By Greg Ellison
(Dec. 10, 2020) The Worcester County Planning Commission approved site plans for a hotel in West Ocean City, mini storage facilities on Route 50, re-approved a subdivision plat off Racetrack Road and rezoned land near Route 707 during its meeting on Dec. 3.
West OC hotel
The Planning Commission voted unanimously to re-approve site plans for a 45-unit hotel in West Ocean City on Golf Course Road just north of Sunset Avenue.
Attorney Hugh Cropper, representing property owners GCR Development, said the commission had approved the site plan in September 2018, but those permissions recently expired after a two-year window of eligibility.
Cropper said the parcel, which totals just over 2 acres, has remained undeveloped for numerous years.
During the 2018 approval process, the site plan was initially rejected, but then approved upon after changes proposed by a traffic engineering consultant were instituted.
“We made substantial changes to that plan, particularly the parking configuration,” he said. “We moved the inter-parcel connecter and the Planning Commission approved the plan unanimously.”
Cropper said approving an extension for the site plan would permit GCR Development to complete the permitting process. He added that all zoning-related issues have been addressed.
“We would like to continue moving forward with the plan they have been working on,” he said. “Your staff recommendation said it finds the project consistent with the original plan approved.”
Cropper said the only change of note was that the total number of hotel rooms was reduced by one unit from the previous site plan.
Subdivision plat
The commission re-approved plans for developer Triple Crown Estates to build a subdivision to include 30 single-family lots on Gum Point Road east of Racetrack Road.
Property owners Steen Associates have retained Vista Design to launch the residential planned community.
The project was originally green lighted in July 2018 after county officials granted final plat approval, with those permissions expiring after a period of two years.
Initially slated for more than five-dozen duplex units, site plans were subsequently revised to include single-family homes.
Mini Storage
The commission approved a site plan for Buas Mini Storage, which would include three commercial buildings totaling more than 100,000 square feet, on the south side of Route 50 below Route 707.
Attorney Regan Smith, representing property owners Papa and Nana Buas LLC, said the plans include a trio of structures providing roughly 106,000 square feet of storage, with a single maintenance building, for a total of 111,000 square feet.
The proposal was initially submitted to the Worcester County Technical Review Committee in June, with revised plans submitted on Nov. 17
Smith said an early challenge were county mandates limiting self-storage facilities to 40,000 square feet per parcel.
“We started with two lots and in order to meet the square feet we did a subdivision plat so we could have three lots,” he said.
Land planning consultant Bob Parker said the three-lot subdivision currently consists of two residential lots containing three existing homes and several outbuildings all of which would be cleared for new construction.
Parker said building façades are designed to differ from typical storage facilities, which traditionally feature an abundance of visible exterior doors.
“This isn’t a bunch of little buildings with a bunch of roll up doors,” he said.
In addition to interior elevator service for second floor access, the majority of storage units would be entered from inside the building.
“It’s a much more embellished version of a mini-storage project,” he said.
Smith said site plans include one state mandated entrance with the interior site accessed by asphalt service roads.
When completed Buas Mini Storage will feature three commercial buildings with more than 650 storage units.
Map amendment
The commission also approved a rezoning request for an acre of property on the north side of Route 50 just east of Route 707.
Attorney Hugh Cropper, representing property owners COF Investment Group, said the parcel in question totals 1.2 acres out of an overall five-plus acre tract.
“This is rezoning but in a critical area where we had refinements,” he said. “I’d rather call this a refinement as opposed to a big rezoning.”
At present 1.2-acres of the property is zoned under two categories — one acre in R-2 suburban residential and 0.2 acres in the resource protection district.
Cropper said the request would standardize the entire section as commercial zoning.
“It’s almost a few feet from being entirely a commercial center,” he said. “We think its unworkable to have a have a single property that’s zoned one thing and then other.”
Cropper attributed the small area designated as a resource protection district to its proximity to a Herring Creek tributary and an earlier mapping miscue.
“In November 2009 the resource protection zoning line was digitalized off of maps and sine then we have had an actual delineation,” he said.
Cropper said the parcel is along Route 50 and located almost entirely in a commercial land use category within the comprehensive plan.
“First this is based solely on a mistake [that] I like to call a refinement because I think the intent was clearly to follow the tidal wetlands line,” he said.
Cropper noted the difficulty involved with establishing precise map boundaries based on aerial photography, while a recently completed land survey provided far more accuracy.
“We want to move the line back up to coincide with the actual tidal wetlands line,” he said.