By Cindy Hoffman, Staff Writer

(Sept. 21, 2023) The Berlin Board of Zoning Appeals last Wednesday agreed to grant the Assateague Landing Apartments project the conditional use zoning designation its owner needs to proceed with the development.

The site plan, which showed single-story townhouse dwellings consisting of 20 apartments at 534 Bay Street, was approved on Aug. 30 by the Berlin Planning Commission.

Even though the property is zoned as R3, which provides for the development of a range of multi-family dwelling units, the Berlin zoning code requires multi-family projects to seek conditional use approval.

 The property will provide two parking spaces per unit and eight additional guest parking spaces with five parallel parking spaces.

The property owner, Eric Davis, will keep 1.84 acres as open space. The full property is 2.8 acres.

Davis plans to rent these two-bedroom, two-bath units for 12-month leases. He said he expects to rent the units at around $1,500 a month and hopes it will help address the housing shortage in the town of Berlin and the county.

Davis said he owns and manages a couple hundred properties in Salisbury. Most of his properties are 10-42 unit complexes. He manages all of his properties and lives in Berlin.

This development will have a 24-hour emergency line to report any maintenance problems and he has staff on call 24 hours a day to respond to emergencies on all his properties.

Construction of the property is expected to take eight months, according to Davis.