Developer Plans Townhome Community On Golf Center Property. What’s Next?

Two possibilities are on the table to turn the Severna Park Golf Center property in Arnold into a townhome or single-family community.

Developer D.R. Horton has drafted plans for a townhome community of 130-135 units on 19.2 acres of land. D.R. Horton originally wanted to build 74 single-family detached homes, but its team pivoted after the Anne Arundel County Council passed the Housing Attainability Act (HAA) in 2024. That legislation requires new residential developments to offer a percentage of moderately priced dwelling units, or MPDUs, at an “affordable” rate based on income. In return, the developer can increase the density, or number of units per unit of land, to offset the anticipated revenue loss for lowering the price on those units.

The Anne Arundel County Office of Planning and Zoning — not the Anne Arundel County Council — is set to review the townhome plan in the coming months. District 5 Councilwoman Amanda Fiedler is not waiting on that decision.

Fiedler has introduced Bill 5-26 to place a temporary moratorium on the approval of any development with MPDUs and any bonus density within a five-mile radius of the intersection of Ritchie Highway and College Parkway.

“I’m the third generation of my family to live here,” Fiedler said. “I want my grandkids to grow up here. It’s a wonderful place, but it is incredibly expensive. But I also know that we can’t just plop down this amount of units anywhere to get affordable housing units in the county.”

Her bill is scheduled for a public hearing on February 2, but Severna Park and Arnold residents have already expressed their concerns. Before developers submit their initial sketch plans to the county for review, they are required to hold a community meeting. Representatives from D.R. Horton and a civil engineering and architecture firm, Morris & Ritchie Associates, spoke about the project in December at the Severna Park Library.

Frustrated attendees cited issues with traffic, the environment and school overcrowding. If the new development is built, the community’s students will attend Arnold Elementary, Severn River Middle School and Broadneck High School.

“It just doesn’t show good faith as a partner when we just redistricted Belvedere to Arnold (elementary school) and moved a bunch of families there, making that school at 98% capacity,” said Dana Schallheim, who represents District 5 on the Board of Education of Anne Arundel County. “I’m pretty sure those folks in this room agree with me wholeheartedly that it is unacceptable in terms of lack of communication.”

Arnold resident Lauren Ebersberger noted problems with traffic and infrastructure, and she also offered her perspective as a mom of two boys and as an Anne Arundel County Public Schools teacher.

“The schools are overcrowded,” she said. “Walk the hallways. Stand in the lunch line. Come do a lab with 35 middle-schoolers in a small classroom. Join a 38-student Spanish class. I hope you find a desk. Take a gym class with 39 other eight-graders.

“The reality is our classrooms are overcrowded,” she said. “It’s not fair to students. It’s not fair to teachers. This is the most students that I’ve had in my 22 years of teaching.”

Having spent nearly 10 years as a plan reviewer for the City of Annapolis, Matt Waters focused on the environmental impact.

“I have dealt with developments like this, and I have dealt with the community being upset about them,” he said. “Going from 74 units to 135, that’s doubling your site. You could work with the regulations to make smaller lot sizes or smaller units within that footprint. It’s just way too dense.”

Two people spoke in favor of the development. An unidentified housing policy lobbyist said he thought many people in the room had valid concerns about traffic and the environment but “it seems they’re also very much underestimating how severe the housing shortage in Anne Arundel County is, particularly with this type of housing, this size of housing.”

“There is a lot of hostility in the room,” he said. “That’s not going to solve our housing crisis. It’s not going to solve our traffic problem. It’s not going to solve our environmental problems. It’s not going to solve our infrastructure.”

Other residents questioned who would benefit from the housing. Woodfield Village resident Ken Sabel asked how many teachers and firefighters can afford the affordable rate – currently estimated at a $374,000 price tag.

“How many entry-level teachers and entry-level police officers, people that we desperately need in our community, how many of those will be able to afford one of these ‘affordable housing’ units?” he said, posing the question to the crowd. “So, affordable to who? Affordable is a very relative term.”

D.R. Horton expects to submit a sketch plan to the county for review within the next few months. Next, more detailed engineering plans will follow. The development team is required to hold a second community meeting after submitting a final plan. A grading permit application rounds out the process. In total, the process can take two to three years if the development is approved.

That hinges on the outcome of Fiedler’s proposed Bill 5-26. Anyone can submit written testimony for or against the legislation, or they can attend in person on February 2 at 7:00pm in the council chambers at 44 Calvert Street in Annapolis. For more information, visit www.aacounty.org/county-council/meetings and select “Meeting Participation” from the left sidebar.

“If the councilwoman is successful on whatever endeavor she had … then (it will) certainly cause (us) to relook at the design of the project, but we have to operate within that confine,” said Jeff Otenasek of D.R. Horton.