FLOG - the Friends of White Flint Blog

At today’s Montgomery County Planning Board meeting, a tentative schedule was announced by chief White Flint staffer Piera Weiss to meet the Board’s anticipated deadline of having the White Flint Plan sent to the County Council by July. Weiss suggested that on June 18, the staff would provide the Board with a “redline rewrite” of the Public Hearing draft, incorporating the changes made since January. The Board would then work on the redline version and produce the final draft by July.

In the meantime, there’s a brief pause in the hectic schedule. No official meetings are scheduled on the White Flint Plan for two weeks. The next meeting is scheduled for May 21; the topic will be the new design guidelines, with the Board going through the White Flint Sector, “district” by district. Each district is a separate area of the sector, as described in the Public Hearing Draft of the Plan.

I expect the FLOG postings to be slower during this hiatus. But beginning in late May, the pace should be rapid again, as the Board steams toward a final White Flint plan.

Barnaby Zall

Live blogging from the May 7, 2009, worksession of the Montgomery County Planning Board on the White Flint Sector Plan. Current topic is the new design guidelines.

John Carter, Chief Urban Design and Preservation Division, who has been involved with the White Flint Plan from the start three years ago, with Luis Estrada, project urban designer for White Flint, introduced the Guidelines. Hanson: this is not regulatory, just to give an idea of what is expected. Robinson: there’s a question. Some of these seem pretty prescriptive. Hanson: I don’t think we want that. The Plan will say the limits and maximum density. Carter: More detail will come as we go district-by-district through the guidelines. This is the glue that holds the vision together.

Carter: Not done yet, still being worked over. Once you finish the Plan, the design guidelines will catch up with that. We’ll bring the other agencies in so this is a county-wide agreement. Spirit this comes to you is in producing a lot of stuff. We’ll show how the districts fit together.

Estrada: describe streets, open space and buildings as they affect the public realm. Starting with the composite map results of a few weeks ago, to help us understand how to frame the guidelines. “Developer’s Composite” photo. Start with public roads, supplemented by proposed roads, in between a network of public open spaces. Promenades linking east-west and north-south, and a recreational loop. Expanded Loop from original plan to better serve all neighborhoods, especially with extensions. Adding local trails and historical sites (adds Montrose Schoolhouse). Tied to regional trails.

Estrada: 4 different walkways to four corners of the sector. Establishes character. First is Metro to Civic Green through Mid-Pike Plaza. Definition of the blocks along the corridor will be compatible, and culminating at the civic Green, the major gathering space for the sector.

Second walk: starts at Metro to Maple Ave to Metro East corner. Through North Bethesda Center, to existing developments along Citadel, to the new development.

Third walk: metro to conference center to wall Park to North Bethesda Marketplace.

Fourth walk is along the Pike to White Flint Mall. along the Promenade to connect north-south. envisioning more contemporary buildings since the right of way is substantial. More architecture character is possible.

Fifth walk is through White Flint Mall itself, through the various neighborhoods of that development. From the front of the Mall to the north and around to the new Park site to the east. More residential as you move closer to the edge of the district which are adjacent to residential neighborhoods. A new park to the south of the Mall.

Area 1 issues: improving pedestrian environment along Rockville Pike; wide sidewalks, underground utilities, and safe pedestrian intersections. Area 2: 355 and Old Georgetown Rd; street beautification, more mid-block connections and transitions. Area 3: Pike and Nicholson; same as area 2. Area 4, by Mall, transitions with existing neighborhoods. As move to district/neighborhood levels, have a series of maps to describe.

Carter: conceptualization of aspirations and then applications. Cmsnr Robinson: very helpful format. consistent across neighborhoods. As you do district organization, you get lots of these things coming together. Estrada: Still more work to do. Carter: this doesn’t go in the Plan, but it’s an analytical tool to show how these things go into the public realm.

The Board applauded the presentation.

Cmsnr Cryor: pedestrians crossing the street? Carter: need to redesign the intersection to protect and accommodate the pedestrians. Cmsnr Presley: can we insure that these aren’t going to be undone by DoT. Carter: we have to make this an Urban District. DoT has different models. Hanson: You can do that in the Master Plan. Carter: once do that, you can direct the rest of the improvements. Once you build a new building, utilities must be underground. It’s the big lines to get those underground, so need some power to get that done. But we’ve been pretty successful in other areas. Presley: I would be more comfortable if everyone were to commit, because I know how often these things don’t come true. Carter: they won’t work unless we bring in the other agencies, if we just do this project by project. Very big dollar projects.

