First public hearing on Village Square development project set for Aug. 20

Westminster residents get an opportunity to comment on a proposal to replace roughly 32 apartments on Wimert Avenue with a 120-unit building when the Planning and Zoning Commission holds its initial public hearing on the project Thursday, Aug. 20.

In a 15-page report prepared for the meeting and signed by Community Planning and Development Director Mark Depo, city staff raised 10 items that they want to see addressed in work sessions following the public hearing; those include a shortfall between the water it would require and what the city has available, a parking plan that falls dozens of spaces below what city code requires, and a request that the developer explain what will happen to the people living there now.

Depo describes the application, Local Map Amendment LMA 25-01, as a request to build "a mixed-use building containing 120 two-bedroom multiple-family dwelling units and approximately 9,100 square feet of ground-floor commercial space" at 102 Wimert Avenue.

The Aug. 20 hearing begins at 6 p.m. at City Hall, 1838 Emerald Hill Lane, and is open to the public, according to the city's meeting agenda. Written comments may be submitted to the city's planning office beforehand.

The first item in the “Outstanding Issues” of the city's report reads, “Existing Residents.” Depo wrote, "The proposed Development Plan will remove 12 existing residential structures containing approximately 32 dwelling units and displacing existing residents. DCPD recommends that the Applicant provide the status of residential occupancy at the Property and the Applicant's plan to relocate the existing residents."

The site is currently occupied by what the report calls "several existing multiple-family residential structures that predate the current zoning framework applicable to the site." The property is marketed to renters by Bayview Management, whose website describes the existing cottages as having "their own small backyards" and being within walking distance of “downtown Westminster, McDaniel College and St. John's Catholic Church.”

Previewing the hearing for the mayor and Common Council at their Aug. 10 meeting, Depo told the council the project would consist of 120 "two-bedroom market rate apartments." No city document reviewed by Westminster Wire describes any of the 120 units as income-restricted.

At the May 21 commission meeting, where the application was introduced for informational purposes, Kelly Miller, the attorney representing the applicant, said it was "a little premature" to discuss displacement specifics and told commissioners the project was "still years in the works before anything is actually being changed," Westminster Wire reported at the time. Miller added that the owner intends to keep working with residents under their existing leases.

Depo's report lays out the project's water demand and the city's available supply.

Each two-bedroom unit requires an allocation of 150 gallons per day, and retail space requires 0.05 gallons per day per square foot, according to the report. For 120 apartments and 9,100 square feet of commercial space, the staff calculated a total requirement of 18,455 gallons per day.

Against that, the report says the city's water and sewer allocation chart shows "3,890 GPD of water available in Inside City Only, Residential (Multi-Family) category for 2026 calendar year," along with 47,605 gallons per day in the commercial and industrial category. It then notes that 48,930 gallons per day of capacity is available in the general water and sewer fund categories for 2026.

Water and sewer allocation in Westminster is granted at the building permit stage, well after the steps described below, and Depo's report does not say how that difference would be resolved.

According to the report, the project would need 215 parking spaces under city rules — 1.5 spaces for each two-bedroom apartment, plus one space for every 250 square feet of retail. The report says the current plan only shows 158 spaces. A developer can request fewer spaces only if the planning director determines the site can't physically accommodate them, and that reduction comes with an additional one-time fee.

The report also says the plan lacks sufficient shared outdoor space. Based on a standard of 25 to 100 square feet per apartment, the 120 units would need 3,000 to 12,000 square feet of open space. The report notes that the nearest park, Dutterer Family Park, is about 1,500 feet away, but there's no safe walking route to reach it.

A required traffic study has already been done and passed, according to the report. Lenhart Traffic Consulting finished it on June 25 and submitted it to the city on July 15. It looked at eight intersections and found all of them meet Carroll County's minimum traffic standard, graded "D" or better on the industry's A-to-F scale. Staff still want the developer to look more closely at pedestrian safety and the project's effect on nearby streets.

Regarding the building's design, staff wrote that its size — a large four-story structure covering much of the property — warrants a closer look at how it would fit with the surrounding homes.

The application was filed by Village Square LLC, listed on the city's agenda as both applicant and owner, "c/o Ernest Rafailides," at 500 Virginia Avenue, Suite G2, in Towson. Village Square LLC has owned the property since a deed dated July 29, 1999, according to Depo's report.

Bayview Management, which markets the existing apartments, is headquartered at the same Towson street address, according to its website. Rafailides is Bayview's managing partner. The redevelopment would be carried out by the ownership that has held the site for 27 years and collects rent on it now, rather than by an outside buyer.

The Aug. 20 hearing is narrower than it may sound, and it's only the first of several steps the project still has to clear.

The report explains that the hearing is intended for the public to provide testimony and other evidence regarding the requested zoning change — not to approve a detailed site plan or grant permission to begin construction.

The report also makes clear that no decision is expected on Thursday. Depo wrote that, after the hearing, city staff want the commission to hold work sessions to review the 10 issues detailed above, and only then vote on a recommendation.

That recommendation then goes to the mayor and Common Council, who have the final say on whether to approve or deny the zoning change, according to the report. That vote — whenever it happens — is separate from, and comes after, Thursday's hearing.

Even if the council approves the change, the project would still need a separate approval for a detailed site plan covering things like the building's design, landscaping and engineering. That approval comes from the commission and the planning director, under a different part of the zoning code.

If the property needs to be subdivided, that requires its own approval, too. And water and sewer service — the subject of the shortfall described above — wouldn't be decided until the very end, when the developer applies for a building permit. None of that detailed planning is on Thursday's agenda.

Daniel Hoff, a Westminster city councilman who sits on the Planning and Zoning Commission, told Westminster Wire that Thursday's hearing is "not the public's last opportunity to comment on this," but stated that "the earlier in the process people comment, the better."

Hoff previously replied on a Westminster Wire Facebook post about the project, saying he hopes “people, both pro and con, participate in the various upcoming meetings to give feedback to the Planning Commission as it works through the process.”

The amendment would add a special zoning layer, called a Compatible Neighborhood Overlay Zone, on top of the property's current R-7,500 zoning. Under Article VIII-C of the city code, that overlay can only be applied to land already zoned R-7,500 or R-10,000, and it allows apartment buildings that wouldn't otherwise be permitted there.

The overlay itself doesn't set a limit on how many units or how tall a building can be. Those limits get decided later, when the commission and the planning director approve a detailed site plan for the property.

City code requires a project like this to align with the city's other planning documents. The property is designated "Urban Residential," which the comprehensive plan says should have five to six housing units per acre. Staff found that this project's density is higher than that, and that's the core disagreement.

According to the city’s report, the applicant says four things justify the higher density anyway: the overlay zone's flexibility, the property's location in an already built-up part of the city, the mix of nearby businesses and apartments, and the fact that city water and sewer service already reaches the site.

Staff have not opposed the project. They wrote that it fits several goals of the overlay zone, including redeveloping an existing apartment property, adding mixed-use development near existing businesses, and using existing infrastructure.