Developer plans 4,300 homes 100 miles from D.C.

To what lengths will they go? How far are people willing to drive for the privilege of working in the metropolitan area while living in more affordable housing in a more rustic setting?

A hundred miles, one developer is betting.

Drive about 100 miles from the District and you could wind up south of Cambridge on the Eastern Shore, or north of York, Pa., or on Town Hill in picturesque Allegany County, what boosters call "the Mountain-Side of Maryland."

So Michael Carnock, principal of PDC Inc. of Columbia, has taken an option to pay $3 million for 935 acres of forested mountain valley land in eastern Allegany County that is two hours and many mountain ridges removed from Washington. He is negotiating to buy 400 acres more to complete the project.

The proposal has been highly controversial in Allegany County, filling the letters columns in the local newspaper and generating 78 exhibits and 25 hours of testimony over seven nights this summer before a county zoning panel.

The location, Carnock said, is about 50 miles from Hagerstown, 70 miles from Frederick and about 90 miles from Gaithersburg and the high-paying, high-employment Interstate 270 corridor. In Carnock's view, it's a no-brainer.

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