FLOG - the Friends of White Flint Blog

The White Flint Partnership is a group of large property owners in White Flint. In a letter to the Montgomery County Planning Board today, the Partnership recommended a set of changes in the Draft White Flint Plan. The text of the changes and cover notes are:

Dear Chairman Hanson, 

On behalf of the White Flint Partnership I would like to submit the following email with some minor final comments in regards to the White Flint Sector Plan Staff Draft.  Thank you very much for the amount of time and effort you and the other Planning Board members have put into the White Flint Sector Plan.  The revised draft is the culmination of over 3 years of work and the first step towards creating a new model for development in Montgomery County.  Below is an email which we sent to Piera Weiss outlining some final modifications we hope the Planning Board will consider before final adoption of the plan.  We appreciate all of your work to date and look forward to working with you in the coming months as the Sector Plan is introduced to the County Executive and County Council.
Best Regards, 

The White Flint Partnership 

From: Evan A. Goldman
Sent: Wednesday, June 17, 2009 8:28 PM
To: Weiss, Piera
Cc: ‘Yearwood, Nkosi’; Rollin Stanley (rollin.stanley@mncppc-mc.org)
Subject: Suggested modifications to White Flint Sector Plan Staff Draft

Dear Piera, 

Thank you very much for all of your work on the White Flint Sector Plan revised Staff Draft.  The plan does an excellent job of resolving most of the issues that have been raised by the various stakeholders over the past 6 months and creates a plan that is very close to the vision expressed by the White Flint Advisory Board. We appreciate the key role you played in making this happen.  The White Flint Partnership is in support of the Sector Plan and look forward to its approval in the coming weeks by the Planning Board.  There are a few outstanding issues which we wanted to bring to your attention prior to finalizing the draft.  It is our assumption that discussion of the Staff Draft won’t occur until the July 9th work-session, but just in case it is brought up tomorrow, below is the list which the White Flint Partnership compiled late this afternoon. 

Best regards,
The White Flint Partnership 

1. Page 21:
   1. Strengthen language about below grade utilities so that it reads, “All primary service utilities to be located within the Right-of-way.”
   2. Add the Glatting Jackson section to this page as an alternate.  

2. Page 25: 
   1. Remove requirement for “private outdoor spaces for each unit.” The White Flint Sector Plan is about creating a community.  We agree with the CR zone requirements for shared outdoor and indoor community spaces for residential buildings.  The phrase, “Private outdoor space for each unit,” unnecessarily adds construction costs, limits architectural design, reduces flexibility in planning, and does not encourage community interaction. 

3. Page 28:
   1. Remove following language, “this plan recommends that proposed development should include vertical integration of uses, so that there are few single use vertical buildings.” The WFP does not agree that there is a need to mix residential and office in the same specific building but we do agree that it is beneficial when these uses are adjacent or in close proximity to one another as a mixed use project. Please modify language to read, “this plan recommends that proposed development plans integrate a mix of uses so that neighborhoods have a balance of uses.  This plan also encourages integration of retail at the base of both residential and commercial buildings where feasible and practical.”

4. Page 29:
   1. The plan proposes, “9,800 new units of which at least 12.5% will be MPDU’s and 10% WFHU’s.”  We continue to disagree with this policy for the following reasons:

                                                               i.      Providing affordable units is a public amenity.  It is counterproductive to include these units under the cap for development because this creates a disincentive to provide any additional affordable units above the minimum requirement because they simply reduce the total number of market rate residential units that can ever be built in the sector plan area.                                                               ii.      Since the CR zone allows for additional density bonuses for affordable units, these units should not be included under the staging cap.                                                              iii.      Finally, given that the CR zone reduces parking for MPDU’s to zero and WFHU’s to .5 spaces per unit, there will be less of a transportation impact from affordable units than from market rate units and they should be excluded from the staging cap.

4.  
   2. Modify language requiring that, “all new residential development should include different unit types and sizes” to “because of the number of varied residential buildings that will be constructed within the White Flint Sector Plan the plan will produce residential development with different unit types and sizes.” 

