High Court Flattens Highlands

Posted by John Lang

Maryland’s highest court has ruled the 113-home Highlands subdivision next to the Grasslands Plantation outside Chestertown cannot be built as planned.

The Court of Appeals ruling Tuesday held that Queen Anne’s planners blundered through their own appellate process. It remanded the case back to the Circuit Court for Queen Anne’s, ordering it to vacate the decision of the county’s Board of Appeals and to instruct it to conduct its proceedings “consistent with this opinion.”

That opinion stated that it is always up to a developer to prove that his subdivision meets requirements of the county’s comprehensive plan – and it’s not necessary for the neighbors to prove otherwise.

Said the court: “We hold that the Board erred in imposing the burden on the adjacent landowners.”

The case was argued for Grasslands Plantation Inc., the home and experimental conservation project of Harry Sears, by attorney Philip W. Hoon. It is another significant win for Hoon before the Court of Appeals, which in 2002 upheld his briefs that kept Wal-Mart from building a Big Box store in Chestertown.

This ruling applies only to phase one of the Highlands subdivision, some 50 residential units on 64 acres. The second phase, not yet applied for, would have, as envisioned, led to 113 homes on the 275-acre property.

The land, between Round Top Road and Rt. 544 and abutting Grasslands, is owned by Frizz-King Enterprises, LLC.

Frizz-King’s counsel, Jeffrey Thompson, challenged testimony that the area is predominantly rural. He noted that the proposed subdivision would be adjacent to the 900-lot Chester Harbor subdivision.

Thompson contended that Highlands was “in the immediate vicinity of substantial commercial development, including the three largest car dealerships in the area.”

Without noting that two of those dealerships are now dead as the Deusenberg, Hoon countered that the Highlands entrance on 544 is more than a mile away from Rt. 213, and the dealer lots are another long way down the road from that intersection.

Harry Sears’ dogged case against Highlands was supported by the Chester River Association, the Queen Anne’s Conservation Association and also the State of Maryland.

The Maryland Department of Planning had complained in 2005 about approvals given Highlands by the Planning Commission and by the previous clutch of county commissioners.

It wrote its concern “is that the county is not using its zoning and related land use tools to protect the State’s investment of public funds in preservation, which is a fundamental Certification requirement.”

The challenge to Highlands also included oral and written testimony by Dr. Eileen McLellan, former Chester Riverkeeper, who said the subdivision broke state code and was “incompatible with the county’s Comprehensive Plan policy to keep rural lands rural and preserve agricultural lands. . .”

She contended, “The agricultural parcel proposed for subdivision is not located in an area designated for growth.”

The Court of Appeals did not say yea or nay about that. It simply said, that from this point, Queen Anne’s planners have to start requiring the developers to show their compliance with the planners’ codes.

At day’s end, Hoon noted the case had dragged out more than five years and he’d lost on all three previous adjudications down the line. But with this ruling, he said, “there is no question that Harry Sears’ vision, perseverance and tenacity have been the foundation and the catalyst for it to have occurred.”

He said he felt his client’s efforts are of “lasting benefit to the citizens of Queen Anne’s County who want their land use laws and Comprehensive Plan to be administered fairly and properly.”

Source: The Chestertown Spy.