News | 4/24/06

Weeds have sprung up sporadically, the shrubbery overgrown, climbing onto the front porches of an unfriendly stretch of boarded up houses on Burke Avenue. That's the way parts of the Towson Manor Village neighborhood have looked for months, but now that the community is working with a new developer to clean up and rebuild the area, it could turn from uninhabitable houses to condominiums and townhouses catty-corner to Towson University.

Bob Ward Cos. previously purchased the property, but the homebuilder was unable to reach an agreement with the neighborhood association. After owning land in the neighborhood for nearly two years, the land was sold to The Bozzuto Group, a developer based in Greenbelt, Md. Bob Ward signed the sale agreement two weeks ago.

The cost of sale is under confidential agreement, Linda Veach, president of Bob Ward, based in Edgewood, Md., said, and will be divulged as soon as the community association "gives its blessing" to Bozzuto's plans.

"We couldn't enter into an agreement with the leaders of the community group that would work for both of us, so we decided to go ahead and sell it to somebody else that could probably make it work," Veach said. "We agreed upon the layout, the house type and all that, it was just the thing with density that we couldn't agree on."

Bob Ward wanted a Density Residential (D.R.) 16, but Baltimore County Councilman Vince Gardina (5th district) changed the 8.5-acre property to D.R. 5.5 in 2004 with no plans to change it back. With residential density, developers work with low, medium and high-density permits classified with one as the lowest and 16 as the highest.

The number distinguishes the maximum number of units per acre. Bob Ward wanted more homes than Gardina and the community would approve.

"That was an effort to try and get the people who were working on the plan to think from the bottom up, to be able to develop on a clean slate, if you will, rather than from the top down when you had a higher density," Gardina said. "The problem is it's not the density so much, but if you don't have design criteria and layout for it you don't pretty much have anything."

Bozzuto has been working with two neighborhood associations, Towson Manor Village and one across the street at Burkleigh Square, to determine the best plan for the area.

Don Mohler, communications director for County Executive Jim Smith, called the whole scenario "complicated."

"If you're going to be sensitive to community input, it sometimes takes a little longer than it normally would," he said.

Gardina said the developer and the two neighborhood associations have been meeting and have more meetings planned.

"There have to be a certain number of units to make it work because of high cost of the land," he said. "So the first thing is to decide on the density and the second thing would be doing what they call a design shred, and come up with an idea on what the buildings and the development would look like."

Mike Ertel, president of Greater Towson Council of Community Association, said the neighborhood's efforts are almost like a workshop "where they're going to look at some other projects that Buzzuto has done and kind of try and get a feel for what they like and don't like." (GTTCCA is an umbrella group of many local community associations.)

"Hopefully they can come up with something that everybody's happy with and that Buzzuto can make money on it," Ertel said.

Veach said Bob Ward's plans were to build townhouses and condominiums, and would have with a D.R. 16 density.

"For less units than that, we just don't have the wherewithal to carry the project and build it out with that lower density. What that does is it brings up the price of the houses that much more and we just felt that we couldn't sell the houses, that they'd end up being like a million dollars each," she said.

Then Bozzuto, and several other developers, approached Bob Ward. Veach said the company ultimately chose Bozzuto because the developer carried a similar vision.

"They're basically going to do everything we wanted to do, but the community group... we had really gotten into an impasse with the community group and I think Bozzuto is going to have a much better shot at them," Veach added. "They've already met with them. They seem to like him, so I think that goes a long way. For whatever reason they didn't like me."

The negotiating hurt Bob Ward's ability to carry out its plans. As GTCCA and Bob Ward searched for middle ground, the houses in Towson Manor Village, which includes the neighborhood behind Season's Pizza along Burke and Linden Avenues south to Hillen Avenue, were vacant. Police eventually asked Bob Ward to board up the houses, Veach said, to keep intruders from "I guess drinking and doing drugs" inside the houses.

Ertel said Bob Ward wasn't the right company for what the community wanted with the neighborhood.

"There's two kinds of development. One is brand new development where somebody buys an old farm and puts in a raw, brand new housing development, and there's also something called in-fill, which is where you have an existing neighborhood," he said. "Buzzuto is kind of known for their in-fill work. I think the company before, Bob Ward, they develop more raw land. They weren't as skilled in dealing with in-fill type-projects. It's a different kind of thing because you have to be more open- you're going to impact neighborhoods."

"I wish the plan had worked, but Buzzuto is a very good developer, builder," Veach said.

"I think Towson, in the end, is going to win because I think it's going to be a safer area, and a very nice area."

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