Alfandre: plan is to finish by June 18? Piera Weiss, chief White Flint planner: we come back to you on June 18 with a redline rewrite of the whole plan, and then you come back to us with any changes.

Cryor: Montrose Parkway. Are we going to change that? Busses? Weiss: bus bays at Metro station. Carter: whole loop. Dan Hardy: chief Vision Division, and head transportation planner: in the WF Sector Plan, Parkway is the northern boundary. Will have a signalized intersection on the east. On the western part, stays at grade, and what’s already built is what will be there. Did raise the question back in February about adding more development in White Flint which would have required more from the western area, but that has changed. Cryor: so 270/Fortune Parc area is much in the future? Not walking distance. Whose getting on the bus? I never thought it was going down there. Hardy: we’re not recommending any reconstruction of Montrose Parkway. Was there enough there to add a BRT lane? No, but you could add more bus service. Most of the people going on the Parkway during peak periods are going to No. Bethesda.

Alfandre: aside from the Pike issues you showed earlier, are there other problems in the grid? Carter: we’ll see those as we go through the districts. Alfandre: we need to look carefully at the MARC station area, because one area where we have an opportunity to connect a neighborhood. Heirarchy of open spaces? Carter: we have that. In the guidelines in the aspirations.

Live blogging from May 7, 2009, worksession of the Montgomery County Planning Board. Live streaming video is available at www.montgomeryplanningboard.org.

Piera Weiss, lead White Flint planner. Last week, the Board asked for more information on parks in the White Flint sector. Recommendation on taking more property from White Flint Mall and White Flint Plaza. On Monday night, the Board realigned the “ring road” to the southeast of the Mall property to avoid a 90 degree turn, but the new road runs through part of that property. As a result, the only place for the park would be on the Mall property. Approximately 3.8 acre site. Plus the Garrett Park Estate - White Flint Park letter (discussed in an earlier FLOG post) of May 4, said this could be a buffer site. Cmsnr Robinson: could we ask for part of the property? Chairman Hanson: that’s getting ahead of our discussion. Cmsnr Alfandre: we get inundated by letters like this because we’re not looking comprehensively. We need to spend time looking at the connectivity. Decisions will always come back to haunt us until we see how they all fit. Hanson: go with tentatively designating it as a park. Board agrees, tentatively, to set the parcel to the east of White Flint Mall as a new park.

The site is flat enough and large enough to host a small ball field, which is a major need in the Sector and in the county as a whole.

Live blogging from the May 7, 2009, worksession of the Montgomery County Planning Board on implementation of the White Flint Sector Plan.

Diane Schwartz Jones, representing the County Executive: good news is we can’t veto a Master Plan. Planning board Chairman Royce Hanson: could veto all the implementation. Lots of ways to undermine.

Hanson: other ways to finance? Jacob Sesker, planner coordinator, Vision Division: legal issues. Art. 15 of Maryland Constitution requires uniform taxes. Can’t have higher taxes on commercial or residential properties. Practical issue for an implementable Master Plan. Hanson: this would be a barrier to the simplest approach would be a special assessment district levied only on commercial property. Sesker: distinction between tax and assessment. Tax is subject to Charter Limit, passed last year, on increases in revenues generated from taxes are limited to rate of inflation. Jennifer Barrett (finance director for Exec): applies to all revenue, which competes under the cap. Sesker: other ways to raise revenue from private sector to finance the infrastructure. Development districts are excluded from the cap. Special assessment districts could be structured without running afoul of the cap. And, excise taxes on development similar to impact tax on residential development. Could use those to pay for some of the infrastructure. Could propose legislation for impact taxes, but deferred over a number of years; county has found some difficulty in structuring those. Barrett: even spread over years it’s problematic to secure that. Sesker: consultants are looking at ways to work all this together. Can use a district to prime the pump to raise some revenue right at the beginning, and then as development occurs, take those properties out of the special assessment district and put them in another development district.

Hanson: where would these districts work in White Flint? Barrett: we’ve talked about infrastructure and moving forward. Create some incentives to be in the district. Trying to get creative. Hanson: now need 80% consent of property owners, but what if legislation created a new district to implement a master plan which created a new tax rate to fund the infrastructure? Trying to avoid the “free-rider” problem, where some owners who don’t pay the tax benefit from the results. In White Flint, that’s a big problem, because everyone in the area will benefit from the improvements.

