Members of the Towson community continued to voice their opposition about potential zoning changes to the Colony at Kenilworth apartment complex last week at a public session held at Perry Hall High School.
During the session two community leaders spoke out against the changes that would allow new Colony owners, AIMCO, to build high-rise complexes on the current grounds.
According to issue 5-018, Apartment Investment and Management Company is requesting to up-zone the property in order to increase the number of housing units from about 16 per acre to 40 per acre while also adding 7.1 acres for retail space.
The property is now zoned as DR 16 and would become RAE 1, which allows for elevator buildings that would likely be four to five stories tall.
During the comprehensive zoning and mapping process meeting that occurs once every four years, individual community members are given two minutes to either oppose or support zoning issues.
"While our neighbors don't oppose modernizing [the Colony] complex, we believe it should be done within the current zoning [mandates]," Mike Ertel, president of the West Towson Neighborhood Association, said in his address to the Baltimore County Zoning Board.
According to Colony management, the complex has 383 apartments with two to three tenants in each unit. They estimate about 85 percent of the tenants are college students.
In an interview last month, Ertel said the West Towson community rarely has any problems with students living in the Colony outside of occasional loud parties. He said he is concerned, however, that with possible expansion of the complex, the buffer of trees separating the Colony and the community would be destroyed and there would be greater issues between the groups.
The concerns voiced about the Colony's expansion are just a part of the greater Towson community's concerns over the University's growth and its affect on the community.
"The greater Towson area is facing huge challenges, including the growing enrollment of Towson University and its grossly inadequate student housing," Ed Kilcullen, president of the Greater Towson Council of Community Associations, said to the zoning board. "The stability of Towson's residential communities is at a significant risk."
Ertel's greatest concern is not the affect the students will have on the area, but instead, the message that would be sent to other developers near the Colony.
"We're concerned about the precedent-setting nature of [the project], that other property owners will want to do the same thing to the other apartments [along Kenilworth Drive]," Ertel, who represents 750 homes in West Towson, said. "We see a lot of times with developers that come out and really want to develop to the nth degree. You would think from a community standpoint that you could work things out and be reasonable…we'll let you build a new complex, just not a giant new complex."
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