FLOG - the Friends of White Flint Blog

Two additional presentations by community associations. Ed Rich, from Old Farm Community Association, and Ken Hurdle (Secretary of the Board for Friends of White Flint) from Luxmanor Civic Association. Rich: street network. Supports elliptical method because it better defines walking patterns. But heights must be stepped down toward neighborhoods. Important with large tracts of land where developers try to average across their property rather than observing the step-down requirements. Infrastructure must be developed before density put in. Density must balance amenities. Use a mode split model. Development community must work together in a coordinated fashion. Need urban rather than suburban model.

Ken Hurdle: are we being told the truth? I’ve been reading. I’m looking for failures. Where has it not worked? I don’t find any. I find that if a plan isn’t adopted and implemented properly, pieces fail; the plan doesn’t fail. Robinson: Tyson’s plan had nice vision, but didn’t do anything on implementation, so there’s skepticism about whether it will work.

Alfandre: expand the plan to the transformation of the subject community. Looked through the 2006 plans and we have generally captured the vision. I don’t think we’re far off from where we started brainstorming to where our staff got us now. A few more things to do. Look at them all together.

Live blogging from April 13, 2009, meeting of the Montgomery County Planning Board worksession, hearing from community groups about reactions to developers’ proposals.

Paula Bienenfeld, Luxmanor Citizens Associations, with Steve Dryden from Friends of Rock Creek. Went back two years to first principles. Advisory Group meetings and proposals. Something really exciting and different. Luxmanor Jitney. Red Line problems will worsen as you add 30,000 people, and 30% take transit. Cmsnr Cryor: this problem will always be with us. Too many governments. Putting all of our eggs in that basket. But when it gets bad, it will get better because there’s nothing else. Only game in town. Can’t keep driving cars. Need organizations to come forward and say we need it improved and a stable funding mechanism for it. Bienenfeld: New York City subway is over a 100 years old, and it still works. We need something in the Plan that says Metro is going to step up. Even if it’s just the vision. Cryor: no one is afraid to ride the Metro. We don’t have the safety problem. Presley: can we put something in the plan to time build-out to provision of levels of services. Robinson/Hanson: staging. Presley: how measure and monitor. Hanson: whole set of moving parts. Transit. Roads. Parking. Changes in human behavior. Gas prices. Might not need transit improvements if other things work, but might need some smaller changes. Alfandre: aren’t we adding BRT? Hanson: now says better bus service on Pike. Alfandre: other problem is east-west. We’ll get in trouble if we only rely on the Red Line. I don’t know how to get people from the neighborhoods.

Bienenfeld. Streets need to be publicly owned. First Amendment rights have to be protected. Green spaces must be publicly owned. Citizens must step up. Public art must be a part of any project. Must be in the Plan. Alfandre: bring in artists and benefactors. Art space in Sector. Hanson: amenities provision. Galleries in Bethesda. Cryor: arts district tax breaks. Long discussion of arts in development planning. Alfandre: important provision in Plan. Bienenfeld: reach out to artists to help with a section in Plan.

Neighborhood involvement: want to be sure that there’s some feedback method. And get some comments back. Hanson: not a practical way to get the work done. Robinson: a major failing that we don’t make strategic decisions clearly early in the process. Bienenfeld: we’re residential landowners, and should be on an equal footing with commercial landowners.

Must have library, not overcrowded schools. policie, fire, emergency medical; variety of parks. Addition to Luxmanor School. Must address a new school so the first few hundred new kids don’t have to be pressed into our schools. Build-out staging will squeeze our schools. School pulls together a community. Cryor: what kind of library? What does it do for the community? Bienenfeld: meeting place. Hanson: possible to have specialized smaller school in Sector. Don’t have amount of playgrounds, but could move, for example, the international school element in Rocking Horse into the Sector.

Bienenfeld: restorative practices for watershed. BRAC report shows high level of development and lack of stormwater controls have led to unmitigated flows that have damaged Rock Creek. Want a section in Plan on restoration and repair of Rock Creek and the watershed.

Our concerns: Wall Park, neighborhood access to transit, heights, density, and partnerships between government and neighborhoods. Hanson: Plan enhances the Montgomery Aquatic Center. Bienenfeld: concern is not working with the community. Hanson: that’s done in the park facilities plan. All we do in the Master Plan is to say, here’s the park. Bienenfeld: Wall Park is poorly maintained and needs attention. Transit needs better signage. Vertical sprawl is tall buildings that are not sustainable by the infrastructure.

Steve Dryden, Friends of Rock Creek. Prior comments about not reaching environmental goals was discouraging. Managing stormwater study from Pennsylvania looked at Bethesda and Calverton sites. Applied new techniques and found that opportunities to provide better stormwater management were available at each site at prices comparable to conventional techniques. Effectiveness was better and prices was comparable. Robinson: current area has no stormwater management, and new state law requires that we reduce run-off by 20% within five years. We’re going to have to change things. Hanson: right now pervious pavement is not counted, but this isn’t something we can resolve in the Master Plan. Dryden: can’t restore Rock Creek in this plan, but making sure that this won’t continue the degradation downstream.

