Planning board hears cycle‑zoning petition for Loch Raven/Joppa parcel; staff recommends denial, petitioner cites mapping error

The Baltimore County Planning Board on June 17 held an evidentiary public hearing on a cycle‑zoning petition seeking to reclassify property at the intersection of Loch Raven Boulevard and East Joppa Road from BL to BMCCC. The petition, filed in February 2025, is the first cycle‑zoning request before the board this cycle and will return to the board for a recommendation on July 17, 2025, before transmission to the Board of Appeals.

Amy Manta, deputy director of the Department of Planning, opened with an overview of rezoning procedures in Baltimore County and the distinctions among the comprehensive zoning map process (CZMP), zoning map corrections, out‑of‑cycle rezonings and cycle zoning. “Cycle zoning allows for rezoning during the years between CZMPs,” Manta said, and she explained the limits on what the Board of Appeals may grant under the county code.

Director Lafferty presented the planning department’s analysis of the petition (Cycle 1‑2025), which seeks to reclassify three areas the petitioner identifies within a parcel that borders Loch Raven Boulevard and Joppa Road. Lafferty told the board that the department found no evidence of a change in neighborhood character since the 2024 CZMP adoption and concluded there is not a mapping error that would justify the reclassification. The department’s recommendation is to deny the petition and advise the Board of Appeals to do the same. Lafferty said the department’s view is that the portion not rezoned in 2024 appears to have been omitted by the petitioner’s submission rather than by a drafting error.

Jason Vittore of Smith, Gilday & Schmidt, representing the property owner, said the omission was inadvertent and a result of relying on address‑level inputs rather than an ALTA survey during the CZMP filing process. He told the board the missing sliver is about 10,000 square feet (roughly a quarter acre) and that councilman correspondence indicated the councilman’s intent was to include the whole owner’s property in the rezoning. “We absolutely pursued” a correction via the zoning‑map correction process before filing the cycle petition, Vittore said, and he described an ongoing appeal of the director’s denial of that correction to the Board of Appeals.

Board members questioned the petitioner and staff on the record. Members asked whether the councilman whose district includes the property had been consulted, whether neighbors were notified or had objected, what impact denial would have on the owner’s plans, and whether the rezoning would enable automotive uses. Lafferty said the parcel sits within a County Commercial Revitalization District and that the intersection is identified as a “failed intersection” in transportation materials, but noted that a CRD can be exempt from certain basic‑service transportation standards. A State Highway Administration comment in the record said SHA had “no objection” to the rezoning request, according to Mr. Vittore and county staff.

Planning staff noted that the planning board previously recommended BMCCC for related parcels during the 2024 CZMP, and the county council adopted zoning consistent with that recommendation for the parcels that were before it. The piece now at issue was not included in the CZMP submission, the department said, and the director’s report concluded that remedying the omission would improperly reward a petitioner error.

No community speakers signed in to testify during the June 17 hearing. The planning board took no final vote on the reclassification; it will reconvene July 17 to vote on a recommendation to transmit to the Board of Appeals. The Board of Appeals will make the final decision under county code timelines; if the correction‑of‑zoning appeal is successful, the zoning‑map correction process or Board of Appeals hearing may determine the ultimate outcome.