal and personable'

Harold Burgin, a Baltimore lawyer who is Har Sinai's president, said the congregation is prepared to abide by Schmidt's conditions.

"We have said from the beginning that we don't want to grow to be a huge congregation," he said. "We want to be a congregation that's large enough to provide comprehensive services to its members and small enough to be personal and personable."

Har Sinai, the nation's oldest Reform Jewish congregation, sought approval of its development plan to move from Park Heights Avenue in Baltimore to fast-growing northwest Baltimore County to be closer to many of its members.

The proposal became one of the most debated projects in the county in recent memory, prompting seven days of hearings. In his decision, Schmidt noted "that there is a mutual feeling of distrust among the litigants on both sides of the matter."

Burgin said yesterday that he hoped "that everyone would sort of take a step back, and perhaps we can start to heal some of that divisiveness."

Opponents complained that the congregation had lied about environmental studies, but the hearing officer said he found no evidence to support those complaints.

As for concerns that the synagogue is too large for the property, Schmidt noted county law does not differentiate between large and small religious buildings and all are permitted in a rural zone. Though Har Sinai also proposes a school and day care center, the primary use of the property will be for worship, Schmidt said.

'Cleaning up for years'

Addressing the environmental concerns about the site, the hearing officer said the health of those who use the Har Sinai facility will be protected if the synagogue complies with environmental and health regulations.

While most of the debris is harmless trash, studies have found polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, and metals such as arsenic on the site.

Kaplow predicted that environmental burdens will prove too onerous to allow the construction to go forward. "They are going to be cleaning up for years," he said.

Pub Date: 3/23/99