The next meeting of the Planning Board on the White Flint Sector Plan will be April 23, 2009, at the headquarters in Silver Spring. The topics will include public facilities, including schools, land use, and environmental sustainability.

Live blogging from April 13, 2009 meeting of the Montgomery County Planning Board. Topic for the evening is reactions by community organizations to proposals for development projects in the new White Flint. Meeting is live streamed at www.montgomeryplanningboard.org.

Dan Hoffman from Randolph Hills Civic Association. We are unique on its impact on the Sector. We represent the largest collection of workforce housing. Over 5,000 residents. Police officers, teachers and civil servants. Most of our residents are within walking distance of the core. White Flint is our principal commercial destination. Aging neighborhood, built in the 60’s. We need fewer abandoned homes. We just got rid of a large encampment of homeless. We just got a community center, but lost our rec center. More renters and turnover. We’re relatively affordable. We’re much more diverse. Many of the original owners have retired or moved on, so we have a lot of families. With young kids. Natural boundary in the railroad tracks, so we only have a few ways to get across. Cmsnr Cryor: foreclosures. Were they recently purchased or long-term owners whose lives changed? Hoffman: if original owners already owned it, so most are people who bought the homes.

Hoffman: Civic association formed in early 60s. Alfandre: how does it work? If younger families; we’re planning for them. How did you get involved? Hoffman: I volunteered. Our neighborhood is at a hinge point; we could go one way or another. We have an excellent location for a school. Already a demonstrated need. Robinson: offers the potential for a real solution.

Hoffman: MARC stop. We prefer the southern location. Practical, environmentally sound and realistic. Offers the possibility of an additional walking access over the tracks. One of our concerns is losing the Garrett Park stop. There’s no handicap access at existing station; we have to walk through Garrett Park to get there. This would be much more feasible for our residents.

RCA supports Sector Plan because of improved roads and connections to community. Need more emphasis on water and stream quality because of our proximity to Rock Creek Park. We want works, not what we currently have. Neighbor to White Flint in the next ten years; the Plan will have a significant impact, positive or negative, in the next ten years. A thriving Randolph Hills can contribute to a thriving White Flint. 

Alfandre: catalyst. We’ve been looking at these dazzling commercial projects that ultimately going to not just become separate entities, but going to fail if don’t help to create this catalyst. Includes your neighborhood. This will generate authentic identity in this Sector Plan. Enhances value. Quality of life improves for you as well.

Cryor: residents have employment in present White Flint? Hoffman: absolutely. NRC major source of employment as are retail establishments. Secondary jobs at one of the businesses within the sector. We have significant number of homes where at least one person travels downtown for work, so we need transit. Cryor: favor school. Area for children to go out and play.

John Fry (Board member of Friends of White Flint), President of Fallstone Homeowners Association. We support the plan. No one opposed.

Mary Ward, Crest of Wickford Condominium Association. We support what Glen Adler said earlier. We want lower density. The developers are asking for greater density than what was approved in Bethesda, even though that was a viable development. Make sure Smart Core works. We need traffic data for more than rush hour, but also during weekends. “Complete the Street.” Improve the streets, with bike lanes, parking, trees, make streets available of all. Hanson: would proposed reconstruction of Rockville Pike make things better? Ward: adding some, but not whole sector. Air quality on Pike. More of a concern is access to the Sector; more roads are on private property. Hanson: we’ll have more influence on those than working with public agencies that build roads. Hanson: we’re expecting Gen’l Assembly gives Cmsn a seat on the board for state highways and bike ways. Gives us a voice in process. We’ll use that to encourage more bike systems on state highways. Woodglen extension of Trolley Trail will be put on sidewalk, but you need additional capacity for bike commuters. Rockville is doing the “complete streets” as presented on April 1, 2009. Plan calls for 100 ft building right next to our community. We object to that height on both sides of the Pike. Unlike other community organizations you heard from before, we don’t have a green buffer between our homes and the redevelopable areas. In addition, there’s a traffic bottleneck at Strathmore and the Pike. Storm water management needs to be improved. Hanson: we can do some things. But getting streams back to good results is extremely difficult. Trolley Trail is a joke; it disappears, goes on streets, isn’t well maintained, but it could be wonderful. But it’s not wonderful now.

Presley: do you have an option to take a bus? Ward: yes. Across the Pike. Presley: not very accessible. Ward: I do bike to work when the weather is nicer.

Alfandre: an inadvertant obsession with the core may preclude completing the streets. Density in one area may mean that completing the streets is blocked. We are completing the streets; that’s our primary change. What you showed? That is density. We’re undertaking a historic thing here. Coinciding with the future economic growth of our country. Architecture turned into commodities. Consumer economy. That economy is now ending. Will still drive things, but what we’re seeing is that we’re moving into the experience economy. New engine. Will capture new creativity, new cohort of people which we can cluster into places like White Flint. A sustainable engine of growth in good times and bad. Rockville Town Center is the last of the commodities we’ll see. New enhancement of the area. Enhance the quality of the sector, enhances the value of the Sector. Core not just about density. If we can do this Plan correctly, it will be effective for this next era.