5. Page 49:
   1. In regards to the sustainability recommendations under the second bullet, delete the specifics and keep the main point, but allow flexibility in the future as technologies change to address these issues in the most appropriate manner. 

6. Page 54:          
   1. Chart has 150’ instead of 162’ for ROW.  A footnote should be added to the chart that states, “Based upon the outcome of the design study for Rockville Pike and the potential Bus Rapid Transit system, the ROW can be increased to 162’ to accommodate a BRT system in the center lanes.”

7. Page 68 – 73:
   1. The WFP has concerns about the phasing and staging plan as drafted.  We will comment separately after the worksession on this topic.  

At its meeting last night, the Friends of White Flint Board of Directors reviewed the staff draft of the White Flint Sector Plan to be discussed by the Montgomery County Planning Board at its June 18, 2009 meeting. The Board discussed several issues with the draft Plan, especially the section on implementation and staging of capital and transportation improvements, which will be the subject of much attention by the Planning Board on Thursday. Nevertheless, the FoWF Board felt that the draft Plan, overall, was well worth supporting.

I have just sent Planning Board Chairman Royce Hanson a letter on behalf of Friends of White Flint, drafted by the Board at last night’s meeting, in which we strongly support enactment of the draft Plan. We also note that we will suggest improvements by July 2, 2009. As part of the process for developing the FoWF position for the July 2 letter, the Board will hold a meeting at 4:30PM on Monday, June 22, at Federal Realty, 1626 E. Jefferson, to discuss specific issues and possible improvements to the Plan. All Friends are welcome to attend and participate.

A copy of the FoWF letter supporting the draft Plan is here:  FoWF Letter supporting draft Plan

Barnaby Zall

Before diving into the new draft Final White Flint Plan, a few words about the scheduled Planning Board worksession on Thursday, June 18: the Planning Board will likely not take up the final draft until after it resolves a number of questions remaining from the June 4 worksession on implementation and staging. At the June 4 worksession, members of the Board seemed disjointed in their analysis of the staging schedule for White Flint improvements. The planning staff has been working day and night (literally, some nights) to try to resolve these questions while completing the final draft.

The cover memo for the Thursday session spends some time on this discussion — the first 12 of 17 pages discuss staging and implementation issues and proposed recommendations. The original three stages have now grown to four, with the second phase being split in two. Some items previously described as requiring completion in Stage One have been moved to completion in Stage 2b; this follows a resolution passed by the Board on June 4.

Staff is asking for more guidance on how to finance the various stages, including whether to follow a “two-track” plan where some infrastructure which will be paid for by mixed public and private funds will be treated separately from projects which are purely publicly-funded.

The first construction projects to be funded would be the alternate traffic routes to relieve pressure on Rockville Pike during any reconstruction of the Pike. One project expected to be in this package, for example, would be the reconnection and revision of Old Old Georgetown Rd (that portion of Old Georgetown Rd which runs behind Mid-Pike Plaza to Montrose Rd.). The staff stressed that the “end state” of all the scheduled improvements would be a reconstructed Rockville Pike.

The staff offered an “intended” schedule of priorities including, in this order, construction of:

• required capital project studies;
• the alternate routes for Pike reconstruction;
• “placemaking projects” including the new Civic Green park, the new “Market Street” (formerly “Main St.”) on both sides of Rockville Pike, and the Rockville Pike portion of the Promenade (note that once again the staff has divided the Promenade’s north-south component from its east-west portions).
• “mode share” (shifting movement within the Sector from automobiles to other forms of transportation) goals.
• sidewalk improvements.
• transit improvements, including the new MARC commuter rail station, the North Entrance to the Metrorail station, and improvements in bus service along the Pike.
• public facilities, including new fire and police stations, and a new express library.

The staff also recommends, among other things, a new TAMP - Transportation Approval and Monitoring Program - to review progress on the Plan and recommend any changes. The TAMP would include yet another public advisory group to discuss and comment on the progress.  

