FLOG - the Friends of White Flint Blog

Live blogging from the January 19, 2010 meeting of the Planning, Housing and Economic Development Committee of the Montgomery County Council. The PHED Committee is continuing its hearings on the White Flint Sector Plan; today’s topics include transportation and “land use.”

Committee Chair Councilmember Mike Knapp called the meeting to order just after 2PM (the full Council meeting just ended). Knapp: we asked staff to tell us what it would take to actually accomplish “balance” between traffic congestion and density.

Committee staffer Glenn Orlin referred to the memo he prepared for the Committee and released last Friday. You can find the memo here:

http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/content/council/pdf/agenda/cm/2010/100119/20100119_PHED1.pdf

Orlin began with the first issue, involving “private streets.” Various agencies agreed on a series of criteria for designating a private street in White Flint, which are listed on P. 2 of the memo. Council President Nancy Floreen: Montrose Shopping Center has some public/private streets, but the ordinary user wouldn’t realize they were public streets. Designed for transportation capacity, as required, under whatever standard we come up with. Biggest problems are on the weekends, so these are the streets we don’t want closed, because it would limit the opportunities. They should look and feel more like real roadways. I’m interested in predictable public access. Dan Hardy, chief transportation planner for the Planning Board, pointed out that the first two criteria are designed to make sure the streets meet current standards and would be useable as part of the road grid, and the other six criteria were put in to work with the needs of other groups.

Councilmember Marc Elrich asked which of the proposed streets was critical to the grid. Edgar Gonzalez, from Montgomery County Dept. of Transportation, pointed out that some of the projects might want to close their private streets for festivals and events.

Then the Committee moved to the transportation ‘balance” issue which caused much consternation this weekend (see prior two posts).

The bombing of Tokyo by Gen. Jimmy Doolittle’s carrier-launched B-25s (chronicled in the book and movie “Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo”) arguably changed the course of World War Two, even though they did insignificant damage. The same could be true of Friday’s recommendation by Council staff that only Phase One of the White Flint Plan be implemented.  

The news that the staff of the Montgomery County Council’s Committee on Planning, Housing and Economic Development had recommended killing the White Flint Plan (see post below) spread quickly and generated some heat. The usual opponents of the Plan generated ten letters asking the PHED Committee to “support the Council’s decision.” The White Flint Partnership generated 70 letters in opposition to the staff recommendation, and several other organizations also weighed in. More than 1200 people read my blog post explaining the problem (it was reprinted, so the number is probably higher).

But I have not asked the Friends of White Flint membership to write letters or contact the County Council on this point. Here’s why:

The recommendation came out on Friday (of a holiday weekend to boot). This weekend, there have been intense discussions between the Council staff, County executive’s office, planning staff, and members of groups which are influential in this debate, culminating in a packed-room conference. A few points have emerged:

First, this fight is over 30 seconds. Well, actually 32 seconds. That is the difference between a trip on the existing Rockville Pike (”LOS-D”), and the worst case scenario of Rockville Pike 30 years from now (”LOS-E”): some traffic models says it will take about 32 seconds longer to drive from Grosvenor to Twinbrook in the year 2030. So when we say the outmoded traffic tests (see post below for a more detailed explanation) that will kill the White Flint Plan are about moving cars through intersections “faster,” we’re really talking about 30 seconds faster. But in order to get those 30 seconds, Council staff has recommended that the White Flint Plan be delayed, or built only through Phase One (of three).

Second, the problem’s not IN White Flint, but in North Bethesda generally. There are only two nearby areas which will (in thirty years) cause drivers to slow: Montrose at 270 and Rockville Pike south of Edson Lane. Both are outside of the White Flint area, but because the automobile-oriented “balance” tests of White Flint also measure those areas, White Flint suffers. In fact, ironically, those same tests show that increasing density dramatically in White Flint will have very little effect on traffic congestion within White Flint (something the Plan’s opponents seem to have trouble understanding even while they’re hooting about the need to reduce density IN White Flint). So if even the automobile-oriented tests just looked at White Flint, there wouldn’t be an issue, but they still view White Flint as just some place to be traveled through.

Third, doing only the first phase of the Plan will kill it, politically and financially. As I discussed in an earlier post, what property owner will agree to tax themselves (as they have in the Plan) if they don’t have the confidence that the projects will continue past the first few years. And the view is no better from the residents: as a resident put it in a meeting this morning: “so my residents will see everything torn down, but nothing rebuilt?” One proposal was to impose new taxes on development, whether or not the property owners agree; but, for a County strapped for new business, is that realistic? “Hi, Northrop Grumman. Come on in. And pay these new taxes.”

