(Kids outside a rally against Keswick’s proposed eldercare facility in Roiland Park last summer)

After seemingly endless rounds of battle with community activists in Roland Park, Keswick Multi-Care Center has withdrawn its bid to build an eldercare facility on 17 acres it had agreed to buy from the Baltimore Country Club.

The move came after Keswick CEO Libby Bowerman (previously interviewed on the issue by Eyes on the Street) became convinced that the rezoning legislation required for the project to move forward, called a Planned Unit Development or P.U.D., would not be introduced. City Council members and the mayor had agreed not to introduce the bill, thanks largely to the efforts of the Roland Park Civic League and its president, Philip Spevak (also interviewed in Eyes on the Street).

“Of course the neighborhood opposition to the project has been a piece of that,” Bowerman said, explaining Keswick’s decision. “Some City Council reps came out very early in the discussion that they would support the neighborhood position, whatever that would be… We will not be moving forward on the project all.”