Barnaby Zall

The Montgomery County Planning Board is scheduled to consider the final staff draft of the White Flint Sector Plan in worksessions beginning on Thursday, June 18, 2009. Today the draft was released.

The cover memo appears here:

http://www.montgomeryplanningboard.org/agenda/2009/documents/20090618whitememo.pdf

The staff final draft is in several parts (it’s a big file):

Part 1: http://www.montgomeryplanningboard.org/agenda/2009/documents/whitepart1.pdf

Part 2: http://www.montgomeryplanningboard.org/agenda/2009/documents/whitepart2.pdf

Part 3: http://www.montgomeryplanningboard.org/agenda/2009/documents/whitepart3.pdf

Part 4: http://www.montgomeryplanningboard.org/agenda/2009/documents/whitepart4.pdf

Part 5: http://www.montgomeryplanningboard.org/agenda/2009/documents/whitepart5.pdf

I’ll post a quick analysis in a bit.

Barnaby Zall

Friends of White Flint has consciously modelled itself on nearby community organizations in Rosslyn and Clarendon, revitalized parts of Arlington County, Virginia. Now a new resident of Arlington County has made a parody rap video about his new home, featured in today’s Washington Post:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4T1RMuoQnKo

The Post article:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/12/AR2009061203833.html?sub=AR

Fourth in a series of posts discussing what I expect to see in the upcoming final Draft White Flint Sector Plan, scheduled to be delivered to the Montgomery County Planning Board on June 18. These are not official Friends of White Flint positions, just my musings. This post deals with transportation issues, and in particular, what to do about Rockville Pike.

Originally, I was going to write about transportation generally first, but Jen Beasley’s Gazette article on the debate over the Pike is so good in explaining the controversy that I’ll use that as a springboard first.

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If, as many urban and transportation designers contend, an area’s transportation network of roads and streets is the skeleton on which the area is built, Rockville Pike is White Flint’s spine. It is one of its greatest challenges, but if you look beyond the shouts over the redesign, also presents an opportunity to bring together the Pike in a way that no other feature of the Sector Plan can offer.

There are only two major north-south roadways in White Flint: Old Georgetown Rd. on the western edge, and Rockville Pike running diagonally down the center. The Pike is congested seven days a week, but in the White Flint area, the road has not actually “failed” according to most transportation models. No White Flint intersection appears on the recent list of “worst” intersections in the county, released earlier this week.

Nevertheless, almost everyone you talk to about fixing White Flint fixates on the Pike first. “Traffic!” they interrupt. “You have to do something about it!” I was that way too: I described it, in an early video presentation to the White Flint Advisory Group as “the Beast That Ate White Flint.” A big, blue-green monster that dripped cars and ate pedestrians.

So the White Flint Plan, and the White Flint planners, rightfully focus on fixing the Pike. There is a general consensus on how to improve the Pike — basically by making it into a “boulevard.” Other cities have done it, by lining major streets with trees, making them pedestrian- and bike-friendly, and giving people a reason to go there, even if they’re not in cars.

But there are two competing visions of how to do that: one by the County planners, and one by Glatting Jackson, an internationally-reknowned transportation design firm hired by the White Flint Partnership, a group of major property owners in the White Flint area.

(Note: Friends of White Flint, which includes residents, businesses and property owners, is not the same as the White Flint Partnership, although we work closely with the Partnership on issues of common interest.)

The Glatting Jackson proposal is wider, more bicycle- and pedestrian-friendly than the planning staff proposal, and contains rapid transit lanes in the middle or median of the Pike, rather than on the curb lanes, where they would be shared by bicycles, busses, and right-turning cars. The Planning Board originally rejected the Glatting Jackson approach, then reconsidered, and now seems likely to adopt the best of both, pending studies of how transit in White Flint would integrate with transit outside the Sector.

There have been a series of posts in the FLOG over recent weeks on this battle.  But Yesterday’s article by Jen Beasley in the Gazette nicely sums up the debate and the options.

