A company seeking to build new apartments and stores to revitalize Columbia’s Hickory Ridge Village Center has lost a court fight to revive the plan after a rejection by the Howard County Zoning Board.
The developer, Kimco, had argued that the Zoning Board’s 2022 decision was capricious and ill-informed, and that one board member should not have been allowed to participate because of previous vocal opposition to the project. But last week, the Appellate Court of Maryland said in an opinion that said the zoning board’s decision-making process was correct.
The ruling was another setback for Kimco, a New York-based firm that owns seven of Columbia’s village centers and first proposed the redevelopment in 2015. It illustrates the challenges faced in bringing change to mature communities even amid times of housing shortages and retail uncertainty.
Village centers in Columbia were an innovation of the community’s developer Jim Rouse. Columbia’s 10 distinct villages are built around a commercial center. Under Howard County zoning, village centers are “mixed-use” developments designed to be inward-facing community focal points for the surrounding neighborhoods, with requirements that include outdoor spaces, commercial uses that meet the needs of village residents, community uses, and homes.
Rouse intended for the roughly 20-acre centers to be hearts of each Columbia village, but changes in shopping trends and the emergence of big-box retailers, warehouse stores and huge convenience and gas stations has meant that many have been in decline for years.
How to revive the centers has been the subject of longstanding debate in Howard County. In 2015, Howard County took the unusual step of declaring the Long Reach Village Center blighted so it could take control under urban renewal guidelines. It has still not been fully redeveloped.
Hickory Ridge is one of the seven village centers that Kimco purchased in 2002 from the Rouse Company. Kimco sought to improve its portfolio, and undertook an $18 million redevelopment of the Wilde Lake Village Center—Rouse’s first—with new apartment building, a popular Starbucks and more.
“Not everyone wants a lot of change, but the success at Wilde Lake really opens doors for us to potentially be able to change some, if not all, of our village centers,” said Wilbur “Tom” Simmons, then the head of Kimco’s mid-Atlantic region, in a 2017 interview with a national REIT organization. “Wilde Lake is the poster child of how you can take something that through no fault of its own is broken, and turn it into a true showpiece.”
Hickory Ridge was to be next. The center is located on Cedar Lane near Route 32 and Howard County Medical Center, surrounded by many single family homes and near Atholton High School.
Kimco sought regulatory approval to reconfigure Hickory Ridge’s core into a courtyard plaza surrounded by 35,216 square feet of new retail and commercial space as well as a four-story apartment building with 230 homes—similar to Wilde Lake.
The plan was immediately divisive, with a group of residents saying the project would change the character of the village center. Under county zoning rules, a village center’s residential uses must “support and enhance, but not overwhelm, other uses in the village center,” and that’s what some residents said would happen.
After community feedback, Kimco reduced the height from five stories to four, and the number of apartments from 300 to 230. The county planning board signed off on the plan.
But a zoning change was also needed. In Howard County, the five-member county council also sits as the Zoning Board. One member of the council and zoning board was Deb Jung, who lived nearby and, prior to her election to the council in 2018, had participated in preparing the village-level Community Response Statement that found fault with the proposal and recommended its rejection.
Zoning board hearings began in 2019 and continued for three years. At the outset Kimco filed a written motion asking Jung to recuse herself, saying it appeared she had already decided to vote against the project. Jung insisted she could be an impartial arbiter, and the request was denied.
Ultimately, the Zoning Board, in a 3-2 vote, declined to allow the project to move ahead. It sided with village residents and determined that the proposed four-story retail and apartment buildings would “overwhelm” others uses – which is not allowed in the law.
Kimco challenged the Zoning Board decision, and in 2023 the Howard County Circuit Court also upheld the rejection. Kimco appealed to Maryland’s appellate courts.
In its appeal, Kimco again argued that the Zoning Board decision was faulty and not supported by facts. Kimco also argued that Jung should not have participated in the decision because of her past prominent opposition.
The Appellate Court said it sees “no merit in Kimco’s contentions that the Zoning Board erred as a matter of law” when it decided the standards it would use to determine whether the apartments would be “overwhelming.”
It also determined that the Zoning Board acted properly when it declined Kimco’s request to disqualify Jung from the proceedings, and found that Jung was active and engaged, and that her tone and demeanor was appropriate.
The Zoning Board issued its Decision and Order July 18, 2022 https://cc.howardcountymd.gov/sites/default/files/2022-10/ZB1119MD%26O07_18_2022.pdf The Court of Specials Appeals is now the “Appellate Court of Maryland.”
Joel: Thanks for the link, and we updated the court name.
It would also be important data point that KIMCO was also dishonest to many of the residents by claiming the center was failing and needed an upgrade. The truth was they were constantly badgering current shop keepers with rent increases and significant term reductions and than claiming when tenants left it was additional indicators that it was failing. They had a representative at a community meeting with residents that the anchor tenant Giant food was underperforming— although the manager at the time told residents that was not true. KIMCO has been 100% behind every vacant location at the center — forced out so they could show evidence that it was failing. Negligence, poor management, arrogance, indifference towards the community— all reasons why they have lost.
Still references 2019 decision and incorrectly the “Maryland Court of Appeals” which is now the “Supreme Court of Maryland.”
Wilde Lake has been a disaster. Businesses continue to leave Wilde Lake, while we have seen at least 2 new restaurants at the Hickory Ridge Village Center. The apartments were a money grab that we now have proof do not work.