Board continues FDR Holdings site‑plan appeal after hearing on FDR Boulevard alignment and mapping

FDR Holdings LLC asked the St. Mary’s County Board of Appeals on Sept. 27 to overturn a Planning Commission decision that denied concept approval for a proposed office building at 21975 FDR Boulevard in Lexington Park. The Planning Commission had found the concept plan inconsistent with comprehensive‑plan and transportation‑plan guidance because a proposed FDR Boulevard alignment crosses the parcel; the Board of Appeals continued the appeal to Nov. 29, 2007, to allow both sides to supplement the record with transportation‑plan pages, survey exhibits and aerial photographs.

Attorney John Norris, representing FDR Holdings, told the board his clients had purchased the roughly 1.14‑acre parcel after reviewing public plans and budgets and that they proceeded with reconstruction permits and a concept plan for a 6,720‑square‑foot office building. He said the parcel is in the Downtown Core Mixed Use District (DMX) and in the Lexington Park Development District, an area the county’s comprehensive plan seeks to encourage for development. “The proposed development meets all the purposes, goals, [and] objectives of the zoning district and the planning district in which it’s located,” Norris said, and he asked the board to correct what he described as inconsistent treatment compared with a prior, similar case (Hampton Square) in which staff and the planning commission took a different approach.

FDR Holdings’ engineer, Jonathan Glasgow of Mahaffey & Associates, described the submitted concept plan and said the company had revised the plan after Department of Public Works (DPW) comments and had shown a preliminary right‑of‑way on the plan as DPW requested. John Erickson (DPW) and other county staff said DPW’s comment warned the alignment of proposed FDR Boulevard would likely affect buildings and parking and that the parcel could be substantially reduced by right‑of‑way needs and associated setbacks and easements. Erickson described an alignment developed from a corridor survey and a deed mosaic prepared in the late 1990s; county staff said the county had spent consultant money to develop the corridor and had placed capital funds in the out years to begin acquisitions.

The Planning Commission denied the concept plan after finding it did not meet section 60.5.3 of the county zoning ordinance, which requires concept approval to be consistent with the comprehensive plan. County staff told the Board of Appeals the Lexington Park Development District master plan and the countywide transportation plan incorporate language noting that portions of the FDR Boulevard alignment are preliminary and that some sections had not been “officially mapped.” The applicant argued that that preliminary language and inconsistent mapping should not be used to deny a property owner the ability to develop a parcel that complies with zoning district standards; their attorney said the county’s adopted plans nonetheless lacked the finality needed to take away a landowner’s development rights without compensation.

County planning and public‑works witnesses and the applicant disagreed on how finalized the alignment is and how it should be applied to this concept plan. DPW said survey work and appraisals had been done for a partial taking of a corridor (appraisal cited 0.3342 acres; survey measure cited 0.3189 acres) and that capital money had been placed in the budget to begin acquisitions (staff cited an increase of $1.5 million in a recent capital program for corridor acquisitions). The applicant said the county had not made an offer sufficient to resolve development rights and had not completed the mapping process to the standard that should be required before denying an otherwise compliant concept approval.

After extended testimony and cross‑examination of DPW and planning staff, the board decided it needed additional documentary exhibits and more time to consider the competing legal arguments about whether plan language and an alignment drawing provide a sufficient basis for denial under section 60.5.3. The board voted to continue the appeal to Nov. 29, 2007, at 6:30 p.m. in the same location and asked county staff to provide the transportation plan pages, the Lexington Park plan pages, the relevant survey exhibits and aerial photographs for the record. The board also instructed parties to confirm agreed exhibits prior to the continued hearing.

Ending: The board left the record open for documentary supplements (transportation plan excerpts, survey/exhibit plates, aerial photos) and set a date‑specific continuance to Nov. 29, 2007, at 6:30 p.m. Parties were told to be prepared to argue whether the Planning Commission reasonably applied section 60.5.3 when it denied concept approval because of the FDR Boulevard alignment.