This debate, though spirited and important, is only part of the answer to improving the Pike. Improving the Pike actually includes four options:

• Create a robust new street network throughout White Flint to take the load off the Pike;
• Add new medians and transit options, including Vehicular Rapid Transit capability, while keeping the same number of lanes for through traffic;
• Make the Pike pedestrian- and bike-friendly; and
• Add stores, restaurants and parking for a lively Pike.

 The debate over the Pike is mostly about the middle two points: how do we put transit, pedestrians, and bikes back into the design for the Pike? We expect the new Plan to include a robust new street network, and elements designed for a lively new Pike.

A final point, to bring the Pike debate back to White Flint as a whole. The Pike is not just a problem to be resolved. The Pike also offers a tremendous opportunity for urban design in White Flint, turning an obstacle into an asset.

Though not often remarked upon, one of the elements in the new White Flint Plan, which we expect to see in the final draft is “The Promenade.” The Promenade runs east-west along the new Market Street, at the Metro Station, and north-south along Rockville Pike.

The Promenade is rarely described as a combined north-south and east-west unit, but it should function as both the “spine” and “shoulders” of a new White Flint. The Pike (north-south) holds up the east-west component of the Promenade.

The Promenade forms a diagonal “T” with the base along the Pike and the cross-bar leading from Wall Park and the Civic Green (the two major parks in the new White Flint) over the Metro Station and into the public space area of the North Bethesda Center. It connects and draws together the Sector in a walkable, bikeable corridor which gives people both a reason and a means to wander through the Sector.

Thus, the Pike offers both the biggest obstacle to the new White Flint, and also the biggest opportunity. Even if the new draft Plan doesn’t focus on this aspect, we expect to see this skeleton form the basis for the new Sector.

Barnaby Zall

Several newspapers are reporting that the most recent schools report has found that several schools in Montgomery County face overcrowding conditions in 2014. County law requires a moratorium on residential construction in areas served by severely over-crowded schools. The Planning Board has imposed such a moratorium in some areas in the County.

Although schools in the White Flint area are not affected by the immediate moratorium, other schools are on a watch list for overcrowding in 2014, including Walter Johnson High School, which serves much of the White Flint area. Since the overcrowding in these schools is predicted to be much lower than the immediately-affected schools, development will not cease in these areas, but developers will have to pay a fee to develop residential properties.

In a recent discussion with the Planning Board, MCPS officials did not predict such a moratorium in White Flint, but since the law is mandatory, these school tests may have some effect on White Flint plans.

Here is the Post article:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/08/AR2009060803952.html?sub=AR

The Board of Directors of Friends of White Flint is pleased to announce that Michael L. Springer has been elected to a Business Class seat on the Board. Springer is the representative to FoWF of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and has been very active in the White Flint Sector Plan development process. Springer has been Director of the Office of Administration for NRC and a winner of the Presidential Meritorious Executive Award, particularly impressive given that NRC has just been recognized as the best federal workplace in the Washington, D.C. area. We welcome Mike to the FoWF Board.

Third in a series of posts discussing what I expect to see in the upcoming final Draft White Flint Sector Plan, scheduled to be delivered to the Montgomery County Planning Board on June 18. These are not official Friends of White Flint positions, just my musings. This post deals with density and heights.

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As discussed in the last post, White Flint is destined to be a more urban area. One of the characteristics of an urban area is that it has higher density (sometimes called higher “intensity”) than a suburban model. More people per square mile. More buildings per square mile. Sometimes taller, sometimes squat but broader, but generally more buildings.

The basic intention is to place more people within easy walking distance of the Metrorail station. The county has an enormous investment in this heavy-rail transit system, and years of experience demonstrate that transit use is heaviest when people live only five minutes away from a station. In Arlington County, for example, a nearby example of increasing density enormously, while decreasing traffic congestion, the vast majority of Metro users walk to Metro. Thus, the Board spent a great deal of time calculating exactly how far and how long a walk it would be to the Metro station. Planning staff actually walked several paths in White Flint, and determined that virtually every part of the Sector is within a ten-minute walk of the Metro. “And some of the walks are quite lovely,” reported Piera Weiss, Master Planner for the Sector.

