Developers seeking to build a $25 million senior housing community in North Roland Park cleared a key hurdle this month, when Baltimore’s zoning board gave the project preliminary approval.
But a neighboring property owner who attended the meeting said afterwards that he intends to appeal the board’s decision, an action that likely would hold up construction while the case is heard in court — and could derail it altogether.
The project in dispute is The Claiborne at Roland Park, a three-story, 110-unit residential care facility for about 120 people proposed for 12 acres near the intersection of Falls Road and Northern Parkway, with a mix of assisted living and memory care apartments. It would rise just east of an apartment building called The Falls at Roland Park, at 1190 W. Northern Parkway.
The prospective developer, Claiborne Senior Living of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, has a contract to purchase the land from another developer, Blue Ocean, but the sale is contingent on Claiborne’s ability to obtain approval from Baltimore’s Board of Municipal and Zoning Appeals to construct its proposed project. Blue Ocean still owns the land.
Zoning board approval is required because Claiborne is seeking a height variance so it can build a structure taller than current zoning allows – between 43 and 44 feet high rather than the allowed 35 feet – and a conditional use variance allowing a residential facility with assisted living units, a building type not currently permitted on the property. In its application, Claiborne sought a 10-foot height variance.
The four-member zoning board decided on Oct. 11 to give preliminary approval to both requests – putting Claiborne on track to obtaining the final zoning board approval it needs to move ahead. To get final approval, Claiborne needs the zoning board to adopt a written resolution that will be drafted by city staffers within 30 days of the Oct. 11 meeting.
If the neighbor files an appeal, that wouldn’t automatically halt construction as long as the zoning board is on record as approving the project and construction permits are issued, but a court case could drag on for months or years and make it difficult for the developer to obtain financing.
An appeal also would cloud the project’s status by creating uncertainty as to whether Claiborne actually obtained zoning approval, since the board’s decision can be reversed by a court ruling, as it has been before. In local cases when an appeal is filed, developers tend to hold off on construction until they know how the court rules.
Al Barry of A. B. Associates, a planning consultant working with Claiborne, said he was pleased with the board’s decision this month.
“We were gratified that the zoning board recognized the testimony from the various professionals that we had in support as well as the overwhelming community support from the four associations” that said they were in favor of the project, he said.
But Hunter Cochrane, a neighboring property owner who opposes the idea of granting variances that would allow a developer to build anything other than what current zoning regulations allow, said he wasn’t happy with the board’s decision.
“We will be appealing,” he said.
Cochrane’s attorney, J. Carroll Holzer, said he doesn’t believe the zoning board followed city statutes or based its decision on facts and the law.
“We will appeal to the Circuit Court for Baltimore City and, if necessary, the Court of Special Appeals in Annapolis, because they don’t do their job,” Holzer said of the panel. “I’m sick and tired of the board of appeals ignoring the code, ignoring the statutes, and not doing their job…They don’t act like a board anyplace else in this state.”
Second time
The Oct. 11 meeting was a continuation of a hearing that began with public testimony on Aug. 24 and lasted nearly six hours. It marked the second time the zoning board indicated it would approve Claiborne’s project.
The board voted 4 to 0 to approve the project on July 13, 2021, but Cochrane and his wife Margaret appealed the decision in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City. Their attorney, Holzer, argued that the zoning board didn’t follow its own procedures in evaluating Claiborne’s proposal and that its decision was flawed.
Circuit Court Judge Anthony Vittoria sided with the Cochranes and remanded the case to the zoning board for a new hearing. In his court order, Vittoria ruled on the process followed by the zoning board but not the merits of the case.
The Aug. 24 hearing was held in the Phoebe Stanton meeting room on the eighth floor of the Charles Benton municipal building on East Fayette Street. Claiborne’s application was the only item on the docket, and the room was reserved for the whole day.
During the August hearing, the zoning board heard testimony in support of the project from the development team and representatives of community groups that support the project. It also heard from two residents who live close to the proposed construction site and oppose the project, Hunter Cochrane and Betsy Boykin, as well as James Patton, a land planner and development consultant hired by Cochrane to scrutinize Claiborne’s plans. Another North Baltimore resident questioned the wisdom of any construction at all.
Speaking in support of Claiborne’s application were representatives of two community groups whose members live near the development site, the Lehr Stream Neighborhood Association and the Sabina-Mattfeldt Community Improvement Association.
The North Roland Park Improvement Association and Poplar Hill Association have also taken stands in support of the Claiborne’s project. Remarks by Lehr Stream’s president, Robert Williams, represented their stance as well as the position of his own organization.
Separate deliberation session
After hearing nearly six hours of testimony for and against Claiborne’s project on Aug. 24, zoning board members didn’t immediately render a decision about the variance requests. They said they needed to deliberate first and wanted to do so in a separate session.
The meeting on Oct. 11 was set aside for those deliberations, as a continuation of the Aug. 24 hearing. The zoning board also accepted memos from both sides to support testimony given on Aug. 24. It didn’t take public testimony on Oct. 11.
