HOLLYWOOD, Md.—A public hearing concerning a controversial development just inside the Hollywood Town Center has been rescheduled again, said Planning Commission Chair Howard Thompson, this time to March 14.
The hearing, originally continued from Dec. 14, was set to regroup Jan. 25 but was cancelled due to the blizzard.
“It’s the first meeting time open that we have available,” Thompson told The County Times, Wednesday.
The plan, called the Hollywood Commercial Center, would sit at the north bound corner of the intersection of Route 235 and Sotterley Road and would eventually include a CVS Pharmacy, a commercial site that could be large gas station and another retail element, according to planners.
The project, to be built out over three phases, would be located on an old farm plot and is expected to generate almost 13,000 vehicle trips a day.
The plan calls for entrances at Route 235, Route 245 and Old Three Notch Road which runs roughly parallel to Route 235. Thompson said the developer’s request to have direct access onto Route 235 was still an issue.
“I’m still very concerned about that,” Thompson said.
The entire cluster of close-knit intersections had become worrisome, he said, since traffic safety was problematic there already and car crashes frequent.
Another portion of the project, which planning officials have intimated would come only at the later phases of construction would be some kind of car dealership adjacent to the property, but under different ownership.
Planning commission members have expressed concerns that estimates of increased traffic may not have included the trips generated by an automobile dealership.
“We’ve seen it, we know it’s coming,” Thompson said. “We need to plan for it.”
Thompson said that the developers would have an opportunity to present a traffic study they had recently submitted to the planning commission on Jan. 15 about how their development would impact the intersections there.
“It’s not going to be an easy case,” Thompson said.