Commissioner Jean Cryor has asked that a section be placed in the White Flint Sector Plan, right at the beginning, which says clearly: density does not equal height. This is an important distinction, especially since many observers, including Piera Weiss, remind people: in White Flint, the controversial issue is building height.

     Density does not automatically translate to building heights. Density, as used in Montgomery County planning, is a combination of ways to use the land available for development. Thus a shorter, wider building can be very dense, while a narrow, tall building might not be. In addition, height decisions involve questions of sunlight and shadows on surrounding areas, aesthetics and design features, and proximity to surrounding neighborhoods.

    A common measure of density used in Montgomery County is Floor Area Ratio, abbreviated as FAR. The greater the FAR, the more development permitted on a property. FARs in the White Flint Plan range from 2.0 to 4.0, with the higher FARs being located closer to the Metro station. 

For comparison, FARs in Rosslyn, for example, go up to 10.0. FARs are higher in Bethesda, along the Wisconsin Avenue corridor. White Flint is intended to have lower density than some urban areas.

    The FAR, however, does not itself limit height; height limits are set separately. In the White Flint Plan, maximum heights range from 300 feet, close to the Metro, down to 50 feet near residential areas, such as in the southern part of the Sector.

    The Planning Board has created new “design guidelines” and a new “CR” (for Commercial/Residential) Zone, both of which will operate to control heights. Much of the discussion at the June 4, 2009, Board worksession, for example, was on exactly how to mesh the Master Plan, the design guidelines, and the zoning rules to reach the desired height limits.

     There will be a 300′ height limit in White Flint. The highest building now under construction, at North Bethesda Marketplace (the big tower now being built across Rockville Pike from White Flint Mall) will be 289′ and will “top out” in August, 2009. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission White Flint Center building, just across Marinelli Road from the Metrorail station, is 240′. You can see some examples of existing building heights here:

http://www.montgomeryplanning.org/community/whiteflint/documents/heightexamples.pdf

That maximum height will be available only near the Metro station. Maximum heights will rapidly decrease, proportionate to distance from the Metro station. Thus, for example, permissible heights on one block at Mid-Pike Plaza, in the northwestern corner of the Sector but directly across the Pike from the Metro station, may decrease from 300′ to 200′.

The minimum height level is 50′, at the southern and southeastern edges of the Sector, near the White Flint Mall and the Garrett Park Estates/White Flint Park community boundary, and the Crest of Wickford community.

The Planning Staff is aiming at a “tenting” effect, with the tallest buildings at the Metro and a gradual transition outwards. With the advent of sophisticated graphics and illustration software, the Planning Board is moving into an era in which mapping may give more useful guidance to non-professionals than dry text, and the Board is expected to utilize its new capabilities in the draft Sector Plan. At the June 4, 2009, worksession, the Staff presented a series of interactive slides demonstrating the permissible heights across the Sector, but those are not on-line yet.  Commissioners, however, recommended that those maps be included in the Plan, in as much detail as possible.

In addition, the Commissioners formulated a new structure for using the maps as regulatory guides. Concerned about applicants or reviewers contending that the map lines were absolute requirements instead of guidelines, the Board decided to use descriptive text to further illustrate its intentions. For example, on one parcel at White Flint Mall, height limits might range from 200′ to 100′, and the Board’s text would describe the intention as having the highest heights at the northwestern edge, nearer Rockville Pike, and the lowest heights within that range in the southeastern edge, near the adjacent community.

This degree of explanation is necessary, not just because of the litigious nature of modern society, but because new Maryland law requires all development plans to meet the intentions of the appropriate Master Plan. Thus, the Board took much of its limited time during its June 4 meeting to craft language exactly describing its intentions in this area.

So, to summarize, I expect the new Plan to describe heavier density for White Flint, with the highest density, and the tallest permitted buildings, closer to the Metro station, and the permitted densities and heights falling away as you move away from the Metro. There will be a small exception of slightly higher density near the new MARC commuter rail station on Nicholson Court in the southeastern part of the Sector, but generally the pattern will be higher densities near Metro and along Rockville Pike.

