In the early seventies rural Howard County began just north of Route 108 and west of Route 29. It didn’t take long for a Columbia teenager to escape the burbs to a quiet country road for extracurricular activities. One of my personal favorites was Manor Lane, both for its relative proximity to the Columbia village I called home and for its almost total isolation. Back then Manor Lane connected Route 108 to Frederick Road by running up through the middle of the Doughoregan Manor farm. About a mile north of Route 108, the road turned from asphalt to dirt. After a couple of sharp turns through a stand of trees the road became a long flat straightaway to Frederick Road. There was nothing but open farm fields on either side of the road.
On some nights my friends and I would just stop the car in the middle of the road and get out and enjoy a few beers on summer nights. Other times I’d pull off into one of the fields for amorous encounters.
These days Manor Lane is no longer a thru road. I suppose that at some point the Carroll family grew tired of the shenanigans of young hooligans on their property and petitioned the county to have the passage through their fields blocked off. I really can’t say as I blame them.
With Doughoregan very much in the news lately my thoughts returned to that time when eastern Howard County was still fairly rural. The Carroll property is one of the last sizable farms east of Route 32. If the Carroll family’s development plan for 200 of the 900 acre farm helps preserve the balance for future generations I’m all for it.
You can read this month’s column here.
Daily
19 hours ago
6 comments:
From commenter on hocorising.com:
Let’s add a little sunlight to the Biz Monthly. Bolduc is well known for a couple of reasons one of which is that he has many many shell LLC organizations that contribute profusely to campaign war chests and no one but the Bolduc family and the candidate know who is behind the money. No one can ever find out, either and that is at best a loop hole and at worst a tremendous abuse of campaign finance law.
This fired sexual harasser apparently is our same Mr. Bolduc: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,917...
So the biz monthly calling him a solder in the battle against abuse is funny at Jon Stewart levels of humor.
Let me stress, one can be vociferously against government waste and still vociferously against the likes of JP Bolduc. The tea partiers and other coherent groups (apparently this excludes our Chamber of Commerce) would be wise to steer clear of acquiescing their voices to Bolduc.
And Jon Weinstein is fighting gov’t waste by going on the government payroll? Again, Jon Stewart could have a field day with this stuff in the Biz Monthly.
Bailey is going for the well heeled funding from Unions, the teacher’s union in particular. They are already tripping over their own power, so this doesn’t look like a genuine move by our formerly good John. Calling someone old, or a 60’s progressive doesn’t hold sway with voters who do not want density. John’s comments about the party of ‘no’ are quite telling regarding his seeing everything through party dynamics. Voters don’t care as much about party as he does.
I can't say that I agree. If the county wants to purchase the land as a preserve then do so and open the house as a museum, but the $18.5 million given to the Carroll descendants provides too little return for this county resident.
I agree with the sentiment that the old Carroll Plantation should be preserved, but why should the County pay $18.5 million for development rights AND triple the number of houses that can be built on the eastern quarter? The Carrolls should not be given the rezoning and should build the 221 acres by right under existing zoning. And if they make good on their threat to build out the entire plantation if they aren't given the rezoning, that's their perogitive. More power to them.
Actually, the county upped their offer to $38,200 per acre for a total of $19.1 million for the 500 acres at Doughoregan Manor.
Anon 10:52 - I agree 100%. Maybe at that time the county can use eminent domain and buy the majority of the lots and create a real park. ;-)
Why not just put a bunch of MD National Guard soldiers into red-coated uniforms and march them onto the estate to take control?
My advice to the Carrolls is "start with the officers, and work your way down."
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