Following sharp objections from volunteer cemetery caretakers, Howard County’s planning board voted Thursday night to reject gas pumps and a Sheetz convenience store on the historic Rosa Bonheur pet cemetery in Elkridge.

The board’s denial, though an advisory opinion, presents a setback in developer Mark Levy’s proposal to build on the final resting place for some famous Maryland pets. The grounds are believed to hold about 100 people, too.

“They heard us. They actually heard us,” said Candy Warden, president of the Rosa Bonheur Society Inc.

She was joined at the hearing by Russell Allen, who told the board of his surprise and anger to visit the cemetery one day and find the graves of his grandparents, Ernest and Annie Bowen, dug up.

His words appeared to resonate with planning board members.

“There has to be reconciliation with what’s been done already before we even start to talk about what happens next,” said James Cecil, the vice chair. “There’s nobody here in support. Nobody from Elkridge came to support this.”

The little cemetery off U.S. Route 1 in Howard County holds the remains of Baltimore’s first elephant, Mary Ann; the celebrity horse Gypsy Queen; and the Word War II hero Doberman pinscher, Rex. The seven-acre cemetery was once billed as the only place in the world that let owners be buried beside their pets.

In addition to the Sheetz — it would be the first in Howard County — Levy wants to put a car wash and 51 parking spaces along the front of the cemetery.

His plan would develop about three acres, but leave the rest to be preserved as the memorial park. He proposes building a mausoleum to reinter any graves disturbed by the construction.

Levy did not attend the meeting.

The Rosa Bonheur volunteers believe Levy controls a company called Memorial LLC, which bought the cemetery for $100,000 in 2016. His companies own land on both sides of the cemetery.

A deed shows Memorial LLC transferred a strip of land from the cemetery to one of his companies for $0. Levy has not publicly acknowledged ownership of the cemetery and not responded to messages about it.

His attorney, Chris DeCarlo, pitched the gas station development as a conscientious balance between the peaceful burial grounds and the busy commercial stretch of U.S. Route 1.

“I don’t think anybody wants to develop the entirety of the memorial park,” he told the board.

With their vote, the planners recommend against a zoning change to allow for the development. Now, Levy’s proposal heads to the county zoning board with the planning board’s recommendation for denial.

The cemetery traces to 1935, when Edward Gross, a court clerk in Baltimore, was bereft over the death of his dog. Without a suitable burial site, he interred his loyal companion in a cemetery for people. The experience inspired him to open Rosa Bonheur Memorial Park, named for the renown 19th-century French painter of animals.

Among the cemetery’s celebrated dead is Pete the pigeon, who drank coffee at the breakfast table and became a Depression-era celebrity in South Baltimore. The late Gov. William Donald Schaefer laid to rest his lab Willie II at Rosa Bonheur. It’s also where the old Baltimore Bullets buried the team dachshund, Alex.

William Green took over the cemetery in the late 1970s and marketed Rosa Bonheur as the only place in the world where people and their pets could be buried in adjoining plots. Whether true or not, the cemetery’s fame exploded. By 1985, The Baltimore Sun wrote, the grounds held 100 people and 8,000 pets, with one plot reserved for a lion.

In the years since, the cemetery records were lost. Legal trouble, mismanagement and scandal clouded the cemetery before it closed to burials about 20 years ago. That’s when pet lovers formed the Rosa Bonheur Society Inc. to watch over the forgotten grounds.

In late 2023, the volunteers found the grounds disturbed. Allen hurried over and saw someone had dug up the graves of his grandparents. He found their headstones moved to the back of the cemetery. It’s presumed their bodies were reburied there, too.

Maryland law generally requires permission from a state’s attorney to dig up a grave and only for a limited number of reasons, including reburial. The Howard County State’s Attorney’s Office approved the disinterments in August 2023.

Still, no one notified the Rosa Bonheur Society Inc.

“Obviously, I oppose this as much as you can oppose it,” Allen told the board.