Angry residents filed complaints with the Anne Arundel County Board of Appeals yesterday in an attempt to stop a large commercial and residential development from being built within the Parole Growth Management Area near Annapolis.

Annapolis Neck and Gingerville residents submitted the complaints after planning sessions Friday and Sunday. Also in attendance, although not listed on the complaints, were representatives of the Generals Highway Council of Civic Associations and Parole Growth Management Area advisory committee.

"In our interpretation these permits were done ... illegally," said Don Yeskey, president of the Generals Highway group, referring to two of four building permits approved for the project last month. "That is what triggered us to get involved."

Yeskey said residents plan to file more complaints to cover the remaining two building permits.

Residents say the development by MIE Properties Inc. of Catonsville violates a promise made a year ago by County Executive Janet S. Owens. Residents say Owens promised not to approve building permits for the Parole area, including the MIE site, until design standards had been established - a condition that has yet to be met.

A spokesman for Owens said last week that her promise applied only to Parole Plaza, not to the entire 1,600-acre Parole revitalization area, which has been targeted for economic revitalization for a decade. The MIE site, 28.6 acres on Riva Road at Harry S. Truman Parkway, is part of the revitalization area.

A county official said yesterday that Owens had no idea the permits had been approved. "The county executive is not involved in the day-to-day permitting process," said Betty Dixon, land use and environment director.

Dixon said it is unlikely that Owens will issue a stop-work order for the MIE project. "[Owens] would view this as an abuse of power," Dixon said. "As long as a developer is in compliance with the county code, the county executive would not interfere."

Yeskey said that the residents group might seek a court injunction to stop work at the MIE site, where developer Edward A. St. John has permission to build two restaurants, two one-story office buildings, a three-story office building, a bank and 28 townhouses for a total of 196,000 square feet of office and retail space.

St. John - who has been an adviser to Owens - and his wife contributed $4,600 to the executive's 2002 re-election campaign.

The developer, who Owens has tapped twice during the past four years to serve on advisory committees, said he is the focus of a "witch hunt." St. John blamed residents for failing to keep track of the project, which he said was well publicized at community meetings for the past two years or more.

St. John said that he has spent $5 million more than he expected in order to conform to design standards as proposed by the Parole advisory committee. He added that he has made every effort to work with surrounding communities, even holding a steak dinner at Loews Annapolis Hotel to listen to residents' concerns.

"I don't understand the problem," St. John said. "We got our grading permit last year. Where has everybody been since last year?"

John Fischer, co-chairman of the Parole advisory committee, which works with county officials, said that members remain upset with Owens. "They are very disappointed that the partnership between the committee and the county seems to have completely disappeared," he said.

Fischer said that the committee is waiting for the county to set up a meeting - a standing request that he said he made in August in hopes of getting the design standards for Parole pegged down. "There is concern that we have been completely left out of the loop," he said.

Another member of the committee, Dinny White, said, "promises were made to make sure that the [design standards] got adopted, and nothing has been done about it." White and other committee members worry that the MIE project will snarl traffic on local roads, including already crowded intersections along Riva Road at Aris T. Allen Boulevard and West Street.

Some residents say that St. John has received preferential treatment. Another set of developers, including Robert and Michael DeStefano, who built The Village at Waugh Chapel, were told that they would have to wait until the Parole design standards were set before they could pursue a zoning change on Bestgate Road.

St. John denied receiving special treatment from county officials. "We were held to a higher standard," he said, adding that he came close to selling the property out of sheer frustration. "It's twice as difficult to get building permits in Anne Arundel County as any other county in the state."

Dixon said that contributions by developers such as St. John "play no role in the decision-making process of our department heads."