Office building OK'd in path of what may become roadway

Court said FDR Boulevard is not mapped

Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2008

The planning commission and board of appeals had previously turned down the project because the building may or may not be in the proposed path of FDR Boulevard, a road parallel to Route 235 that currently exists only in pieces.

St. Mary's Circuit Judge C. Clarke Raley ruled in September that the road is not officially mapped in that part of Lexington Park, approaching Millison Plaza, and use of the property cannot be denied without compensation from county government.

County government is working on building FDR Boulevard in stages and right now the effort is between the First Colony shopping center and Chancellor's Run Road. The capital budget has $850,000 for engineering and land acquisition.

There are funds in long-range plans for FDR Boulevard farther south, but the roadway path hasn't been platted yet.

Rick and Tom Benefield bought the property for $100,000 in 2006. Afterward its zoning density was changed with the county's downtown mixed-use zone, which allows up to 20 homes per acre, and the value of the .72-acre property increased. An existing two-unit rental home was there. The Benefields proposed renovating the building and adding an office building.

There were large discrepancies in appraisals done by both sides so no deal was struck to sell the property to the county.

"Not many of these have been remanded" back from the circuit court, said George Allan Hayden Sr., outgoing chairman of the board of appeals.

The board did not have much leeway in its final decision. Essentially the matter of the road's pathway could not be a factor after the court ruling. It came down to if the renovation of the house fit into the goals of the county's comprehensive growth plan. "We're leaving FDR out … so that is out of the equation," said Yvonne Chaillet, zoning administrator for the department of land use and growth management.

The board's 5-0 decision approved the concept plan Thursday evening.

"The denial was an error," said George Sparling, attorney for the board of appeals.

In September, Tom Benefield said, "If public works deems this a necessary road, we want them to have it." If not, "we want to develop the property. We're not trying to extort the county for this," he said.

FDR Boulevard as envisioned by the county's transportation plan would run from the Wildewood neighborhood in California south in parallel with Route 235 all the way down to the Lexington Park library on South Shangri-La Drive. Some parts of the road already exist, built by the county and developers. It is meant to be a neighborhood connector road and not a high-speed thoroughfare.

jbabcock@somdnews.com