Fourth, delaying the Plan will kill it. Developers have made clear that they and their financiers will simply not fund the big projects necessary to transform White Flint if the Plan is delayed. You can easily see why, just by looking down the Pike. At Mid-Pike Plaza, for example, leases have not been renewed, or have been let for a short period of time, just so the owners can have the flexibility to make the improvements promised in the White Flint Sector Plan. But that window won’t stay open forever, and once those spaces are put into long-term leases, they will be lost to sustainable, transit-friendly construction; we’ll just have more of the same parking lots. The cars will win.

But the most important thing to come out of all these meetings is that no one seems interested in killing the White Flint Plan. Even the die-hard opponents’ letters don’t argue for building only Phase One. As someone said this morning, everyone’s looking for a way out of this box.

The problem is that the Council did not, in fact, fix the problem with the old Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance (”growth policy”) last fall. Under pressure from a state-mandated deadline, the Council unanimously adopted the same old automobile-oriented tests. The Council staff (and Executive) can’t ignore that vote. They have to use those tests, even if everyone realizes they are completely out of place in a transit-oriented, urban-style development such as White Flint.

And, as I’ve been mentioning, they, and the Planning staff working with them, are really trying hard to reconcile the irreconcileable. They’ve been working for over a month to find a solution, and no deus ex machina has appeared. All of these great minds have not come up with a solution that can meld the two theories of car speed and sustainable development.

So the solution will have to come from the Council itself. Will White Flint die to give cars 30 seconds more? Or will the Council recognize that they should probably not use car-oriented tests in a transit-oriented 21st-century Plan?

To put it another way: cars or carbon. 

If you have a preference — cars or transit – by all means, tell your Councilmembers about it. I think the Council is well aware of that choice. I’m not sure that pressuring them will add much. That’s why I haven’t asked people to mass-mail the Council, even though it’s been recommended.

We’ll re-evaluate after tomorrow’s PHED Committee meeting. Then we’ll know whether some of the most brilliant minds on the Council (Councilmembers Knapp, Floreen and Elrich, usually assisted by Berliner, who sits in with the Committee on White Flint Plan meetings) can wrestle this problem into a harness that will work for everyone.

Barnaby Zall

What a week!

Things aren’t looking great for the future of White Flint right now. Several problems are converging, just as we reach “crunch time” for the consideration of the White Flint Sector Plan.

First, the Planning, Housing and Economic Development Committee of the Montgomery County Council has been working hard on a review of the Planning Board’s draft of the White Flint Sector Plan. Most people thought the PHED Committee was fairly comfortable with the Plan, including its most innovative features of making a walkable, sustainable area with a higher level of density around the Metro Station. But there were some nagging issues, one of which has just exploded.

One of the biggest issues, which I’ve written about before, is the collision between the walkable, transit-oriented White Flint Plan and the County’s out-moded automobile-centric traffic measurements. We’ve been fighting this battle for a while now, with some opponents using the Annual Growth Policy (which tests how fast cars move through intersections to measure “quality of life”) to attack the White Flint Plan, which uses an entirely different set of tests. In other words, the Plan doesn’t measure quality of life by how fast cars go; it uses a whole lot of other tests. We thought we were past that, as it appeared the Council recognized the value of treating White Flint differently; after all, why would the County use car speed tests in an area where it wants people to walk. It’s a simple rule: as car speed increases, walkability decreases. Faster cars = more people run over. Everyone (but the County Dept. of Transportation) understands that.

Unfortunately, the Council never really made those automobile-oriented tests go away. It just shoved them off into the corner, with a promise to revisit them in the spring. The Committee staff has been wrestling with reconciling the two mutually-contradictory approaches for months now. It’s a tough job, and you could see the staff just squirming in their seats trying to make this work.

Since we’re nearing the end of the road for the Plan’s consideration, the tests have come roaring back out of the dark corner. And you know who wins when a car hits a pedestrian?

Let’s be specific here: the PHED Committee staff report on “transportation” (what we call “mobility”) in the White Flint Plan is now publicly available. You can get a copy here:

http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/content/council/pdf/agenda/cm/2010/100119/20100119_PHED1.pdf

Look at the top of P. 4 of the memo:

Council staff recommends approving the Sector Plan with an ultimate land use and zoning that reflects the Committee’s aggregate review of all the individual properties in the area, but limiting the amount of growth to the 3,000 dwelling units and 2 million square feet of non-residential development in Phase 1.  

[emphasis in original] Translation: only Phase 1 of the White Flint Plan will be allowed to proceed. Phases 2 and 3 will not move forward until cars can go faster on Rockville Pike.

