MIDDLE RIVER, Md. — Heavy machinery is sparing no time making way for a massive warehouse on what was once Lockheed Martin’s property used for employee sports fields.
County Councilman David Marks thought he had successfully led an effort to downzone the property two years ago only to find out over the holidays that the defense and aerospace contractor had slipped its permitting through unnoticed a matter of days before the prohibition took effect.
“It takes a new homeowner five years to get a house built,” said Marks, “It takes a typical property owner months to get an electrical permit, but yet a multi-million-dollar corporation can get a project like this approved lickety-split. Why is that the case?”
Community angered by permitting for Middle River facility
It’s a question shared by Josh Sines, a candidate for the newly created council District 8, who also serves as president of the Essex Middle River Civic Council, which has had ongoing contact with the county’s planning department over plans for the site.
“Specifically, we have talked about this property up there,” said Sines, “I was told repeatedly that at as a green space to the overall property and at no point did they tell us that they had signed off already on a development plan for this property.”
“So the county permitters could have been more forthcoming,” we asked.
“Absolutely,” he said.
By slipping through unnoticed, Lockheed Martin sold the property to the current developer for more than a million dollars an acre and denied the community a voice in addressing potential problems posed by the warehouse.
“The way that the traffic is going to come out of here, it’ll have a lot of tractor-trailers coming out of this road where standing next to to go to that intersection at Wilson Point that every resident of Wilson Point now will be competing with to get out of their neighborhood---this being the only way out,” said Sines.
When it comes to the letter of the law or the county ordinances in this case, it appears the developer has followed all the rules.
An In Focus look at the development plan in East Baltimore County
The county claims the application met its deadline and the permit was not issued in error.
For his part, Marks is calling for the creation of a special council investigative committee to make sure communities are made aware of impactful developments long before bulldozers show up near their neighborhoods.
“The developer clearly knew my intention,” said Marks, “My intention was to block a 500 thousand-square-foot warehouse from being built on Eastern Avenue and my hope is that this committee exposes this whole process, determines what happens.I’d love to stop the warehouse, but quite frankly if we can’t, at least we correct the law.”
