After getting approval from the College Park City Council to waive a 30-day appeal period, the developer of a planned student housing project said he anticipates no additional hurdles in getting 903 student beds onto Route 1 by the start of the fall 2010 semester.

The council had been gearing up to fight with – or at least punish – an attorney for developer Mark Vogel at Tuesday night’s council meeting after the attorney didn’t emphasize his support for the city’s position on the Varsity at College Park project at a county planning hearing.

Mayor Stephen Brayman’s scheme would have tricked the attorney, Matt Tedesco, into waiting through hours of council debate on such items as homestead tax credits and county transportation plans.

Brayman had asked the council last week to move most of its agenda to the “consent agenda,” where items could be voted on in a group without discussion barring council objection.

“Tell him he’s first on the agenda,” Brayman said last week.

Then, Brayman explained, District 2 Councilman Jack Perry – who has traditionally favored thorough discussions – would oppose placing the items on consent, and ask to talk about them all, moving the Varsity item to the very end of the meeting. Council meetings begin at 8 p.m. and can go well past midnight.

But two absences foiled this plan, as neither Perry nor Tedesco appeared at Tuesday’s meeting, leaving Vogel by himself to wait through only two relatively short presentations.

“I’m disappointed that you are here tonight, because I wasn’t planning to direct this anger at you,” Brayman told Vogel.

The dispute arose about a seemingly minor topic: whether the building’s parking garage should have narrower parking spaces to accommodate an extra 10 to 12 cars.

The city wanted the extra parking spaces, and council members said that even after Tedesco agreed to that condition at a council meeting, he went back on his word when he came before the planning board.

Vogel told the council he had no objection to narrower parking spaces as long as it didn’t delay the project. Tedesco did not return calls or e-mails seeking comment yesterday.

With the council giving Vogel its consent to start the Varsity project 30 days earlier rather than waiting for an appeal, he should be able to break ground next to the University View early this spring, he said.

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