Appeals board rules for Tiki Bar

Specifics of ruling in dispute

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

The June 26 ruling upheld allegations by the Tiki Bar that the Calvert County Planning Commission had made five separate errors a year ago when denying preliminary site plan approval to a proposed expansion of the bar.

The ruling overturned a decision by the planning commission to deny the owners’ plans to expand the bar and add a restaurant, retail space and possible artists’ studios or offices by agreeing that the planning commission had made five errors in deciding that: The plan would constitute an ‘‘impermissible intensification” of the use of the land; that it was incompatible with the Solomons Town Center Master Plan; that a plan for a shared driveway constituted a ‘‘poor precedent;” that it included too few parking spaces; and that having a sand-covered space could choke nearby waterways after a flood, according to documents.

According to V. Charles Donnelly, a Solomons Island attorney representing the Tiki Bar, the appeals ruling grants the preliminary approval rejected by the planning commission; his clients now intend to work with county staff on fine-tuning the plan, he said.

‘‘We’re looking to see where the good-faith response is from the county to expedite this, because it’s costing money, it’s hurting my clients’ business, and other than moving forward to address these minor issues, you have to take a second look at why somebody would want to prolong this type of action that can only be viewed as being punitive toward the Tiki Bar,” Donnelly said. ‘‘We just need to move on.”

Donnelly also said that a Circuit Court ruling July 3, which dissolved an earlier agreement between the bar and the county, confirmed the receipt of preliminary approval. The 2006 ‘‘consent order” barred the Tiki Bar from dumping sand in a disused parking lot and placing other landscaping features that were opposed by the Calvert County Department of Planning and Zoning.

While Donnelly said he believes his clients now have the right to rebuild the bar’s faux-beach, he said they would not do so until after conferring with county staff in order to avoid being provocative.

Planning Commission Attorney John Yacovelle’s interpretations of the board of appeals and circuit court decisions differed from Donnelly’s.

Yacovelle said that while the board ruled against the planning commission, the ruling did not address potential flaws in the plan as submitted by the bar, and that the circuit court ruling did not confer approval either.

‘‘The way it was left was they decided the planning commission had made an error in calling the congregating area part of an outdoor tavern and therefore the parking calculation was wrong,” Yacovelle said. ‘‘But they did not say what the parking calculation should be, and when they were asked about it said, ‘That’s all we’re going to say.’ That’s what the chairman said.”

At the hearing, board Acting Chairman Michael Redshaw declined to answer a question about whether the decision lent approval to the site plan, according to a transcript of the proceedings.

‘‘We have — we’ll write that out,” the transcript reads. ‘‘But we — what we’ve said is that — what the Board’s concluded is that there were errors made and that the Board’s — the resolution from the Planning Commission is reversed. That’s as far as we’re going to go.”

Donnelly’s interpretation of the decision was likely too ‘‘expansive,” Yacovelle said.

‘‘Charlie had a very expansive view of what had happened at the Board of Appeals and used that information in connection with the injunction case, and then tried to go a little further and get the judge to rule they had a preliminary site plan approval in a case where the decision had not even come down yet,” Yacovelle said.

The planning commission will likely appeal the board of appeals’ decision to Calvert County Circuit Court, Yacovelle said.