Prince George's examiner continues Oak Creek Club basic plan hearing after applicants seek higher unit caps, removal of church and day-care sites

On Jan. 29, 2025, the Prince George's County Zoning Hearing Examiner continued a hearing on three conjoined basic-plan amendment applications affecting the Oak Creek Club subdivision after Carrollton Oak Creek LLC sought changes that would raise unit caps in two prior base zones and remove a planned church and day-care designation.

The applications ask the District Council to amend Condition 1 of Zoning Ordinance 11-2000 to raise the maximum permitted dwelling-unit caps from 1,096 to 1,108 in the prior RL zone and from 52 to 76 in the prior LAC zone; the applicant said the cap increases total 36 additional units but proffered to build 28 units. The property at issue is roughly 8.09 acres made up of Parcel B and Tax Parcel 3 within Oak Creek Club and is addressed in the application as 800 South Church Road.

The request matters because it would change permitted residential density for a section of an existing, largely built-out subdivision and would remove the church/day-care designation shown on the approved basic plan map. Neighbors and the hearing examiner pressed the applicant for clearer maps and documentation showing which portions of the larger Oak Creek basic plan remain undeveloped and where any nonresidential development could still occur. The examiner left the record open for additional exhibits and continued the hearing to March 5, 2025, at 9:30 a.m. (virtual).

Carrollton Oak Creek LLC was represented by land-use attorney Chris Hatcher. Witnesses called for the applicant included Mike Riley (Carrollton Enterprise Management Services, chief operating officer), Sally P. Stewart (registered landscape architect, Charles P. Johnson & Associates), Michael Lenhart (traffic consultant, Linhardt Traffic Consulting), and Mark Ferguson (certified land planner and environmental design engineer). In oral testimony, Ferguson and Stewart described a revised amended basic plan prepared for all three conjoined cases and said they would submit an updated sheet dated Jan. 27, 2025, to the record; Ferguson also said the applicant has proffered to construct 28 dwelling units though the amendments would raise the maximum cap by 36 units.

Transportation testimony from Michael Lenhart (Lenhart/Linhardt Traffic Consulting) agreed with staff findings that a formal traffic impact study is not required at the basic-plan stage and that Church Road is built to the Master Plan standard; he testified the proposed changes would have a negligible traffic impact and that transportation capacity to serve the proposed maximum density is adequate.

Residents and Oak Creek representatives raised questions about the removal of the church and day-care symbols from the plan and where such nonresidential uses could be accommodated elsewhere in the LAC zone. Several speakers, including Dolly Banks and William Lane, asked whether the proposed houses would match the character of adjacent lots; witnesses said proposed lots would be comparable to existing lots in the LAC neighborhood (approximately 6,000 square feet lot sizes). Femi Adjei, the recently appointed general manager of Oak Creek Club HOA, testified that the HOA board authorized support for construction of the 28 detached homes but the examiner and counsel reminded him that any HOA board position should be submitted to the record in writing showing the board's meeting and vote.

The examiner identified additional documents the record must include before the continued hearing: a certificate of good standing for Carrollton Oak Creek LLC; an updated amended basic-plan exhibit with the Jan. 27, 2025 revision date; the pre-application outreach letter (and any resident responses, including one referenced by Dolly Banks); a screenshot from Prince George's County GIS (PG Atlas) clarifying whether the LAC area contains 52 existing units or the 38 that some GIS layers show; an itemized list from Mark Ferguson identifying which conditions attached to Zoning Ordinance 11-2000 remain applicable; a graphic delineating the boundaries of the three conjoined case files (A-8427-02, A-8578-02, A-8579-02); and illustrative plans previously shown at community meetings. The examiner explicitly continued the case to March 5, 2025, at 9:30 a.m. and said the record would remain open until then for these submissions.

No final decision, vote or ruling on the merits was made at the Jan. 29 hearing; the formal amendment request remains pending and will be resumed at the March 5 continuation. The examiner granted several temporary admissions (for example, a revised plan that will be formally replaced in the record) and instructed parties to confer on scheduling and exhibit filings before the continued date.

For transparency, a sample direct quote from the hearing: Mark Ferguson, the applicant's land planner, said, "Although this application is going to authorize 36, we are proffering 28," and Femi Adjei, Oak Creek Club's general manager, said on behalf of the HOA board that the association "authorized support of the project" but that formal board documentation would be provided to the record.

The hearing was adjourned and set to resume virtually at 9:30 a.m. on March 5, 2025; interested parties were reminded they may become persons of record and submit written materials to the examiner's office before the continued hearing.