Fight Continues at Mt. Misery

By Cheryl Costello

There is a controversy underway over a steep piece of property in the Round Bay community of Severna Park, just down the Severn River from Annapolis. A developer has proposed building two homes on the spot that was home to Mt. Misery: a strategic Civil War lookout with views of both the Severn and the Magothy.

Advocacy groups from both rivers are fighting for the historical site to be left undisturbed. They say it’s a bad idea for the environment as well as a piece of history.

“Welcome to Fort Gray on the top of Mt. Misery, where 250 Union troops were stationed during the early days of the Civil War,” says Magothy River Association (MRA) President Paul Spadaro, standing on a steep hill in Round Bay, a waterfront community near the top of the Broadneck peninsula.

More than 160 years after Union and Confederate troops fought, there is a fight between the Magothy and Severn river associations, homeowners and other community groups, and the developer who is asking the county for leeway to build on the steep property.

Resident Danielle Dupcak turned to MRA when she says she got curious, frustrated and confused after watching numerous real estate agents show off the property next door to her home on Old County Road.

The Magothy River Association and county land officers quote archival sources that point to the Civil War history there. “Troops probably camped and lived across the entire area, including areas downslope toward the Severn River,” says Lori Rhodes, Deputy Chief Administrative Officer for Land Use in Anne Arundel County.

Dupcak and MRA say a plaque should go up there to honor the troops, not new home construction.

“I’m not opposed to someone building a home or trying to make a living, but I’m opposed to an irresponsible, reckless building plan,” Dupcak says.

“This is a case here where the county needs to enforce their own laws,” adds MRA member Bob Royer.

They refer to the county’s critical area law, which according to Rhodes should protect slopes with a 15 percent or steeper grade from being disturbed. But sometimes exceptions are made. Parts of this property are much steeper.

“The area where the proposed disturbance would be located for the shared driveway and a portion of the dwelling is between 25 and 30 percent,” says Rhodes.

An administrative hearing officer approved what’s known as a variance for Sikora Development to have an exception to the law, to disturb the hill enough to build a driveway.

Royer says silt will end up in the water if final approval is given to grade the land down enough to allow a car to get up the hill. “There are fine clay particles that get into the waterways and create cloudiness in the water,” Royer explains. “Once you have that turbidity, it’s very difficult for sunlight to penetrate to the bottom of the river. Once that happens, you can’t get subaquatic vegetation to grow.” Without that vegetation, oxygen levels in the water drop, affecting all levels of the river’s ecological balance.

One side of the property faces the Magothy River. The other side faces that Severn River, where the hill is steeper with a 50 percent grade, where Royer says trees would have to be removed. “A large mature white oak will take up as much as 40,000 gallons [of stormwater] per year. And once that is lost, that’s going to create a tremendous amount that’s going to be going down this very steep slope.”

“It is reckless,” Spadaro adds. “It is giving this person a buy to bypass strict, strict environmental rules against steep slopes.”

Rhodes says a grading permit would still have to be approved. “They’re going to have to follow all of the laws in the county that require mitigation and all of the things that would prevent any damage to abutting properties.”

The county also has an environmental policy director to stay on top of stormwater management. Spadaro painstakingly built a scale model out of heavy cardboard to show how steep and narrow the area is. And drone video will be included in a documentary MRA is producing on the subject.

The river association compares how high the hillside is (154 feet above the Severn River) to the Statue of Liberty (151 feet tall).

Sikora Development, who had not returned Bay Bulletin’s calls or emails at press time, withdrew plans for one of the two homes, but is still looking to build a three-story home on one plot of land.

“The whole purpose of this fort was the view between the Magothy and the Severn. And you would lose this,” Spadaro says.