Owner pledges to clean up Fallston dumping ground

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(Kristine Buls/Examiner)
Joe Diguardo, chairman of the Fallston Community Council, left, Harford County Executive David Craig and homeowner association representative Hank Waida stand on rubble left on a lot owned by Milton Avenue LLC.

Fallston, Md. (Map, News) - At last, the mounds of rubble and trash at an entrance to a pricey Fallston subdivision will be hauled away, the owner of the dumping ground said Tuesday.

The pledge could come none too soon for Fallston Crossing residents, who have been complaining for more than two years about two 1.4-acre lots littered with concrete slabs, rusted poles, fallen electric wires and garbage.

“These people have had to live with an eyesore,” County Executive David Craig said as he stood on a mound of debris Tuesday. “The owners should clean it up.”

Craig said Tuesday morning that somebody from his office planned to contact the owner of the lots, Belcamp-based Milton Ave. LLC. “We are going to reach out to their goodwill,” Craig said.

By late Tuesday afternoon, Mike Euler, a managing member at Milton, said he had been contacted by Craig’s office. Then, Euler said, he went to see the lots and was astonished.

“I had no idea that the conditions and dumping had gotten to where it was,” Euler said. “The residents had the right to complain, and we will be going out there next week to clean it up.”

In the two years since the initial complaints came in, the county has been able to get the parcels’ owner to remove an old trailer used during the subdivision’s construction, said Tommie M. Houck, chief of zoning enforcement. But the county had no power to force clean-up of the sites, she said.

“There are no zoning regulations that will change what’s going on in that lot, and that’s a problem,” Houck said.

One of the two lots has been sold to Wendy’s, said County Councilwoman Veronica Chenowith. The other is for sale for $1.5 million, Bel Air-based RKS Realty Inc. said.

The lots had been part of the site of Fallston General Hospital, which was torn down after 30 years. Fallston Crossing was built after its demolition.

Fallston Crossing resident Rita Taylor said she’s hopeful the lots will be cleaned up.

“People have put their life’s savings to buy these houses,” Taylor said. “They just want things to be made right.”

vdickson@baltimoreexaminer.com

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