Howard County hearing examiner allows appeal of DPZ "no violation" finding in W.R. Grace pilot-plant dispute

The Howard County Zoning Hearing Examiner on March 18 took testimony in an administrative appeal by Aidan and Sarah Morel challenging a Department of Planning and Zoning (DPZ) "no violation" letter dated Sept. 13, 2024, related to work at the W.R. Grace research site in Columbia.

The appellants and several neighbors told the hearing examiner the work described in W.R. Grace's permit applications — including installation of new equipment, a larger concrete pad and a flameless oxidizer described in state permit filings — should be treated as a new or enlarged industrial use rather than routine research-and-development activity. They asked the examiner to find the DPZ determination insufficient and to remand the matter for further analysis of nonconforming-use and neighbor-impact issues.

Why it matters: The dispute turns on whether DPZ's one-page "no violation" letter addressed only uses present at the time of inspection, or whether county reviewers should have analyzed prospective changes tied to a 2023 MDE air-permit filing and recent building-permit work at Building 30. If the work is an enlargement or different use, neighbors say it should have triggered a different zoning review and additional public process; W.R. Grace and its counsel say DPZ correctly reviewed current onsite uses and that prospective permitting by state agencies is a separate track.

At the start of the hearing, Tom Cole, counsel for interested party W.R. Grace, asked the examiner to limit the appeal to DPZ's Sept. 13, 2024 no-violation letter and to exclude an earlier DPZ communication and a 2023 permitted-use confirmation that counsel said was not timely appealed. "The rules, under the hearing examiner and the Howard County code state that an appeal of administrative action must be…