The future of a high-rise condominium planned for Town Center remains unclear in the wake of a July 23 court ruling that allows a Columbia resident to legally challenge the building's construction.

A three-judge panel from Maryland's Court of Special Appeals last week unanimously voted to overturn a Howard County Circuit Court decision from a year ago stating that Columbia resident Joel Broida lacked the legal standing to challenge the 22-story Plaza Residences project planned for Wincopin Circle.

The decision reverses a series of defeats in lower courts for Broida and three other opponents of the Plaza, who in 2006 mounted a legal challenge to its construction.

The ruling is not complete until the Court of Special Appeals issues a final mandate, scheduled for Aug. 22, directing lower courts in how to proceed according to the ruling, said Paul Johnson, deputy county solicitor in the Howard County Office of Law.

The Plaza's developer, WCI Communities Inc., would have 15 days after the mandate to appeal the case to Maryland's highest court, the Court of Appeals, Johnson said.

If WCI does not appeal the July 23 ruling, the case would head back to Howard County Circuit Court, which would in turn send it back to the Howard County Board of Appeals for a hearing, Johnson said.

This week, Margaret Hackbarth, an attorney at WCI, refused to comment on the matter.

Broida speculated that the July 23 ruling might dissuade WCI officials from fighting his challenge further.

"In light of what's happened, I think the steam is out of it, but I don't know," he said.

WCI officials already have halted construction of the Plaza pending the resolution of the court case.

Two-year process

Broida's challenge to the project began shortly after the Howard County Planning Board approved construction of the Plaza in January 2006.

In February 2006, Broida and Howard County residents Stephen Meskin, Joann Stolley and Lloyd Knowles appealed the ruling to Howard County Hearing Examiner Thomas Carbo, alleging that the Planning Board approved the Plaza after improperly changing the property's zoning in 2002 to allow for residential development.

The plaintiffs argued that such a change must be approved by the County Council.

Attorneys for WCI argued that the plaintiffs lacked the legal standing to challenge the project because its construction would not "specially aggrieve" them more than other county residents.

The plaintiffs countered that their very status as county residents gave them the standing necessary to challenge the high-rise.

In June 2006, Carbo ruled that the plaintiffs lacked standing. The plaintiffs appealed that ruling to the Board of Appeals.

In January 2007, the Board of Appeals ruled that Meskin, Knowles and Stolley lacked the standing to challenge the Plaza, but deadlocked 2-2 on whether Broida, who lives across the street from the project site, lacked standing.

At the time, the five-member board had only four members because one had resigned due to illness.

WCI appealed the matter to the Circuit Court, claiming that a reconstituted five-member board did not need to take another vote to unlock its 2-2 decision because the original vote meant that Broida had failed to receive the majority of the board's votes in his favor, and therefore lacked standing.

The plaintiff's lawyer, Alexander Adams, argued that the 2-2 vote meant that WCI had failed to prove that Broida lacked standing.

In July 2007, Circuit Court Judge Diane Leasure ruled that the 2-2 vote meant Broida failed to win enough votes supporting his contention of standing.

The plaintiffs then appealed that decision to the Court of Special Appeals.

In its decision last week, appeals court judges Mary Ellen Barbera, Patrick Woodward and James Kenney ruled that Broida, as a neighbor of the Plaza project, possessed the proper legal standing to challenge it and that he did not need to prove his standing.

The decision provides Broida with a new hearing at the Board of Appeals in which he can argue his original claim that the Planning Board approved the Plaza under illegal zoning, Adams said.

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