Last revised in 1982, the archaic Westbard plan has languished for over 30 years.
The report states that "the Westbard Plan needs to be updated as soon as possible, given the age of the Plan and the interest from both the property owner and community in moving forward."
Two problems:
First, the moving up of the Westbard process will result in the delay of the Gaithersburg East, Aspen Hill "and Vicinity," and White Flint Phase II plans. The Rock Spring plan - also located in Bethesda - remains in flux, as well. Leaders in the communities affected by the Gaithersburg East/Montgomery Village Plan are not pleased by this sudden news, and are mobilizing support to keep their plan from getting bumped to the back burner by Equity One's Westbard push. In contrast to the absence of planning for the future of the Westbard area as a whole, Montgomery Village has already gone through a planning process, and has produced a Vision 2030 concept for future development. No such detailed work or document has been generated for Westbard yet. Is it therefore ready to jump ahead of communities who are further along in the process?
Westbard is currently scheduled for review in September 2017; Gaithersburg East/Montgomery Village is scheduled for January 2016. Planners are now suggesting flipping Westbard to November 2015, and GE/MV to September 2016.
Second, this is just the latest instance of Westbard planning being mismanaged by the planning department. If you are so derelict as to leave a plan sit for 32 years, you can't suddenly feign a sense of urgency just because a developer is ready to do something. If the rewrite was about a larger vision, and not a rush to help a particular developer, this could have been started years ago.
A master plan process is designed to determine a vision for the area in question, and guidelines for achieving that vision. The tail can't wag the dog here - the top priority is figuring out what the entire land area is going to look like in 20 years. The planning board and council already sabotaged the Westbard Sector Plan update early, by approving an incompatible use within the industrial area. An EYA townhome development there was given the green light, without any community or planning staff discussion of a critical question - what uses will be permitted in the Westbard industrial area in the future? Is that a place that should remain as a location for services and industrial uses? Housing? Land for corporate headquarters?
And what about the already-stressed Little Falls watershed that runs through the Westbard area? Planners and councilmembers rushed to profitable judgement, allowing a residential development on the banks of the stream. Now we're stuck with a potential mishmash, and lost opportunities.
Is it time to update the Westbard plan? Absolutely. Should that plan be tailored precisely to one developer's proposal for one property within the larger plan area? No way.
24 comments:
Many of the industrial zones of Bethesda are in close proximity to the former Georgetown Branch of the B&O. They no longer make any sense. The remaining industrial uses at Westbard should be phased out just like they were in the Bethesda Row area.
There will always be some industrial use I think around the TV tower, since I doubt homes would be built around the base of the tower.
I can see much of the rest of the industrial phased out. I'm sure the new residents in the EYA townhomes aren't going to stand for those eyesores outside their homes, such as all of the VW cars hanging in midair cages at the service center.
It sounds like the MoCo council is screwing over Gaithersburg by delaying their plan.
OK Bobby D - here you go again with your developer bashing. I don't know why you have it out for Westbard. Let me help explain how this works: the Council represents the PEOPLE in their districts. Elections are later this year. If people actually agree with you and disagree with the Council, then they will vote these members out of their post. I know your pinko, Communist, anti-developer mind is blown by this idea but to say that poor Montgomery Village is going to get shuffled to the back is not an argument against moving forward on Westbard.
There is a real issue going forward - if you phase out all industrial areas in the downcounty (and eventually, upcounty), where will residents obtain these services? I'm not necessarily taking a position that the current industrial area should stay that way. But we need to make clear in the planning process how loss of services and industrial jobs will be addressed countywide. Also, there is a sensitive watershed there, and that should be reflected in the level of development allowed.
Yes, it would seem to me that there will be more demand for McDonald's and retail (on the current storage site next to McDonald's) than housing at the base of a tower.
I'm not anti-developer. I'm criticizing the process and the planning department record over 4 decades on Westbard. And I criticized what was a terrible and irresponsible planning decision by the board and council on the Hoyt property. That's their fault, not the developer. If Equity One was talking about creating something like Milestone, Congressional Plaza or the original Wheaton Plaza, on a smaller scale, I'd be more in favor of that. A town center in a residential neighborhood? That doesn't make sense, particularly with no Metro in walking distance, and existing traffic congestion.
