The Planning Board last week approved a development plan for a Wegmans grocery store in east Columbia.

However, company officials said they do not know when they might begin construction on the store, as union officials who represent competing grocers' employees are continuing their efforts to stop Wegmans from building on the site.

Officials at the New York-based Wegmans Food Markets Inc. announced in June that they hoped to open a 160,000-square-foot supermarket at the intersection of Snowden River Parkway and McGaw Road in early 2009.

The 4-1 Planning Board vote was the latest hurdle that Wegmans had to clear before it can begin construction. The company's next step is to submit building plans to county officials for approval.

The Planning Board decision follows a September board ruling that the site on which Wegmans hopes to build is zoned to allow a large grocery store.

The county also approved a traffic study, submitted by Wegmans, that states that construction of the store will not cause traffic problems in east Columbia as long as the store makes certain road improvements.

Challenges remain

However, both of those earlier approvals face challenges that could hold up Wegmans from beginning construction on the store.

In one case, Carvel "Buddy" Mays, the president of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 27 and an Ellicott City resident, contends that the September Planning Board decision should have been made by the Zoning Board. The appeal will be heard by the Howard County hearing examiner on Feb. 25.

Mays, whose union represents employees of Giant and Safeway stores, has also filed a challenge to the county's approval of Wegmans' traffic study. He contends the study is flawed. No hearing date has been set in that case.

Mays has said he is concerned about a non-union supermarket moving in and taking jobs from existing stores, but as a resident also is concerned about traffic.

If the hearing examiner rules that the county erred in either case, the Wegmans site development plan would go back to the Planning Board. However, those rulings would not necessarily end the case because they can be appealed to the Howard County Board of Appeals and then state courts.

"These appeals could go on, literally, for years," Deputy County Solicitor Paul Johnson told the Planning Board.

Wegmans' project manager, Stephen Leaty, said after the Planning Board's vote that company officials do not yet know if the legal challenges to the store will hold up its construction.

Concerns about traffic

In voting to approve the Wegmans plan on Jan. 31, several members of the Planning Board echoed concerns raised at a Jan. 3 hearing by Columbia residents who fear the new supermarket will clog area roads.

Under its plan, Wegmans would build new turn lanes and traffic signals at the intersections of Snowden River Parkway, McGaw Road and Stanford Boulevard to accommodate the traffic the store would generate.

The residents say they believe that more improvements are needed.

However, the company's planned traffic improvements meet the county's standards for adequate roads, which is the only standard that the Planning Board can consider when voting on such matters, board member Linda Dombrowski said.

"Our hands are tied by the existing regulations" she added.

The board delayed a vote on Wegmans request to include a 92-foot-tall clock tower on the supermarket. The tower is an architectural feature included on recent Wegmans stores, Leaty said.

Wegmans can seek that approval after it posts a notice on the proposed site for 15 days stating that it is seeking to build the tower.