New WOC Office Building Plans OK’d

SNOW HILL — At last week’s Worcester County Planning Commission meeting, a new office building site plan in West Ocean City was approved, the water and sewer plan for the Island Resort Cooperative Campground was amended and a favorable recommendation was given to a zoning change that would allow piers to be built on agricultural parcels.

The major approval for the commission came with the passing of a site plan review for a two-story, 7,520-square-foot office building to be located on the north side of Route 50, east of Golf Course Road. In what is quickly becoming a popular slice of West Ocean City, the office building, which is owned by SD Hospitality, LLC, will be built on land parcel 704, on the western side of Route 50 just before the bridge into Ocean City.

Approval of the site plan was quick and uncomplicated. Developer Atlantic Planning Development and Design, Inc., requested a number of variances, all of which were minor and all approved. These included a variance for having less than 35-percent transparency, which the developers justified by wanting to minimize light and glare into the interior office setting. Another variance was for only having a single entrance into the building for security purposes. The plan was approved unanimously.

Also unanimous was the commission’s approval of an amendment to the water and sewer plan for Island Resort Cooperative Campground. This includes an addition to the number of lots in the campground without a need for a new system.

“The campground has also received an approval to undertake a 32-lot expansion under the existing sewer disposal infrastructure. We’ve got up more than once with the owners and our consultant to MDE,” said Bob Mitchell, Environmental Programs director for Worcester.

Mitchell emphasized that the campground has an “advanced” treatment plant that should be able to handle the increased stress easily.

“The applicant had an average flow way under the book value and had adequate capacity in the existing system to handle these new sites,” said Mitchell.

The final commission action was giving a favorable recommendation to a proposed text amendment that would allow constructing a pier on a waterfront agricultural parcel.

“I have a client who is interested in installing a pier on an agricultural parcel subdivided, zoned A-1, but an agricultural parcel,” said environmental compliance consultant Chris McCabe told the commission. “We submitted the permit for a pier and found out that the pier cannot be approved because it is an accessory.”

Attorney Mark Cropper, also representing the land owner, pointed out there are certain anticipated rights with private property that he doesn’t feel should change because the property happens to be an agricultural parcel.

“Obviously, on residential properties the property owners, it’s presumed, have rights applicable to those properties,” he said, “and I don’t think that changes because you have an ag lot.”

Cropper added he had no idea that building a pier on an agricultural lot wasn’t allowed under the current code until the recent conflict. Ed Tudor, director of Development Review and Permitting,, revealed that this is probably the first time in three decades the issue has even surfaced, likely due to the limited number of properties the rule affects.

“The application of this is going to be so extremely limited,” he said. “You can probably count on your hand the number of parcels.”

The Planning Commission gave the proposed text amendment a unanimous, favorable recommendation. It will now move up to the County Commission, where the commissioners will be given the chance to introduce it.