A long battle over what to do with dozens of new cars parked on a muddy field just off Ten Oaks Road in busy Clarksville appears near a resolution.
After two years struggling with Howard County zoning officials, auto dealer Jacob M. Antwerpen has agreed to remove the cars, which county officials charge are illegally stored, by May 20 if he cannot get a plan to develop the site for sales use approved by then.
A consent order to pay a $250 fine and move the cars was signed by Antwerpen attorney Richard B. Talkin late Thursday, the eve of a scheduled District Court trial on the zoning case.
"That was the goal: abatement [of the violation] or removal of the vehicles," said Senior Assistant County Solicitor Louis P. Ruzzi. Talkin said Antwerpen was hoping to wait until plans to build a gas station on the site went through, but will now submit a plan to develop the 2-acre Ten Oaks site.
County inspectors are also trying to force Antwerpen to stop storing cars on another unpaved field at the end of Auto Drive, in the Clarksville Auto Park north of Route 32.
The county Board of Appeals ruled Dec. 10 that the storage is illegal, although a Circuit Court appeal is likely.
Antwerpen, who owns several of the nine auto dealerships in the Auto Park at Routes 32 and 108, is waiting for petroleum company BP to jointly develop the site at Route 108 and Ten Oaks Road, after removing a 110-year-old, three-story white Victorian house there.
While waiting, the dealer has been parking new vehicles behind the old house, which was last used as a dentist's office.
Like dominoes in a line, each piece of the plan depends on the other.
Mark S. Foster, owner of Second Chance, a business that disassembles old houses to sell their parts, is waiting for the BP plan to be approved so he can remove the house - piece by piece.
The oil company agreed in March last year to donate the building and make a $5,000 donation to Preservation Howard County because no one had come forward to move the building intact to another site.
Antwerpen had hoped to tie the development of its lot to plans for the gas station, which would sit across Route 108 from an Exxon station.
But Howard County zoning officials charged in April 2000 that storing vehicles there is a zoning violation, and with the new gas station - which is expected to feature a solar canopy to help provide power - still not under way, they've forced Antwerpen to split his project off.