Now add the second problem: the County Executive, faced with an enormous budget problem, has decided to defund the Transportation Management Districts. In a couple parts of the County, TMDs are the principal implementors of the efforts to move people out of cars and onto transit. They are fully funded, through things like parking meters. We didn’t have parking meters in a lot of places until they were put in to fund the TMDs. But the Executive has decided that the need to fund other things in other places is greater than the need to do what the County promised when it set up the TMDs. That was fifteen years ago, after all, so why should the County keep its promises after that long?

This is the same thing the Executive has said it wants to do with White Flint. White Flint is projected to raise BILLIONS for the County. To pay for all that needed infrastructure everyone wants to see, the Plan suggests reserving a small amount (less than ten percent) of the new money raised in White Flint; the County Executive said that was unacceptable. The Executive wants the “flexibility” to take money generated in White Flint for other parts of the County. ALL the money. It’s a “fairness” issue, they say.

Bottom line: as I’ve said before, one of the biggest problems facing the White Flint Sector Plan is people’s fear that the County will not follow-through on its promises. These are two pretty blatant examples of how those fears are justified. In two different, but related areas. Quite simply: infrastructure takes money. Money comes from bonds. Without certainty, no bonds will be sold.

If only Phase 1 is approved, no bonds will be sold to pay for infrastructure. Why would people buy bonds if there is no economic activity to pay for them because Phases 2 and 3 are uncertain? And if the money that is generated in an area under a 15-year-old County agreement can be redirected to areas of “greater need”, how could a prospective bondholder be confident that any money generated in White Flint wouldn’t be diverted away from repaying the White Flint bonds?

Hence, no White Flint. No County commitment = no money. No money = no White Flint.

So, here we go. Cars win; pedestrians lose. More congestion. More carbon. Lots more problems. All because the County’s commitments seem as ephemeral as a male’s in a Drew Barrymore movie.

Friends of White Flint has already made its position plain on this. Here’s what we said in our Report to the Council on the White Flint Plan on October 19:

            There is opposition to the Plan, as there will be with all innovation and change.  The biggest reason for opposition (again, based on our discussion with thousands of County residents, and on our public opinion polling) is skepticism that the County will fulfill its promises. Quite simply, County residents have seen many County initiatives to protect the environment and provide smarter growth, and have seen many of them fail. The best example in this community is the 1992 North Bethesda-Garrett Park Master Plan, which had grand intentions, but produced the White Flint we know today.

            We believe that this skepticism can be countered by strong County leadership. The simplest example is for the County to make the commitments we request in our proposed improvements in the Plan: to transit, to timing improvements, to family-, pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly amenities, and most importantly, to the financing and management mechanisms which should guarantee that the Plan is implemented as expected.

Let’s hope the Council stands up against these — and other — attempts to gut the Plan before it’s even approved.

Barnaby Zall

The Friends of White Flint Board of Directors has scheduled elections for open seats for late April. All Directors are volunteers, there is no compensation for serving, and FoWF has averaged about two Board meetings a month, although that number goes much higher during some busy periods.

Only FoWF members (or, for organization members, their designated representatives) in good standing may be nominated or elected, and preference is given to those who have been active within FoWF activities. If you are unsure about whether you are an eligible member (or have other questions about the elections or FoWF activities), please contact me at bzall@friendsofwhiteflint.org or your class’s Co-Chair (Suzanne Hudson for Residents, suzanne.hudson@friendsofwhiteflint.org; me for Business; or Evan Goldman for Property Owners/Developers, evan.goldman@friendsofwhiteflint.org).  

The FoWF Board has nine seats, divided evenly between residents/community organizations, businesses, and property owners/developers. (Associate members are not eligible for election or voting.) Terms of office are for three years, and the terms are staggered so that three seats, one in each class of members, are up for election each year. Thus, this year the seats up for re-election are:

Residents/Community Organizations:  John Fry, from the Fallstone community

Businesses: Mike Springer, from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Property Owner/Developer: Mike Smith, from LCOR.

These Directors may run for re-election. Only members of the relevant membership class can nominate for, be nominated to, vote for or be elected to the seat from that class. For example, only residents can vote for the Residents/Community Organizations seat on the FoWF Board. Each member (including member organizations) has one vote within the appropriate class. Each class is responsible for conducting the nominations and election process for its class. Legally, the ultimate selection process is governed by the FoWF Board of Directors, which has final authority over any disputes and elections.

All current Friends (including Associate members) should have received a special election announcement; if you believe you are a member and didn’t receive this e-mail, please contact me. bzall@friendsofwhiteflint.org. If you are not currently a FoWF member, and wish to participate, please join as soon as possible. You can find an application online, with more details about classes and required membership dues, on our main website: www.whiteflint.org.