Barnaby Zall

The Montgomery County Planning Board is scheduled to receive the final Draft White Flint Sector Plan on June 18. The Board will then spend several weeks reviewing and revising the draft Plan, before approving a plan and recommending it for passage by the County Council. Final Planning Board action on the Plan is anticipated by the end of July and as early as July 9, 2009.

The Board has been working on the White Flint Plan since 2006, with the assistance of hundreds of community volunteers and interested parties. The Planning Board long ago established its goals for the White Flint Sector Plan:

• create thriving, diverse mixed use center with highest intensity closest to Metro and along Rockville Pike 
• create new parks and open spaces
• transform Rockville Pike into a boulevard with a landscape median, street trees and improved crosswalks
• develop a transportation network that includes a grid of new public streets
• improve the pedestrian and bicycling environment
• promote sustainable development
• create new public facilities
• provide affordable housing
• promote innovative ways to finance and manage new infrastructure

www.whiteflintplanning.org.

This second in a series of posts leading up to the June 18 worksession is my attempt to describe some of those broad outlines. These aren’t official Friends of White Flint positions, just my musings. I invite others to comment or post their own thoughts.

This post deals with the broad theme of the Plan: to transform White Flint from a suburban, automobile-oriented area, into a modern, urban, transit-oriented area.

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White Flint is currently a suburban area, governed by, and pretty much faithful to, the 1992 North Bethesda/Garrett Park Master Plan:

http://www.montgomeryplanning.org/community/plan_areas/bethesda_chevy_chase/master_plans/north_bethesda/toc_nbeth-gar.shtm

In the late 1980’s, the automobile was still ascendant, Al Gore was still a Senator, and suburbia was still considered a viable community option. White Flint was a way-station between Bethesda and Rockville, one of several, including residential Maplewood and Grosvenor just south and north of the Beltway, and Twinbrook, just to the north. The three biggest developments in the area were the then-new White Flint Mall, the remains of the Timberlawn estate across Rockville Pike (home of the only Presidential candidate to hail from White Flint: Sargeant Shriver, and his soon-to-be more famous daughter, Maria), and far to the north, the Korvette’s Shopping Center. In between, ran the congested, utility-wire-strewn Rockville Pike, built on top of the local watershed. The area was heavily commercial and retail-oriented, with only a small fringe of residences on the edges. Pavement dominated, and automobile-oriented, White Flint saw a few people each day arrive and depart at its spanking-new Metrorail station.

Fast-forward to 2000 and beyond: White Flint has filled in, dense with unplanned development, but its character hasn’t changed. It remains principally suburban. Strip malls line the Pike, set back from the road by acres of parking lot. One of the biggest, the old Korvette’s Plaza, now called Mid-Pike Plaza, has a fence stopping pedestrians on the Pike from entering the sacred parking lot. Traffic has grown worse, and it’s primarily through traffic, as there isn’t a big reason to stop in White Flint.

Yet potential shines through the cracks in the crumbling streets. There is capital, both financial and human, in the area. To the west lies the wealthy communities of Luxmanor, Old Farm, and others. To the east is the real “workforce housing” for this part of Montgomery County: Randolph Hills, where 5,000 families live and commute into the Sector. Economic studies suggest that Virginia alone gets $2 billion a year in retail sales from people who live and work in White Flint. Observers are stunned when Georgetown Preparatory School, just to the south, gets almost a billion dollars for a few acres of land ($9 million a year for 100 years), and that for a land lease, not even a true sale.

Developers, looking at White Flint’s economic potential, begin drawing up thirty-year development plans to bring in lots and lots of new development. LCOR negotiates with the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (Metro) for a long-term lease on land near the White Flint Metro Station. JBG Companies create a new Conference Center and hotel across Rockville Pike from the Metro, and begins planning for a massive, three-phase development in White Flint’s southern end, including a 289′-high residential tower.

