Grant funds out to tear down, buy old gas station

County may look at rules on blight

Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2009

The Community Development Corporation held a public hearing recently on plans to seek $579,640 to purchase the .6 of an acre lot at Great Mills Road and Chancellor's Run Road. The group, which oversees the redevelopment of Lexington Park, needs the approval of the county commissioners as part of the process to get the money.

As part of the purchase Besche Oil of Waldorf would have torn down the old gas station, which has been abandoned since at least 1998, before the land deal went to settlement.

"We're not going to bring this up. It's not going to see the light of day," said Francis Jack Russell (D), president of the county commissioners. As president, he sets the weekly agenda.

"We can't do this. We can't act on it," he said last week.

Commissioner Daniel H. Raley (D) met with Besche's vice president, Paul Colonna, on Friday.

Raley said he told Colonna it doesn't appear the commissioners would support the grant application. He acknowledged that it should have been made clear earlier in the process that neither the commissioners nor Southern Maryland's state legislators would support it.

"I believe the Community Development Corporation spent well over $10,000 in doing environmental reviews, property appraisals and such," Raley said. "I just don't see it happening. I do apologize for the timing."

"I told Dan I was very disappointed in the county commissioners," Colonna said Monday.

Describing the federal funds sought for the project, he said, "The money is there ready to go, waiting on the application. It's going somewhere. Why not put it in St. Mary's County?"

Raley asked Besche Oil to go ahead and tear down the gas station anyway. "I think it would create a lot of good will and public appreciation if you just demolished the building," Raley said. "They didn't feel it was a public safety issue."

Colonna said Monday that Besche Oil may paint the building and cut the grass, but did not give a final decision on Raley's request to tear it down. "I didn't give him a full answer on that," he said. "We're not sure what we're going to do with that."

The Community Development Corporation estimated demolition and cleanup of the property would cost around $20,000, but Colonna said Besche had an estimate for $80,000, depending on how much gas leaked into the soil over its life as a gas station.

The two gas stations at Great Mills Road and Chancellor's Run Road are the "two most prominent examples of blight," but there are other buildings in the county that "are partially demolished, partially burnt out," Raley said. The gas station next door to Besche's is owned by a Calvert County developer, and an approved development plan for that property has been stalled by the economy.

Besche owns other gas stations in Callaway, Hermanville and in Park Hall, away from chain gas stations such as Sheetz and Wawa. Colonna said Besche had trouble selling the old Mobil station because of the neighboring Wawa just down Great Mills Road and said the site is too small for other uses such as a pharmacy.

St. Mary's County needs some sort of zoning authority to deal with such properties, Raley said last week.

The Community Development Corporation will be working with the county to scrutinize the zoning rules to address blighted properties, "to strengthen them by any means necessary," Director Robin Finnacom said on Friday. "We'd be very pleased to see mechanisms put in place so that communities don't have to suffer from properties not maintained," she said, if that is the end result from this process.

The Community Development Corporation spent just under $13,000 for the environmental review and property appraisal in preparation for the grant application to buy the gas station property. "The cost is really inconsequential if we can get to an ordinance put in place" to combat blight, she said.

An editorial in the July 31 Enterprise called the proposal to buy the gas station creative, yet expensive and said it wouldn't be necessary if St. Mary's County had effective rules against dilapidated structures.

jbabcock@somdnews.com