Friends of White Flint has scheduled a Board meeting for Thursday, January 14, 2010, to discuss election procedures and policies. The meeting, like all FoWF meetings, is open and will be held at 4:30PM in the offices of Federal Realty Investment Trust, 1626 E. Jefferson, Rockville.

Barnaby Zall

There’s been a flurry of economic-development-related news in the last few days. Most of it is great and on the right track, but there’s a missing final point that needs to be addressed. First the good news: Montgomery County Councilmember and newly-elected Council President Nancy Floreen wrote in the Gazette that “Without question, my top priority as County Council president will be to restart our economic engine and make sure it stays ignited.”

Floreen announced that she would propose “a completely new Economic Development Authority, on a magnitude and design that has not been aggressively pursued before in Montgomery County. Dire times require bold solutions. We need an infusion of new investments. We need to stabilize certain vital sectors, like retail and the construction industries. We need the banking community to reliably supply capital to small businesses. We need to partner with the federal and state governments for building-block grants in such growth areas as health care, IT and energy. Our universities need to align their research and applied enterprises with the county’s long-term economic development priorities. We have to formulate workable enterprise zones for maximizing the entrepreneurial spirit. And our scientific laboratories should be ahead of the curve in uncovering the next wave of cutting-edge and market-ready technology. Fundamentally, I am talking about a public-private partnership, which leverages the best minds, resources and institutions — all aimed at springboarding our economy forward.”

You can read Floreen’s op-ed here: http://www.gazette.net/stories/01062010/montlet174744_32548.php

A few posts ago, I talked about how the County was slipping behind its neighbors in attracting just the kind of new businesses and business investment Floreen would like to see. The Gazette responded to Floreen’s proposal with an editorial on the same subject:

 [Floreen’s] proposal for a new economic development authority should help raise awareness about a boiling-over anxiety among business leaders that the county is slipping behind competitors when it comes to attracting companies (and jobs). However, without a clear focus and the right people in key positions, the proposal will amount to little more than a rebranding of existing efforts. Floreen said she is accepting ideas from the business community as to how the authority could be developed and envisions one similar to agencies in Prince William and Fairfax counties in Northern Virginia. Council member Mike Knapp also plans to introduce some form of a biotech tax credit, which should help attract business. One question is whether these efforts are too late for the eventual recovery.

.     .     .     .      .

Growth — Two major growth plans are coming up a vote. The White Flint Sector Plan should be ready by February and will outline development, including thousands of homes, for the next 30 years near the White Flint Metro Station. (On a side note, council member Duchy Trachtenberg plans to introduce a bill that would mandate oversight of the implementation of redevelopment projects like White Flint).

You can read the full Gazette editorial, which covered several other points on the Council agenda as well, here:

http://www.gazette.net/stories/01062010/montedi174744_32547.php 

So, everyone’s thinking about the same things: how do we help our less-fortunate (including the newly- and long-term unemployed), balance our budgets, invest in the infrastructure, cut our carbon emissions, and do all the other things we’d like to see in our public sector, while at the same time, bring in the money to do that. Lots of people want the County to do lots of new things — great things, welcome things, really neat things — but it’s really hard to see how to bring in new money for those new things. Otherwise, you’re just robbing Peter to pay Paul. Somebody else thinks the money you’d take away to pay for your great things will cost them the opportunity to do their own great things. So you need new money to do new things. And the new money is best gotten from people who voluntarily enter our community, not those struggling to stay here against ever-rising costs and seemingly-shrinking assets.

So we want to bring in those new people who want to join our community. But so do all the other communities facing the same budget woes. Some of them have done well recently. Hilton Hotels is moving to Tyson’s Corner; Volkswagen to Herndon. A huge percentage of new agencies and businesses have been setting down roots in the burgeoning, but transit-oriented Ballston-Rosslyn corridor of Arlington County (I know, in part, because I go to an increasing number of business-related meetings there). General Dynamics has its headquarters in Northern Virginia. On the other hand, Lockheed Martin is already here in Montgomery County, in North Bethesda, to be exact.

And just yesterday another big opportunity (or test) popped up. Defense contracting giant Northrop Grumman announced that it would move its headquarters from Los Angeles to the Washington, D.C. area. That’s logical, since its biggest customer is the federal government. But where to plant that new space? Montgomery County would love to have Northrop join Lockheed, and is actively courting the relocation.

