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Elkridge residents again voice opposition to senior condos

As they have during past meetings, residents who live near the site of a proposed senior housing development off Montgomery Road in Elkridge voiced strong opposition to the project before the county hearing examiner on Thursday, Feb. 23.

At the nearly four-hour hearing, where local developer H & H Rock Companies' requested a conditional use to build 46 attached and semi-attached senior condominium units on 12 acres of residential land, residents said the project would bring too much traffic and devalue their homes.

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They also derided it as being out-of-line with the single-family detached homes, including theirs, that dominate the area now.

"There is not one attached dwelling along that two-mile stretch of (Montgomery Road)," said Robert Garner, a resident of nearby Koffel Court.

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"This is a project that is pretty much being sandwiched between two single-family neighborhoods," said Monica Alston, who lives just east of the proposed site, on Montery Road. "...The configuration to me looks like row homes."

Alston told developers Joseph Link, vice president of residential development for H & H Rock, and Jacob Hikmat, president of Mildenberg, Boender & Assoc., Inc., and the project's lead engineer, that she feels their "quest for profit is superseding responsible development."

Link and Hikmat, along with their attorney Sang Oh, rebutted those comments.

Hikmat cited national data suggesting the 55-and-older age restriction on the project means it will produce less traffic than would single-family housing, and noted the project also would have no impact on schools.

Link said the project is in line with the Howard County General Plan and will help meet the county's need for more senior housing.

"The Howard County population is aging," he said. "There's a large bulge from the baby boomers."

Access a concern

The development is being considered for three connected properties that are unusually long and thin — stretching north from Montgomery Road to the edge of Rockburn Branch Park — and which are located in between Parkview Court, a residential cul-de-sac to the west, and Montery Road and the cul-de-sac it dead-ends into, Collett Court, to the east.

The proposed project would be built at the rear of the long properties, and would only have access to Montgomery Road via Montery Road.

That access is a major concern for residents, who questioned Hikmat's data from the Institute of Transportation Engineers, which he said shows residents in age-restricted developments make fewer than four round-trips a day in their cars and don't drive during peak travel times nearly as much as their younger, working counterparts.

County hearing examiner Michele LeFaivre, while accepting the ITE data as a trusted resource, also seemed to have her doubts.

"It's not my mother," she said of the 55-plus age range. "It's people like me, and I have a very active life."

A total of 14 residents attended the hearing, six of whom spoke, sometimes questioning the developers motives for fitting so many units onto the property.

"It seems like (the developers) tried to maximize impact," said Michael Merrett, whose property on Montery Road abuts the proposed development and would back up to a strip of five attached condominium units under the developers' current plan.

During their own testimony, Link and Hikmat said the zoning would allow for 57 units, but they have only asked for 46.

They also emphasized the project meets set-back, buffering, storm water run-off and open space requirements; that the county's Department of Planning and Zoning supports the project; and that the county's Design Advisory Panel backed the plans with minimal changes recommended, many of which have already been met.

In his closing arguments, Oh said residents had offered no evidence that would warrant a denial of the project. At times during the hearing, LeFaivre had dismissed some residents' arguments as not being germane to the criteria she has to consider.

LeFaivre said her written decision on the matter would come in the next two weeks.

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