News-Info-Alerts

Re: Time Marches On - Former POW Camp Rezoned

From: POW-MIA InterNetwork

Date: June 27, 2003

"Commissioners OK rezonings

By Liz Holland Somerset Herald

PRINCESS ANNE -- The rezonings of a former dog food plant on UMES Boulevard as well as a migrant labor camp in Westover were approved last week by the Somerset County Commissioners.

The approval to change the 10-acre UMES Boulevard site from Light Industrial to Commercial 1 paves the way for owner Roger Sansom of Salisbury who plans to build both residential and commercial structures, in what he defined as a "country corporate center."

Sansom's request is the latest of several in the Princess Anne area. On an adjacent parcel along UMES Boulevard, Eric Davis already has won approval to build 25 town houses for the first of a two-phase development called Talon's Square.

A sprawling 252-unit Arden's Run apartment complex also recently won approval from the town.

At the labor camp off Route 13 in Westover, the owners, Somerset Growers, had requested a change from Commercial 2 to Agricultural.

Somerset Growers planned to expand and make improvements to the 36-acre camp, but found out it was not possible in a commercial zone, company employee Dennett Butler said at a recent public hearing.

The camp is surrounded by farmland on three sides, and has not changed its function in years, Butler said.

The camp was originally built to house Civilian Conservation Corps workers during the Great Depression, and was later used as a German prisoner of war camp during World War II.

Since the war, it has been operated by local farmers to house migrant farm workers.

Both rezoning requests received recommendations from the county's Planning Commission.

Reach Liz Holland at 410-651-1600 or herald@intercom.net.

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