Here are stories from the Washington Post and Gazette on the efforts:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/04/AR2010010402643.html?sub=AR

http://www.gazette.net/stories/01042010/businew174445_32564.php

There isn’t a lot of time for the County to ponder Floreen’s proposal if it wants to influence this decision; Northrop will make its decision in just a few months. But it shows that she’s on the right track.

On the other hand, there is a missing element here. After all, just imagine the pitch to a Los Angeles-based company: “yeah, we have just the sprawl and crawl you have in L.A. Do you like the San Diego Freeway? Well, you have the 405 freeway, we have 495, the Beltway.” Isn’t that enticing? Not to anyone who’s tried to get to LAX on a busy weekday. “Oh, and that new light rail that LA just built? We haven’t got one of those yet, but we’re thinking about it.” “You’re THINKING about it?” “Um, yeah, we have great plans.”

If you want to attract companies who want walkable communities, you have to build one. Not just think about it. Wouldn’t that pitch go SO much better if we could say: “Yeah, we’re on the cutting edge of community design. We have an award-winning plan for a new community which is walkable, sustainable, and transit-oriented. And we are committed to making it work. We’re going to make it happen. Here are the ways we’re going to be sure that it gets built. Come here and you’ll be part of a brand-new community.” 

So what’s missing? The confidence that the County will actually grow those marvelous plans into reality. I’ve had this conversation with the County Executive and with Councilmembers: everybody likes the Plan, but is scared to death that the County won’t do what it says. Just like the 1992 Master Plan said great things, but gave us lovely Rockville Pike. 

This isn’t all that hard to fix. We have the perfect opportunity right here, and it’s in front of the Council right now. Perfect timing. Let’s get the County to commit to the White Flint Plan — in a way that can be measured and monitored over time — and use it to begin to attract those new companies. Commitment and follow-through, that’s the real need here.

Barnaby Zall

The Montgomery County Council is considering the draft of the White Flint Sector Plan recommended by the Planning Board. Most of the work thus far has been done in the Planning, Housing and Economic Development (PHED) Committee, but soon other committees will begin to weigh in, and the full Council will likely consider the Plan in February.

The PHED Committee, which has been tackling the transportation, land use and public facilities issues, has scheduled another meeting to consider the Commercial/Residential (CR) Zone for next Monday, January 11. The CR Zone is the new incentive-based proposal for zoning in White Flint, and has recently been considered for other areas in the County. The CR Zone combines an overall density limit, sub-limits for both commercial and residential development, and a height limit. There has been significant push-back from the Council to the new zoning system, and it is unclear how and when the CR Zone will emerge from the legislative meatgrinder.

The PHED Committee moves back to considering the Plan itself on Tuesday, January 19. The agenda includes both transportation and land use issues.

On January 21, a bit of a wild-card is thrown into the mix, as the PHED Committee looks at amending the Annual Growth Policy. As discussed last month, one of the difficulties in the White Flint Planning Process is that the Council is trying to develop a whole new transit-oriented and sustainable growth paradigm in the White Flint Plan, while maintaining the existing automobile-centric Growth Policy held over from prior years. The legal and political pressures from squeezing 21st Century carbon reduction needs (and legal requirements) into sprawl-generating transportation tests which measure quality of life by how fast cars move through intersections are almost hydraulic in their incompressibility. This has required the PHED Committee in particular to jump through various hoops to figure out how to conform the two. Perhaps the PHED Committee will take this opportunity to reconcile the two zeitgeists.

Then on January 26, the big kahuna of legislative hearings is scheduled. The PHED Committee is joining with the Management and Fiscal Policy Committee to consider the financial aspects of the Plan. Perhaps one of the biggest questions in all such government proposals is “how do you pay for it?” The White Flint area has always been one of the biggest retail locations in Maryland, and financial projections of the White Flint Plan have indicated that a County investment of $100 million in new streets and infrastructure would result in between $2 and $7 billion in additional revenues. So it’s a big revenue source for Montgomery County, if it is done correctly.

The White Flint Plan has a comprehensive proposal for funding and timing of payments which was carefully worked out over four years, and which includes agreements from all the biggest property owners to take on the lion’s share of the costs for the infrastructure development. Where the County would put in less than $100 million, the property owners would pay $400 million or more. The property owners agreed to a new tax on commercial development to pay for the new infrastructure.

Yet the Plan immediately drew fire from the County Executive, which argued that a rich area like White Flint shouldn’t be able to reserve even ten percent of the new money its development produces, but instead the Executive should be able to designate when and where revenues should go. The debate is arcane, involving TIFs and bonding authorities, but the stalemate over funding threatens the entire Plan. Absent a predictable and stable funding source, it is unlikely that the County could sell the appropriate bonds to pay for the new infrastructure.

Barnaby Zall