GROWTH AND PLANNING

Planning for Growth without Gridlock

In my first year in office, I joined the late Councilmember Marilyn Praisner in a successful effort to tighten the Adequate Public Facilities Tests and increase the impact fees on new development. As the economy begins to revive, the new fee structure will provide tens of millions of dollars for schools and transportation that would otherwise have been borne by County taxpayers.

More recently, as a member of the Council’s Planning, Housing, and Economic Development Committee, I advocated for truly smart-growth decisions in both the White Flint Sector Plan and the Gaithersburg West Master Plan, suggesting a number of changes that will provide greater protections not only for existing neighborhoods but for new communities to be built in the future.

 

White Flint

At my urging, the White Flint Sector Plan requires the highest percentage use of non-single-occupancy vehicles of any area in the County. My proposal for a rapid transit system on Rockville Pike (part of a countywide system I have been pushing for) should play a major role in making this happen. I hope that a redesigned Rockville Pike will become a model for a major transportation corridor that provides an attractive bike- and pedestrian-friendly environment with tree, wide sidewalks, and street-level retail. A major task remaining is to establish a financing mechanism that ensures timely build-out of infrastructure – improved intersections, streets in a “grid” pattern, and land acquisition for public amenities. Developers in White Flint will contribute substantial amounts of money to a development district that will concentrate funds for these area-wide long-term improvements.

 

Gaithersburg West

I view the outcome in Gaithersburg West as mixed. The plan adopted by the Council, known as the Great Seneca Science Corridor Master Plan, has some troubling underlying concepts that do not comport with true smart growth. True smart growth must provide meaningful alternatives to travel by car.  However, the Council made several key improvements to the plan, including a reduction of the maximum allowable existing and proposed commercial space in the plan from the proposed 20 million square feet to 17.5 million square feet. Another key amendment calls for each office building to have a minimum of 40% of its floor space devoted to life science activities. Although I remain concerned about the impacts of a high-density plan that will have very little transit service, I am hopeful that the plan we adopted will bring substantial growth in life sciences and health care jobs.

 

The Rest of the County

Now, we are getting ready to consider plans in other parts of the county – for example, the East County/Route 29 area, where we hope to see another cluster of life science activities to complement the nearby FDA facilities and the future relocation of the Washington Adventist Hospital; and the Wheaton, Takoma/Langley and Kensington areas, where appropriate infill development and redevelopment is crucial. We must also be ready to respond to problem areas in older master plans that may not be working as envisioned, such as the downtown Sandy Spring area and the Burtonsville business district.

I believe it is essential to have a process in place that monitors traffic conditions, and if congestion in an area becomes unacceptable there must be remedies. We talk a great deal about giving the developers certainty so that they will invest in projects throughout the county, but the residents are investors, too, perhaps the biggest investors. They need certainty that the neighborhoods where they live will not be overwhelmed by traffic and air pollution, that their quality of life and investment in their homes will not be degraded. That is why we need to adopt amendments to the Growth Policy that provide an alternative mechanism for measuring traffic congestion and assuring the timely build-out of the necessary infrastructure.I am looking forward to receiving the County Executive’s special report and recommendations for growth policy amendments that could make a difference in how, when, and where we grow.

And, finally, we need to make sure that the planning process recognizes and addresses the divergent needs of the different areas of the county, ranging from the high-density Metro Station policy areas to the suburban residential communities to the rural parts of the county. I am looking forward to working on these issues with the new Planning Board Chair, Francoise Carrier.