Developers are pressuring Anne Arundel County officials to introduce legislation this month to rezone 54 acres along Bestgate Road, saying they may have to scrap plans for a retail and residential village and build houses if they don't get the change soon.
The group pursuing construction of the Village of Bestgate says that time is money and that it needs County Executive Janet S. Owens to propose a new zoning plan for the Annapolis area, which includes the site, at the June 17 council meeting. The developers want a change that would allow a mixed-use development, not just residences.
"If they put it off until after the [November] election, we might not get started on the project until spring," said Michael DeStefano, president of Sturbridge Homes of Annapolis. "We could lose the market for our product."
DeStefano, who teamed up with Erwin L. Greenberg & Associates of Baltimore to build the Village at Waugh Chapel in Odenton, wants to create a similar but smaller project with Greenberg at Bestgate.
Preliminary plans for the wooded site include 120,000 square feet of retail space, 65,000 square feet of office space, 224 condominiums and 24 acres of open space.
County officials have said they want to introduce comprehensive rezoning legislation for the Annapolis area at the same time they unveil zoning and design standards for the Parole Growth Management Area. That probably won't happen until next month at the earliest.
"There's no real time line set," Owens spokesman Matt Diehl said Friday. "But the two will come [to the council] together."
Members of an advisory group that has worked on the Parole project oppose the Village at Bestgate concept because it would permit commercial growth outside the Parole area, which is to be a regional hub of retail and business activity.
A number of neighborhood groups also oppose the concept because they fear it would snarl traffic on Bestgate Road, which is congested. Don Yeskey, president of the General's Highway Council of Civic Associations, said Friday that developers are bluffing about a June 17 deadline.
"I think they will wait it out," he said. Yeskey and his group have opposed large-scale commercial development at the Bestgate property for years. They have spent $30,000 on legal fees and outlasted several rounds of developers.
Several years ago, they came close to clinching a deal with developers on a plan to limit commercial space at the Bestgate site to 50,000 square feet.
"That was not a destination business like what [DeStefano] is planning with a large grocery store," Yeskey said. "We don't want to see an increase in traffic on Bestgate Road."
DeStefano argues that the Village at Bestgate would not add to traffic woes. "Traffic is not an issue," he said, pointing to recent traffic surveys.
The snag for DeStefano is money. Developers have agreed to make monthly mortgage payments for landowner Les Belcher of Davidsonville in expectation of an eventual purchase of the land.
Belcher hasn't sold the property because he wants a zoning change from residential to mixed-use commercial. Properties that can be developed for commercial use generally sell for more money than those zoned residential. Belcher said Friday that he is confident that if the council were given the chance to review the mixed-use commercial zoning option - a zoning category that was added to the county code last year - a majority would side with him.
Owens, however, has made it clear she opposes commercial activity at the Bestgate site.
"I think [council members] recognize that the area is better suited for a mixed-use development," said Belcher, who pointed out that his property sits on a busy street near Westfield Shoppingtown.
"You don't want kids out in the middle of that stuff."
Developers and their supporters, including a church that received a $1,500 donation from Greenberg & Associates, argue that the mixed-use community would create 500 new jobs and affordable housing. Condominiums in the village would sell for $160,000 to $180,000, a bargain in the Annapolis housing market.
"This county is at a critical stage for housing," said John S. Pantelides, senior vice president of Greenberg & Associates, who organized a rally of more than 90 supporters at a recent council meeting. "Those who oppose the village concept are hurting all of us in the middle class. They are forcing our seniors and children out of the county."
If the zoning legislation isn't on the next meeting agenda, the village concept could be tossed, Pantelides said. Instead, he and his partners would move ahead with an alternate plan to build 145 townhouses and as many as 20 individual houses on the property, he said. No land would be preserved as open space.
"None of us consider it a major loss to go to the residential option, but it won't be quite the asset to the county and the community," DeStefano said.