Presley: heights currently shown. Piera Weiss: anywhere from 36-100′, but we want to be sure that height next to existing is lower. Presley: be sure it steps down. Weiss: no direct correlation between FAR and building height. It’s the kind of building and how you want to build it that determines it.

Live video streaming is available at www.montgomerycountyplanning.org. Topic for this evening is community associations’ reactions to developers’ proposals for projects under the new White Flint Sector Plan.

 Chairman Hanson: in about two worksessions from now, we begin making decisions.

Garrett Park Estates/White Flint Park (continued from prior session): Natalie Goldberg, Suzanne Hudson (co-chair for Residents and Community Associations for Friends of White Flint), and Glenn Adler, president of the association). Letter announcing the establishment of the White Flint Community Coalition, consisting of Luxmanor, Garrett Park Estates, and Crest of Wickford Homeowners Associations. Will present a “clear community view” of the issues.

Hanson: we are going to move into a decision mode. Begin asking not only what the problem is but what you want us to do about it.

Adler: continuing with “compatibility with existing communities.” Review of area southeast of White Flint Mall. This is the point of contention. Hanson: why? Adler: settlement provided transition site. Hanson: what would you prefer? Adler: see transition arrangements not be diluted. Hanson: what characteristics of transition you want to keep? Height, use, operational characteristics? Goldberg: parking lot. Hanson: matter of right in zoning. Easement? Goldberg: agreement. Hanson: think carefully about whether you get what you’re wishing for. Cmsnr Robinson: distinguishing between east and west sides? Goldberg: yes. This view is from a traffic proposal from White Flint Mall. Adler: we don’t think the buildings at the edge of the zone don’t conform to CT zone.

Cmsnr Alfandre: what was the evolution of this plan? Goldberg: we weren’t that involved in the evolution. There was some negotiation about letting the Mall build in this CT zone. Couple of years ago, they were talking about townhouses here and some of the plans showed a green buffer up Rockville Pike. Planner Nkosi Yearwood: just some proposals. Concepts. Alfandre: has the design evolution to today been significant. Prevailing reasons. Fixed in stone? Staffer Piera Weiss: we tried to address each point in the record.

Adler: We want parking lots to become parts of green buffer. Proposed school site: Special exception parking lot with water run-off problems, poor maintenance, with houses below. Hanson: initial thought about CT zone was to buffer existing neighborhoods by keeping existing buildings which were converted to another use in their existing forms. So what you have is a zone which allows 35 feet of height and 30 percent lot coverage.

Alfandre: where was the flooding? Adler: White Flint Drive. Right at the base of White Flint Drive; no drains. Point of contention is that the drain is not cleaned. Alfandre: could have been standards at the time that were inadequate, so probably a combination of factors, but no excuse for not cleaning out or not responding to neighbors. Another flood area, which haven’t shown in photos before. Two additional sites by Combined Properties, including one with abandoned shopping carts, trash and other things. Alfandre: there are solutions, but no excuses for flooding because it isn’t maintained, but there is new technology since those days. Cmsnr Presley: fixed? Adler: Combined site, no. I was standing up to my neck yesterday. Trash heap. But at the storm drain, it is better, but there is still more nearby.

Adler: Under Sector Plan, allowed to build 100 ft building just above Crest of Wickford. We think there should be some change in those. Goldberg: we want a “smart core.” We want to see it implemented. Want a landmark destination. Be must be walkable so it will help with traffic. We think density and height must step down rapidly from the core. We don’t see that the infrastructure will support the density proposed.

Alfandre: are you open to alternatives of buffer? Including parks and other ideas that nobody has yet thought about. Goldberg: our main concern is the intrusiveness, people looking down on our back yards. We’re open to suggestions. Compact envelope revised to reflect walkable distances. “Trust but verify” We are very concerned about CR Zone. We want to see amenities in the Sector Plan itself. We are concerned with all the unknowns. We want the plan to include mandatory language, rather than saying “should do” something. We want to know what will happen. Alfandre: we need to remember this. Requiring rigorous proof that leaves room for collaboration.

Live blogging from the April 13 meeting of the Montgomery County Planning Board. The Planning Board does much of its work on the White Flint Sector Plan in “worksessions” focussed on a topic. This meeting is a worksession continuing the same topic as the prior two meetings: presentations and reactions to specific developers’ proposals for projects they would like to build in the new White Flint. The prior two worksessions have included presentations by developers; community organizations are now describing their reactions to the proposals. Five presentations are scheduled for tonight’s meeting: Garrett Park Estates/White Flint Park (which began its presentation at the last worksession), Luxmanor Civic Association, Randolph Hills, Fallstone, and Crest of Wickford community associations.

The meeting is being streamed live at www.montgomerycountyplanning.org.

Barnaby Zall