Montgomery County planners, watching these developments, realize there are huge problems with this essentially-uncontrolled development pattern in White Flint. This is suburban development, automobile-oriented, at a place with a heavy-rail transit station. This is an area where public opinion focus groups show that young people flock to the area with visions of taking Metro downtown, only to find that it is “unsafe” or difficult to use Metro, so they retreat to their cars. This is the last major developable area in southern Montgomery County, where one of the last major highway construction projects — the Montrose Parkway — is underway, redefining the northern end of the Sector.

Planning Board members study the trends and integrate them with national patterns on development. Board Chairman Royce Hanson begins speaking out about the future of White Flint. Suburban development patterns, says Hanson, are a “declining component of county growth.” Hanson says the county needs to “to rethink and reinvent the way development is planned and put less emphasis on roads because little more traffic capacity is likely to be added after the Intercounty  Connector and Montrose Parkway, now under construction, are built.”

The Planning Board, and many members of the County Council, are in synch with Hanson. Urban growth patterns, not suburban sprawl, is deemed more efficient, offering more reliance on transit systems, lower carbon emissions, more green space planning, and better financial returns for the County.

White Flint offers an opportunity for urban experimentation. The Sector is large, bigger than Bethesda and Silver Spring, but the areas for improvements in, for example, water-permeable ground cover instead of asphalt, are even more vast. The public transit infrastructure is in place and under-utilized. The economic studies necessary to draw in retail and commercial development have already been done. Continuing demand for housing near the Metro is an enormous hydraulic pressure and White Flint offers multiple opportunities to satisfy the demands.

But would the surrounding communities, so experienced in stopping development, go along with the shift from suburbia to urban planning? No one knew. The danger of obstructionism was huge. This is, after all, Montgomery County, where paralysis by analysis, combat by arcane statute, and knowledgeable, active and experienced civic activists all had flourished for many decades.

So, in 2006, the Planning Board began the White Flint planning process by convening “the World’s Largest Advisory Group.” http://www.montgomeryplanning.org/community/whiteflint/background.shtm. To many people’s surprise, many of the participants WANTED an urban model for White Flint. Apparently, the allure of transit-oriented, pedestrian- and bike-friendly, dense development had filtered down into the neighborhood activists.

Thus, from the beginning, the White Flint Sector Plan was very likely to follow an urban model. The Public Hearing Draft, which served as the template for Board consideration since it was unveiled late last year, used an urban model for White Flint, calling the area “Mid-town on the Pike.” http://www.montgomeryplanning.org/community/whiteflint/documents/wf_public_hearing_draft_12082008.pdf.

The Public Hearing Draft description of its “Vision” summarizes these developments:

     This Sector Plan explores how the urban center concept can be applied to new development in White Flint to achieve a more coherent urban form. An urban place is dependent on people and activity. People walk from their homes to work, shops and, transit; offices plazas are full of workers during the day. At night and on weekends people attend the theater, visit galleries, and eat out. In the summer, everyone is out enjoying the evening breezes. This is a place where different lifestyles converge to make urban living interesting, challenging, and exciting. The proposed cultural and retail destinations in and around the civic core, the open space system, and a walkable street grid combine to spark the energy that flows through White Flint. With this energy, White Flint will become a vibrant and sustainable urban center that can adapt and respond to future challenges.

    There are few locations remaining in Montgomery County where excellent transit service and redevelopment potential coincide. Given the reality of future energy constraints and the effects of climate change, growth must take advantage of existing infrastructure, especially transit, to create compact new communities where reliance on the automobile is not necessary. Growth should be directed to those places where the reduction in the carbon footprint is possible, like White Flint, and where the infrastructure can support a sustainable, culturally interesting urban center outside of the well-established central business districts. As such, White Flint fits squarely into the County’s General Plan and long range policies as the place to accommodate a substantial portion of the region’s projected growth.

Nothing in the long series of worksessions, meetings, and huddled consultations with county and state officials has shaken this belief that White Flint should be an urban area, rather than continue as a suburban, car-oriented place. So I fully expect the Final Draft White Flint Sector Plan to continue this urban focus.

Barnaby Zall