Expansion Plan Threatens Compromise
By Miranda S. Spivack
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 3, 2005
For some Fulton residents in southern Howard County, a new plan for development at Maple Lawn is producing an uneasy sense of deja vu.
More than five years ago, they waged a battle with developer Stewart J. Greenebaum, spending thousands of dollars to marshal opposition to the huge residential and commercial development at the former dairy and turkey farm near Routes 216 and 29. After 32 hearings over more than a year, Greenebaum was forced to scale back his plan by nearly 500 houses. In the end, residents thought they knew how Maple Lawn would look someday, how many people would live there and their impact on roads and schools.
But tonight, the Howard County Planning Board is reopening the case at Greenebaum's request. The developer has purchased an additional 97 acres at Maple Lawn, once known as Maple Lawn Farms, and wants to add more than 500 homes, along with new office and retail space to the 508-acre site. And that, some neighbors say, could mean a rerun of the fight that culminated in 2000, pitting residents against elected leaders and leaving many worried not only about the county's planning process but also the fate of its undeveloped land.
"We all participated in good faith," said Greg Brown, head of a nearby neighborhood association. "But now the developer is coming back and saying, 'Forget that, I bought more land.' "
When Maple Lawn is finally completed, probably within 10 years, it will be a mix of office space, retail, high-end townhouses, condominiums and single-family houses. It will have four neighborhoods--Hillside, Garden, Midtown and Old Farm--each centered on a neighborhood square.
The starting price for many townhouses is about $550,000 and for single-family houses about $650,000. Almost all the first houses to be constructed--about 60, Greenebaum said--have been sold; two are occupied.
If the latest proposal is ultimately approved by the Zoning Board, which will probably examine it after the Planning Board, the number of homes would grow from 1,116 to 1,634, including townhouses, condominiums, apartments and single-family houses.
Greenebaum says he wants to create a community where residents can live, work and play. He was inspired in part by James Rouse's Columbia, just a few miles north, and by Kentlands, a development with a small town feel near Gaithersburg in Montgomery County.
He said he wants Maple Lawn to become a shining example of smart growth, which concentrates development in areas with existing public services, such as water, sewer and roads, rather than scattering it throughout open space and farmland.
"We want to do this in exactly the right way, " Greenebaum said this week. "Any reasonable person who sees it, even in its early construction stages, understands that this is something special.
"If someone moves into one of those houses, their children, starting at age 6 weeks through high school, can actually be within walking distance of their home and their parents' place of employment," he said. "There is hardly any place in the world that you can say that."
Neighbors who enjoy a semirural existence, many of them living in suburban-style houses on large tracts, say Maple Lawn really is something else--a new city that would lack the schools, roads, public transit and other amenities needed to make it an anti-sprawl, self-contained community.
Although the latest proposal would spread new houses over more land, neighbors say it still would result in more people using already crowded schools and roads. The schools that were built in Fulton for Maple Lawn already are crowded, and traffic is backing up as residents try to get on Route 29 from Route 216 and Johns Hopkins Road.
"We are not objecting to development and growth if the infrastructure can accommodate it," said Brown, who has lived in nearby Cherrytree Farm for more than 15 years and heads its neighborhood association. "But the evidence is that it can't."
Even if it upsets the neighbors, the latest proposal conforms with the county's zoning for the area. In 1993, the county designated the area to accommodate up to three homes per acre, as well as commercial and retail development. If the county planning and zoning boards approve Greenebaum's request, Maple Lawn's density would increase from 2.3 to 2.7 housing units per acre.
The new Maple Lawn proposal includes an expansion of the retail centers, a new road connecting the residential and commercial sections and an additional 466 townhouses and 52 apartments. The existing plan calls for 485 single-family houses, 395 townhouses and 236 apartments.
"When this thing gets finished, there are going to be 15,000 people living and working in that development. That doesn't include people coming in from the outside to use the office space or visit the retail establishments," said John Adolphsen, who has lived in the Beaufort Park neighborhood for 37 years.
"It's about congestion and compatibility," he said.
The county's planning staff members also have raised some questions about the project, although they have recommended its approval. They question whether the new proposal is understating the actual density by undercounting houses that are being set aside for people older than 55.
The staff report also questions whether a plan to build townhouses in the western part of the development exceeds allowable density.
Greenebaum said the proposed townhouses, which are slated to be between 2,400 and 3,000 square feet, will be large, Georgian style, similar to those in Georgetown in Washington and Mount Vernon in Baltimore and to those being built in King Farm in Rockville.
Although Adolphsen complained that the five-member Planning Board has long been viewed by the neighborhood as "a rubber stamp for developers," there have been signs in other cases that the board does, on occasion, buck developers. Last month, it recommended against a zoning change to allow more houses at Turf Valley, an upscale development west of Ellicott City.
Greenebaum is optimistic. He said he has already seen substantial interest, particularly from companies that want their employees to be able to live close to work.
"There are people who have made it their life's work to fight that development. They will still be there," he said. "At the time we began the proposal, no one knew for sure what we were going to do.
"Until you see it in concrete terms, people have a right to be skeptical," he said. "By this time, it is palpable. You can see it. You can touch it. This a major success story in both the office and residential."
Almost all the first houses in Maple Lawn, about 60, have been sold; two are occupied. The new Maple Lawn proposal includes an expansion of the retail centers, a new road connecting the residential and commercial sections and an additional 466 townhouses and 52 apartments. The existing plan calls for 485 single-family houses, 395 townhouses and 236 apartments.
An aerial view of Maple Lawn in 2000. The developer has purchased an additional 97 acres at the 508-acre former dairy and turkey farm near Routes 216 and 29. When Maple Lawn is finally completed, probably within 10 years, it will have four neighborhoods -- Hillside, Garden, Midtown and Old Farm -- each centered on a neighborhood square.
"Any reasonable person who sees it . . . understands that this is something special," developer Stewart J. Greenebaum said.