Keeping It Simple?

The captioned photo is that of the Iager Farm (pronounced 'eye-ger').  The Iager Farm is located in southern Howard County, Maryland, about 3 miles west of I-95; southwest of Baltimore.  What may appear as a pristine, simplistic beautiful piece of farmland shall be no more.  This farm is subject to future development.  The owner plans to develop half of this farm's land into 176 new homes, with a pool and community center and pathways.  Earlier this year, I was assigned this farm as one of my land planning projects.  I had to determine if the owner's plan for development conformed to the standards set forth by the Howard County Zoning Board.  I took my finding before the Howard County Planning Board in June and, what me and my plan review team felt was a good land design and a relatively simple plan to review, turned out to be quite complicated.  Well, to make a very long story much shorter, let's just say that after some resistance from a group that was vehemently opposed to this plan, the Planning Board voted to unanimously approve the plan after two Planning Board public hearings.  Now, the owner can proceed through the planning process to reach the final plan stage so that the proposed residential lots (where the future houses will sit) can be officially established.