The deliberations were held in a small chamber off Room 215 in City Hall, the room where the zoning board traditionally has held its regular meetings. The smaller room is where the board holds “pre-meetings” to address items that don’t involve hearing public testimony. Its deliberations in the smaller room aren’t shown on Charm TV, as its regular meetings are.
In the October meeting, zoning board chair James Fields led the discussion. He addressed a number of issues that were raised by the opponents in August, from the steepness of the wooded site to the turning radius needed for fire trucks to reach the proposed building.
In each case, Fields said he wasn’t persuaded by the opponents’ testimony and was prepared to support Claiborne’s height and conditional use variance requests. He also said he believed Claiborne’s representatives had demonstrated that there is a need for what they want to build. Cochrane, Holzer, Barry and Claiborne attorney Caroline Hecker were in the room as observers, along with several others. At times, Fields spoke so quietly that representatives for both sides said afterwards that it was difficult to hear everything he said.
After Fields addressed various issues, the other three zoning board members said they agreed with his reasoning and could also support the variance requests. There was no debate. The clear consensus was that all four zoning board members were prepared to grant the variances Claiborne requested.
Under the city’s process, once deliberations end, the zoning board staff prepares a written resolution reflecting the stance of the board members, based on what they said during their deliberations. After the resolution is drafted, the zoning board members review it and vote on whether to give final approval, at which point it becomes official. Their decision is then shared with the applicants and other interested parties, who presumably already have a sense of what the ruling will be if they followed the deliberations.
The process takes several weeks, and aggrieved parties can’t file an appeal until the written resolution is adopted. Opponents have up to 30 days after a resolution is approved to file an appeal with the Circuit Court for Baltimore City.
‘Deliberation by chairman’
After the deliberations concluded on October 11, Holzer said it was difficult to hear everything Fields said because he spoke quietly and faced away from non-board members in the room. Holzer questioned the decision to hold the session in a relatively small room with a layout and acoustics that aren’t ideal for spectators or recording of the discussion, when the day-long hearing was held in a much larger room with better acoustics and a seating arrangement in which the board members faced the audience.
Holzer added that he wouldn’t say the board actually deliberated, because three of the members consistently followed the chair’s lead, and there was no back and forth.
“In any other jurisdiction…when they have deliberations, you actually hear all three or five members of the board explain why they’re doing what they’re doing,” he said after this month’s meeting. In this case, by contrast, “the chairman said everything and nobody else said a word.”
It was “deliberation by chairman,” Cochrane said.
Holzer also said he didn’t think the board members sufficiently presented findings of fact and conclusions of law that back up their decision.
“Sitting in that little room, with the chairman mumbling, I couldn’t hear half of what they said, but the half that I did hear, they didn’t do the right thing again,” he said. “I’m sick and tired of the way they do not read the code, read the requirements [in the] law. They did not articulate the reasons they came to their conclusion. They also did not deal with the reversals” from Judge Vittoria.
Noting that Vittoria ordered a new hearing once before, Holzer said he thought the same thing will happen if the board’s latest decision is appealed.
“It’s already been reversed once,” he said. “I have a feeling that the Circuit Court, in looking at this, will reverse it again because of the board’s mishandling of the issues that we raised.”
‘Up to Hunter’
Barry noted that Claiborne has been communicating all along with associations representing the communities around the development site and has their support, as shown in the testimony at the August hearing. He said he hoped Cochrane would listen to his neighbors who support the project and not file an appeal that would delay construction further.
The project architect is John Marc Tolson of ARRIVE Architecture Group in Bedford, Texas, with Baltimore architect Pavlina Ilieva of PI.KL Studio brought in as a design consultant. Barry said the plans have been under review by the city for building permit purposes for six to eight months, so construction could begin quickly if the zoning board gave its approval.
If no appeals are filed, he said, Claiborne would aim to start construction in 2023 and complete work 15 to 18 months after that, putting the project’s opening sometime in 2025. “The testimony at the previous hearing is that all of the city agencies have signed off on the plans,” he said.
Claiborne’s timeline would be affected if Cochrane appeals the zoning board’s decision, Barry said.
“It’s really up to Hunter,” he said. “If he appeals it, it’s delayed. Hopefully he will listen to his neighbors and not extend this.”
Cochrane said he and his wife will read the written resolution, but “I doubt it is going to change our minds.” He said many development projects in the city move ahead despite opposition from neighbors because no one is willing to commit the time and money needed to pursue a court appeal.
“The real issue is, if you [look at] the docket, there are very few cases that are opposed” beyond the public-hearing stage, he said. “In most cases, nobody opposes it and nobody goes to the next step, appealing it…It’s very rare that somebody keeps fighting this, as we have been doing.”
While that may be what often happens in Baltimore, he said, it’s not the case with the Claiborne project. If the developers think he will back down now, he said, “they don’t know me.”
Read viewpoints about the proposed development from community members, attorneys, and zoning board members here.