Hanson: we’re only a few weeks from getting this plan to Council and getting it done. Going back two years with discussions with Steering Committee and Advisory Committee before that, we had an understanding that we wouldn’t do a plan that couldn’t get implemented, and that we couldn’t depend on the normal process because a lot of the streets require major actions. Too big to impose on a single development, and we can’t depend on project by project creation of streets and the Pike, which is really the key to making everything work.

Sesker: we have discussed with Exec on costs. Some of the concerns are with right of way acquisition. Example: revision of Executive Blvd and proposed Main/Market Street. Cmsnr Alfandre: that road program is important enough that it could determine the rest of the project. Sesker: That ties to my decision #1: no development authority, just use existing facilities. What needs to be funded publicly and what privately? Alfandre: what’s the big bucket? And timing? Sesker: we’ll do that at the June 4 Worksession, bringing a “super Table 7″ with specific projects, costs including right of way acquisition. Won’t include in the Master Plan, but will show you and give you a comfort level. Alfrandre: total cost of White Flint? Sesker: just transportation, we estimated $300 million, not including right of way. Feb. 19 memo estimated public vs private financing. Roughly 30% borne by public sector.

Sesker: implementarion authority or existing? Robinson: vote based on efficiency or pragmatism? Sesker: balancing. Hanson: surest way to get this done would be an authority but whether it would fly? Robinson: there are no prospects of doing an authority. I want to move the discussions forward through channels that have reasonable prospects of coming true. I see no prospects for that doing that with an authority. Authority would be outside the normal budget process, so would not be dependent on annual appropriations. Others are within the normal process. Presley: Exec’s objections? Jones: we can do what you want without an authority with the broad powers outlined in the draft Plan. We can enter into contracts; we do it all the time. More efficient if we do it the way we always do. Tremendous redundancy if there’s an authority. We already have a regional services center. We can create a redevelopment office as we did for Silver Spring.

Hanson: principal difference is that if we had an authority, it would be a special district with a governing board, statutorily defined powers and responsibilities, mechanism for engaging the stakeholders in the determination of how the revenue stream would be spent. Would be subject to county agencies, but it would have a certain amount of autonomy to move things along. It would work; I doubt that there’s an appetite for it in this County, and I regret that. County is behind in decentralizing government, but that’s one of the other issues besides regionalism. If I saw real enthusiasm for the use of the other tools, and a package ready to recommend, I’d be willing to give up on the implementation authority. I’m not ready to lose it. Presley: if there’s an efficiency gain in the authority, there’s a gain, but there’s also a challenge. Hanson: I think the first approach is the use of the conventional means. Robinson: I think so. Hanson: may be useful to keep authority as a fallback position if we can’t move any other way, but let’s see how we go. I wouldn’t like to throw this away prematurely. Cool it but don’t put it on ice.

Sesker: next decision is Tax Increment Financing. Possible tool, but not recommended because we planned an authority. In the absence of an authority, staff recommends TIF. Robinson: support that. Jones: could provide for that in the Plan, we would recommend other possibilities for achieving the same objective. Barrett: what is your objective? Hanson: important issue. Currently, any developer will pay impact taxes at time of permitting and those funds go to general revenue fund. Here for the system to work and for an alternative to Rockville Pike to be in place for development to occur and the Pike to be redesigned, we have to have some of that money in advance and used for that construction of infrastructure. Needs to be clearly available. Needs to be available before someone comes in to develop it because we need the right of way. So we need a mechanism beyond the traditional needs to be sure this infrastructure can be produced in time for the other things to occur. We can’t rebuild the Pike without alternatives for people to use while the Pike is being rebuilt. We need a level of public participation in this redevelopment that’s different from the ordinary development that’s occurring in other parts of the county. Barrett: describe the problems and the proposed solutions, but don’t lock us in. Lay out the problem, not the solution. Hanson: area needs to have either an assured system of funding or of raising the revenues early on. Our proposal collects revenues early so we can get started.  Authority is my first choice, the TIF is my second, and if we can’t do either, then we’re back to hoping.

Hanson: our analysis and the private community’s analysis came out at the same place: about a 10% surcharge to do what is needed. Advantage of special assessment is that it doesn’t deprive the rest of the county of the increase in revenues, only of ten percent of the property tax. A surcharge would make other parts of the county compete for that revenue.

