By Brian Shane

Staff Writer

(Aug. 14, 2025) A new site plan for a mixed-use, multi-family development project along the Route 589 corridor could be in the works after Worcester County officials rezoned a 23-acre property from commercial to residential.

Attorney Hugh Cropper told the County Commissioners last Tuesday that the R-3 Multifamily Residential zoning would be less impactful than the existing C-2 General Commercial zoning, because housing would generate far less traffic than other commercial uses like a convenience store, fast food joint, or even a car dealership.

“Residential development is going to be less impactful in every single respect,” he said.

After an hour of presentation and discussion, the commissioners voted to approve the rezoning in a 6-0 vote with Commissioner Caryn Abbot absent.

In 2013, the property on the east side of Route 589 (Racetrack Road) opposite Taylorville Lane was rezoned from agricultural to commercial. But neighbors appealed the rezoning, and had it reset back to agricultural. Cropper said, at the time, he appealed to the courts and won, so the commercial zoning was re-instated.

From there, the property owners – Maryland Medical Owners II, LLC and Maryland Medical Owners III, LLC – made plans for a 100,000 square foot medical campus operated by Atlantic General Hospital on the 23-acre property, including four operating rooms, specifically for elective surgeries.

If completed, it would have included ancillary services like pharmacies, physical therapy and a wellness center, and would have rivaled AGH’s flagship Berlin hospital in size, Cropper noted.

The project was fully fleshed-out and had earned site plan approval from county officials. However, because of changes to Maryland’s hospital funding model, combined with the COVID-19 pandemic, this development plan proved untenable, and the original vision was scaled down.

The owners ultimately cut their project in half and built a smaller outpatient medical center, now the Gudelsky Family Medical Center, on the property.

Now, the owners are targeting residential development, Cropper told the Worcester County Commissioners at their Tuesday meeting. Cropper estimated the new R-3 zoning designation could permit a density of up to 137 townhouse units.

Anything more than 20 homes is considered a major residential planned community and faces a litany of governmental check-ins along the way, according to Jennifer Keener, the county’s director of development review and permitting. Even if a builder moved fast, it could take 18 to 24 months, she told the commissioners.

Cropper noted that, up and down the Route 589 corridor, there are no housing options that front the roadway.

“We have no multifamily, we have no workforce, we have no apartments; you’d have to go into Ocean Pines,” he said.

While the Route 589 parcel does butt up against Ocean Pines, any development here would be a standalone enclave and would not provide any vehicular points of access into the Ocean Pines roadway system, Cropper also noted.

When Cropper quoted from the county’s draft comprehensive plan, saying the availability of affordable housing is a major factor in the sustainability of the local economy and quality of life, it elicited a question from Commissioner Chip Bertino (District 5, Ocean Pines).

“Define affordable housing,” Bertino asked Cropper. “How much are we talking about?”

Cropper hedged. “I can tell you these multifamily units would be more affordable than, say, the houses in Pennington Commons,” he said.

“Well, I would hope they would be,” Bertino said, “but are we talking $200,000 to $300,000? $300,000 to $400,000? Somewhere? Or is it yet to be determined?

“I don’t know how to quantify that,” Cropper replied.

“Okay, so, affordable housing is really a relative elastic term, depending on what the developer decides to do,” Bertino said, “as opposed to affordable housing being pegged to specific square footage or cost.” Cropper agreed.

Moving forward, Cropper said the next step for the property is for the county’s planning commission, and ultimately the county commissioners, to review a residential community site plan, but there’s no timeline for when that might occur.