A petition challenging the Wegmans grocery store planned for east Columbia will take its appeal further after losing before a Zoning Board hearing examiner this week, the attorney for the appellant said.

"The Planning Board made what in essence was a zoning decision," said Susan B. Gray, a civic activist attorney from Highland, who represents Carvel "Buddy" Mays Jr., president of United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, Local 27, whose members work for Giant and Safeway supermarkets. "The case is incredibly important to Howard County because it deals with a fundamental right of citizens to take things to referendum and to vote."

Mays, of Ellicott City, had appealed a September Planning Board decision allowing the industrially zoned land in the Sieling Industrial Center to be used for a supermarket - a ruling that he contends amounts to illegal rezoning.

But Michele LeFaivre, Zoning Board hearing examiner, ruled Monday that Mays was not "specifically aggrieved" and dismissed the appeal.

Gray had argued that Mays met the aggrieved requirement by the fact that the Planning Board's decision to rezone the site changes the permitted uses and "circumvents and consequently violates his personal, charter-established right to take zoning decisions to referendum."

Richard B. Talkin, an attorney representing Wegmans, which is a nonunion store, had argued that the case should be dismissed for lack of standing.

Gray said she plans to appeal the decision of the hearing examiner to the Board of Appeals and also file a declaratory judgment action in Circuit Court within the next month.

This month, the Planning Board approved a 160,000- square-foot Wegmans to be located at Snowden River Parkway and McGaw Road, opposite Apple Ford in east Columbia. The store would be two stories and nearly triple the size of most area supermarkets. A two-story garage is to be built on 12.2 acres at the southwest corner of the site with 939 parking spaces.

Developers hope to complete construction by late next year. The project is expected to challenge the dominance of the Giant and Safeway chains in Howard County. A Trader Joe's store opened recently in nearby Gateway Overlook, and a Harris Teeter store is scheduled to open this year in Kings Contrivance Village Center.

The union is opposing nonunion Wegmans stores at several Maryland locations. The union also has appealed the approval of the traffic plan. The project could be halted should the union appeals succeed.

june.arney@baltsun.com