Sesker: final decision is whether to reword the implementation issues to avoid constitutional and charter limit issues. Hanson: we’re not going to take on the Constitution and Charter in a Master Plan.

Upcoming schedule: rest of May 7: status fo fiscal analysis and implementation; design guidelines. May 21, design guidelines by district. June 4: zoning, staging and implementation again.

Live blogging from May 9, 2009, worksession on implementation. Live streaming video is available at www.montgomeryplanningboard.org.

Jacob Sesker, Planning Coordinator, presents status of implementation. Notes that Attachment D has a prior law, and will update the law in a later session. Diane Schwartz Jones, Jennifer Barrett, and Ken Hartman BCC regional center, appeared to comment.

Three Staff recommendations: implementation authority, County Executive wants existing structures, and staff now agrees. Tax increment financing: strengthen recommendation now. In the absence of an implementation authority, having a TIF would have additional benefits. Special assessment/development district changes to avoid conflicts with state law. Purpose is to make the plan “implementable.”

County Exec has been meeting with staff and hired consultants to answer questions that Staff has asked. Issues: administration of sector Plan area; policy concerns of Exec; legal concerns on financing; and some questions on cost.

Administrative issues: no support for the implementation authority. Exec is concerned about redundancy, and existing structures would provide many of the things wanted to get out of separate structure. Redundancy. Changes include strengthening regional centers and redevelopment offices. In our discussions with the Executive Branch, we have come to see that a District, many of the things that WF needs, could be provided by the existing structures. In the absence of a parking lot district here, transfers from general fund or special taxes would be increasingly important.

Tax Increment Financing: hasn’t used in past and Exec doesn’t want to use it. Isolating areas of economic prosperity. Revenue generated in more successful areas should be available throughout the county. Jennifer Barrett: we want to benefit the entire county, as we have in Silver Spring and Bethesda. Cmsnr Robinson: so you’d rather not have $100 if you have to give up $10? Monies returned to General Fund greatly exceed uses here. Jones: that isn’t our position. Robinson: very important that we know what your position. Hanson: funding is essential for WF to develop as it should, and having the investments available to be timely made. Looking to see if there is interest in something like a “phantom TIF”? To just say no to a TIF doesn’t solve the problem. We need a reliable source of debt service for the public improvements that are necessary to make the redevelopment of WF occur. One way is to bond. Could have a WF CIP. For the $60-90 million “funding gap” we are considering.

Barrett: idea of saying that we’re making a choice now and everything else is set aside. Hanson: how is that different from any other CIP commitment we make? Barrett: TIF is absolutely going to district financing. Hanson: putting aside the TIF, what about a CIP PDF for White flint that sets out a schedule for expenditures? Robinson: we’re asking the private sector to lay out $250 million, and maybe we’ll fix Old Georgetown Rd, and maybe in five years we’ll do something else. What rational person would accept that? We have a very strict phasing in this Master Plan because of the amount of density. Development can’t proceed past a certain level without setting aside a funding mechanism. I’m assuming that rational business would be reluctant to set aside $250 million with decisions set forth several years in the future.

Live blogging from worksession of Montgomery County Planning Board on implementation and responses from County Executive. Live streaming available at www.montgomeryplanningboard.org. The Board will also discuss the new “design guidelines” for White Flint; design guidelines are a new feature of the planning process which demonstrates, through text and pictures, what the Board expects in a particular area of White Flint. the design guidelines can be found at:

http://montgomeryplanningboard.org/agenda/2009/documents/20090705_Draft_Urban_Design_Guidelines_for_White_Flint.pdf

The Montgomery County Planning Board does much of its work on the White Flint Sector Plan in worksessions organized around topics. Live streaming video is available at: www.montgomeryplanningboard.org.

Today’s topics are:

• implementation and financing updates, featuring Jacob Sesker, Planner Coordinator in the Vision Division, who explains what this will all cost, and how to pay for it (which includes a timing factor, since financing and implementing the Board’s vision will take time),
• reviewing the public testimony and comments on implementation issues from the January 12, 2009, hearing on the White Flint Sector Plan Public Hearing Draft, and
• discussing the County Executive’s views on various aspects of the Plan.

There is also an intriguing little section at the end of the staff memo for today’s worksession on “Charter Review Commission.”  This on-going review of the county governance may affect the implementation and financing of the White Flint Plan.

The worksession begins at 9AM in the auditorium, 8787 Georgia Ave., Silver Spring.