Developer seeks zoning approval to add 190 homes and large sports complex at Longreach Village Center

Columbia Concepts on March 13 asked the Howard County Zoning Board to approve a red‑line amendment to the preliminary development plan for Longreach Village Center that would increase the site’s residential capacity and add a 100,000+ square‑foot indoor sports complex, a community arts building and new public green space.

The petition, described by petitioner counsel Owen Jarvis as “a very exciting plan that the team has put together,” asks the board to allow 190 additional dwelling units above an earlier approval of 315 units, producing an illustrative build‑out of roughly 505 dwellings across townhomes, multifamily mid‑rise buildings and a senior living building. Jarvis framed the request as the next step in a redevelopment process that began with county council action in 2014 and formal RFPs in 2017 and 2023.

Why it matters: the developer says denser housing and a programmed village center should support retail and community uses that have not been viable at the underutilized Longreach site. The petition also asks relief from certain code parking minimums based on shared‑parking assumptions and multimodal improvements, a point of contention during cross‑examination.

What the petitioner presented

- Project components: Columbia Concepts’ team presented a mixed‑use master plan showing retail and ground‑floor commercial along a primary “main street,” a community building (with some ground‑floor retail), a multi‑sport complex, parks and plazas and a mix of housing types including about 50 for‑sale townhomes and the remainder rental units. Architect Patrick McGowan said the design seeks a “human‑scale” Main Street and public spaces intended to meet the New Town (NT) Village Center definition in the county code.

- Density and heights: McGowan and the design team said the illustrative yield results in about 505 units and that building heights were chosen to balance yield and neighborhood scale. The team noted the plan stays within Columbia’s zoning capacity limits; maximum heights presented in the renderings varied by pad and were discussed in the meeting materials.

- Community uses: The plan includes a community arts/meeting building and a central park and pocket plazas aimed at supporting local programming and community integration; McGowan said the community building would host studio and craft uses that could also include small commercial activity.

- Circulation and transportation: Transportation consultant Katherine Wagner (Grove Slade) said the project’s traffic impact study examined up‑to‑date background growth, included planned Tamar Drive Complete Streets improvements and evaluated intersections per Howard County practice. Wagner summarized net new vehicle trip generations of about 364 AM peak hour trips, 475 PM peak hour trips, and 459 Saturday peak hour trips, and said the studied intersections would operate at county‑acceptable LOS (level of service) levels with the project. Wagner testified that a traffic signal at the Forland Garth intersection is warranted in the future scenario.

- Parking: The team’s updated parking plan proposes roughly 1,007 parking spaces in total (a mix of on‑street, surface and garage spaces, including about 833 garage spaces in the illustrative scheme). The parking study used ITE/ULI methodologies, local calibration, a 10% multimodal mode‑shift assumption (to account for transit, walking and biking) and a 5% internal capture rate to account for shared trips within the mixed‑use site.

Concerns and contested points raised at the hearing

- Disclosure and affidavit questions: An objector on the record (Mr. Hurwitz) alleged omissions or inaccuracies in campaign or corporate disclosure affidavits connected to parties referenced in the filing; petitioner counsel agreed to review and correct disclosures if necessary. The hearing examiner took the disclosure/jurisdictional issue under advisement and asked the parties to confer and provide corrections or explanations at the next session.

- Church parking and special events: Several opposing questions focused on the adjacent church property and existing parking easements. Objectors argued the church’s legal parking rights and occasional large events (weddings, Saturday programs) were not fully accounted for in the traffic and parking materials. The petitioner’s team said the church property is not part of the redevelopment application, that shared‑parking or access agreements would need to be negotiated with ownership at later stages, and that standard county traffic studies do not model every special event.

- Peak events and study scope: Counsel for opposition pressed whether the team had modeled high‑peak special events (sports tournaments, football games, weddings) that could occur concurrently; the transportation witness said county practice does not require modeling every possible event and that the study addresses typical weekday/weekend peak conditions and the project’s long‑term impact on the roadway network.

Support and public testimony

Representatives of local nonprofits and regional advocacy groups testified in support. Erica Chavarria of Columbia Community Care told the board her organization uses the Longreach site for food distribution and said the redevelopment would bring “resource‑rich and family‑centered” space that benefits the community. A county administration official and neighborhood advocates testified they supported the mixed‑use, walkable approach and the long‑deferred goal of bringing investment to Longreach.

What the board did and next steps

The hearing examiner allowed petitioner exhibits into the record, took the preliminary jurisdictional/disclosure matters under advisement, and continued the hearing to March 18 at 10:00 a.m. for further testimony and filings. No final zoning action, vote or approval was taken on March 13.

A note on numbers and outstanding details

Several technical elements remain to be clarified in the continued hearing: the precise terms of any parking or access agreements with adjacent property owners (including the church), detailed phasing schedules and firm pricing/finance terms for structures such as the proposed sports complex, and any final adjustments to the parking supply or traffic mitigation that may result from staff comments or additional evidence. Where specifics were not provided in testimony, the record notes them as "not specified" and parties were directed to produce clarifying materials before the next session.

The hearing will resume March 18 at 10:00 a.m.; the examiner said she will take up any corrected affidavits, additional exhibits and the remaining parties’ presentations then.