Planning Board Likely to Keep Current Zoning for Colony

Following a meeting last week between community members and owners, the planning board will likely vote this week to keep the current zoning on Towson's Colony apartment complex.

County Councilman said in an email last week to community leaders that Scott Jenkins, his appointee on the Baltimore County Planning Board, will support a motion to keep the property's current zoning at the board's hearing on Thursday.

"Basically, I wanted to send a message that the burden is on the developer to come up with a quality plan," he said.

The planning board's recommendation is non-binding. The County Council has the final say on all zoning proposals, and must vote on all recommendations by Sept. 16.

Marks submitted the Colony property to the county's quadrennial rezoning process as a means of generating discussion. Aimco, the Denver-based owners of the Kenilworth Drive complex, to the planning office requesting that the property, currently zoned entirely residential, be rezoned to allow business uses and high-rise buildings.

Community leaders met with Aimco representatives last week. Marks said he encouraged the developers to pursue a Planned Unit Development, which requires a community benefit and greater public input.

Marks supports changes at the complex, which has long been a source of complaints arising from misbehavior by college students and other tenants there. According to statistics he recieved from Baltimore County police and forwarded to residents, the complex generated 342 calls for service between April 2010 and April 2012, mostly for noise complaints and other disturbances.

"I would like to see it redeveloped," Marks said. "The question is what the redevelopment looks like."

David Kosak, president of the Greater Towson Council of Community Associations, said community leaders have wanted a PUD all along, but he's only cautiously optimistic until the zoning votes are made official.

"From day one, we've been willing to work with [the Colony's owners] because we'd love to see a new place move in. We'd love to see a nicer facility, but we don't want to see the density increased," he said. "We want to make sure that the community has a seat at the table and it's something we can agree upon."

Trish Mayhugh, the president of nearby Riderwood Hills Community Association, said residents "couldn't be happier" that the zoning change will likely be turned down for now. She had expressed concerns in the past about the traffic a new development could bring and a domino effect that could lead to other complexes on Kenilworth Drive seeking upzoning.

"We do not want to see the location upgraded. We don't want to see a denser population there," she said. "For the planning board and for the people with Aimco, that's business for them. For us it's personal. These are our lives here."

And for what it is worth, Marks said, raising the Colony as an issue has produced the desired effect. The owners, he said, will return with plans for community input, and management has been more responsive.

"There is now a better relationship between the Colony and police department than there's been before and we are having a discussion now about the future of that site," he said.