Howard County Issues

Land Development

Sept 20, 2009 posted, Prince George's restricts land developer campaign contributions: PG County Restricts Land Developer Campaign Contributions


June 15,2009 at 7pm, ZRA102 County Council hearing (will change zoning reqs for all villages), CR 53(Hospital Services inadequate for housing plan), Grabowski Planning Board appointment for 5 year term. Summarily, ZRA 102 was not passed by a majority as required, but was pushed forward after failure in an unprecedented manner raising questions of money contributions to elected official bank accounts. If passed, this county legislation has the potential to dwarf any other taxpayer subsidy of land development in our history.

4/12/2009 Note the law, note the stated unethical relationship between campaign funds and special treatment (Ethics Committee members included):
Recent Ethics Opinion on campaign funds to CB58/ZRA100 Officials


5/21/2009 2nd Annual Land Use Summit, Miller Library, 7pm

4/12/2009 Note the law, note the stated unethical relationship between campaign funds and special treatment (Ethics Committee members included):
Recent Ethics Opinion on campaign funds to CB58/ZRA100 Officials


3/25/2009 Below are links to county documents and email that are being used as exhibits in the Kendall/Gray US District Court lawsuit against county personnel alleging that documents were falsified resulting in approval of significantly larger homes than the percable land on the Villas of Cattail site can accommodate as indicated in the Maryland Department of the Environment sewage disposal permit for the project. :

Modified County Documents

3/16/2009 New Significant Lawsuit in Reaction to Board of Elects Reversal on Signature Validation:

Kendall Statement on Lawsuit Filed Today

3/5/2009 ZRA 113 Planning Board Meeting Video:

Part I, Pre-Break

Part II, Post-Break

2/18/09 Significant Lawsuit Against County:

Complaint US District Court.pdf (pdf format, 3.3 MB)

10/16/08 Update:

For information on Doughoregan Manor/Erickson development in Ellicott City see voter meeting schedule.

August 2008: Critical Data for All Howard Residents

Individual property values are deeply affected and quality of life is irretrievable in sporadic circumstances throughout the county but now citizen-residents are organizing into a voting bloc that will name names and use votes only for those who truly represent citizens.

Participate with a growing number of residents who stay informed on land use in our county by joining the google group for hclanduse: Visit http://groups.google.com/group/hclanduse and add your email address (more on that later).

  • More than 90 homes in the county have been deemed worthless because of a design flaw that is being perpetuated in at least 7 more locations. We’re researching who is paying for the cleanup, but preliminarily it looks like at least one judge invested in the project and county funds are at risk of sinking into the failure that was predicted by at least one county attorney who also participates with the land use coalition (google link above).
  • In another neighborhood, a land developer has decided that it would be more profitable to condemn property and take via eminent domain rather than build the infill using prescribed methods. Neighbors are fighting to keep what is theirs, but we know the history; citizens loose time, money, energy and usually the legal action as well.
  • Meanwhile, residents in the West County are struggling with a conflict in the county zoning that would generate an unequivocally dangerous situation with tractor trailer truckloads of cars to a car lot being built in a residential area.
  • And this happens regularly: Neighbors in Ellicott City saw a small ad in the back of the local paper that described countywide zoning changes to accommodate a single commercial property. This one may have been stopped but others continue to flow through without citizen knowledge regarding properties that are targeted for change. Too often no one is speaking for the many citizens affected and unaware.

No-Challenge Solutions

  • Read Howard County Issues (howardcountyissues.org, click the link in the middle of the homepage to read the most current issue). Email editor@howardcountyissues.org to add your email to the notification list for this quarterly publication. Find out if you were planning to vote for a representative who took large campaign contributions and then paid millions in county funds to the same organization for unnecessary office space. See Spring 2008 issue for the first in our series.
  • Visit the google group http://groups.google.com/group/hclanduse and add your email address to be notified when we embark on an email campaign to county and state representatives regarding supporting citizen interests. Select the frequency with which you would like notices. If you’d like to be included in all conversations, allow the default, but if you only want a weekly or daily single email update, go to ‘edit my membership’ in order to change the frequency with which you’ll receive notifications.

Our target is to send two-thousand emails to elected representatives when they prepare to vote on issues of importance to citizens. Engage Democracy - it’ll offset campaign funding that has paid for too many candidacies. Infuse focus into elected representatives, we’re still here, and we’re paying attention.

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Howard County Issues, Howard County, Maryland
Contact: editor@howardcountyissues.org