Baltimore County Council Approves North Point Govt. Center Sale

The Baltimore County Council on Monday night approved contracts of sale on three county-owned parcels of land, opening the door for private development at the sites in Dundalk, Towson and Randallstown.

Council members voted 7-0 to approve the contracts, two of which had been passionately opposed by residents in Towson and Dundalk.

Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz last December announced his attention to sell the three properties and to close Eastwood Elementary School, a small, successful neighborhood school operating at capacity.

Kamenetz plans to spend at least $5 million renovating the 50-year old school to accommodate North Point Precinct 12. In October, when he announced the selected bidders for the three properties, he said the Eastwood project was in the design stage and he expects the precinct to move in 12 to 18 months.

Over the weekend, members of Dundalk United, a community organization created early this year to fight the closure of the school and sale of the government center property, wrote an eleventh-hour letter to council members, asking them to delay the vote based on the deed of the government center. They say the 1981 document contains a covenant that prohibits the sale of the land or any portion of it without written consent from the Maryland Board of Public Works.

The vote occurred as scheduled. Thomas J. Peddicord Jr., legislative counsel and secretary to the council, did not return a phone call Monday requesting comment on the group's claim that a sale would violate that covenant.

Once the contracts are formalized, the developers face a long planned unit development (PUD) process to build their proposed projects.

Len Weinberg, a partner in Vanguard Commercial Development LLC, the bidder selected for the Dundalk property, has said throughout the contentious bidding period that he looks forward to working with the community on the design of the replacement recreation center that is a bid requirement.

His bid calls for buying just over half the center's 28 acres, leaving the outdoor recreation space in the hands of the county.

He also plans numerous upgrades to the existing athletic fields and will add an outdoor amphitheater to the grounds.

Many community input meetings will be scheduled as a part of the PUD process, according to Weinberg and county officials, which means there will be many opportunities for residents to weigh in on what they want on the site, particularly in regard to the replacement recreation center.