Odenton residents feel their rural community is getting squeezed by controversial expansion

BALTIMORE - Residents in a rural Anne Arundel County community are worried about overcrowding and overdevelopment as a developer is moving forward with the controversial expansion of the Two Rivers community.

Concerned residents met with the developer during a tense community meeting on Wednesday evening.

Jim Holman, whose family property is along Meyers Station Road in Odenton, feels his quiet rural lifestyle is slipping away with each acre and farmland replaced by luxury homes.

"We very well could be the last generation to live down here," Holman told WJZ.

Holman's property backs up to a master-planned community of a little more than 2,000 homes, called Two Rivers, built within the last decade.

Two Rivers has plans to expand, leaving residents feeling the squeeze.

"Along the right side over here, this is where they want to put the 377 additional houses," Holman said.

Roughly 100 residents from Two Rivers and the surrounding area voiced their concerns to the developer, Classic Group LLC.

"Emergency vehicles can't get through, school buses are clogging," one resident said.

Traffic is a big concern with only one road in and out of the community.

"It's a dangerous situation," a resident said. "What are the plans to build a second entrance, and exit onto Route 3?"

"There are none," Classic Group Senior Land Development Manager Dover Hankins responded.

Hankins tried to quell concerns about overcrowding by promising a new community center to accommodate the additional households.

He said questions about sufficient space in nearby schools and emergency services will be hashed out through the county's adequate public facilities process.

However, residents have a bigger concern.

"Besides this piece here, what's your next plan that's coming?" asked Mary Ann Hinchey.

Residents had a signed agreement with the developer that Two Rivers would only have 2,060 homes, but with the newly planned expansion, there will be more than 2,400.

Hankins told residents the developer reserved the right to amend that agreement and said "things have changed."

"These communities expand over time," Hankins said. "What you're also not referring to is that your master declaration and the covenant are both amendable documents."

This expansion is still in the very early stages of development.