I'd suggest looking at Shops at Sumner Place or Fallsgrove Shopping Center as examples of what I'm talking about in my above comment.
Anyone who says Robert "has it out" for Westbard is quite mistaken. With Robert's roots in Bethesda, he's looking for the best result. He also took a principled stand with the EYA townhomes that built automobile access through Little Falls park.
I'm sure Equity One's PR firm will continue to post here. They're paid to control the message. Citizens need to express their views meanwhile.
Explain to me the difference between congressional plaza and what is proposed at Westbard? I'll bet you can't because nothing beyond a vague overlay has been released. Railing against developers by using the buzzword "town center" is misleading. Furthermore, while I agree about the lack of community input about the Little falls eya project - very interested to hear how you think a run down cement factory is a better use. Highest and best use. That is a buzzword you should focus on when evaluating these projects. County should have bought it for parkland. That would've been expensive parkland considering what eya paid and I would've been mighty unhappy if my taxes were used for such isolated unstrategic parcel.
Lastly, if you think everyone that is pro-development works with Equity One than you are close minded and clueless and you should get every citizen to respond. Just make sure you're giving them both sides of the story!!!!!!
The significant difference between Congressional Plaza and Equity One's current proposal is that CP is not a mixed-use shopping center. It has ample surface parking, and great dining and retail.
You are exactly right about purchasing the Hoyt property for parkland. Here's my thought about how that could have been done: If the planning board and council had taken a position that the Hoyt property would not rezoned as residential, its value would have been dramatically lower, as you can imagine.
That would have put the price range within that of similar properties the planning board has acquired adjacent to existing parkland, in areas like the Northwest Branch last year.
So, had there been real leadership at the county level, your tax dollars would not have been wasted, as the land would never have been worth what EYA paid for it. I think all of those properties adjacent to the stream valley are "strategic" in relation to environmental and public health concerns.
I don't have anything against Equity One personally. When I looked at the company's portfolio, and their expertise in retail and running shopping centers, my initial reaction was positive. They certainly sounded like an improvement over Capital Properties. I would be supportive if the proposal for Westbard was more in line with their other successful retail centers. The neighborhood potentially could benefit greatly from Equity One's experience in the retail and restaurant field.
Judging from the applause for critics of the proposal at the last meeting, I'm certainly not a minority dissenter. But that doesn't mean Equity One can't adjust the plan and still have a successful redevelopment. I am definitely open-minded to something that doesn't change the character of the area.
Enlighten me as I have no idea how planning works. Why can't the planners work on all 3 projects at once?
You're right in that the county is divided up into planning areas, with staff assigned to each. It's probably more due to the planning board and council having to handle them one at a time, than the planning staff.
So just to be clear, you are against any and all residential component being added to westbard? On what grounds may I politely ask? School overcrowding? Traffic? By taking a position against residential before the planning board has a chance to evaluate either of those? This is what I mean about an open mind you are jumping the gun. And as far as little falls townhomes, are you saying that there is environmental harm caused more by toe homes than by a cement factory? Can you expound?
By the way - your congresional plaza analogy is totally flawed. There is a residential component. Misinformation needs to stop. It is the worst kind of pollutant. A pollutant of the minds of unsuspecting citizens reading your blog:
http://crestatcongressional.com/
I don't understand, what is there to "evaluate" regarding the impact of adding residential to Westbard? WoodAcres ES has 6 trailers outside - today, before even adding any more development. Traffic is backed up on River Road every rush hour. Any "evaluation" that determined there was extra capacity for schools and roads would have no credibility whatsoever, and be recognized as such.
The Hoyt property townhomes are definitely worse for the health of the stream than the alternative of the county acquiring the site as parkland. The townhome massing is equivalent to an office building, as viewed from the park. The factory site was contaminated with MTBE, so you have a potential runoff issue during construction. Sites around it are likely contaminated as well, since the fuel spill was uphill from the bottom of Butler Road.
I was pretty clear in saying the scale at Westbard is smaller than Milestone, Congressional, etc. Westbard already has Kenwood Place, Westwood Tower, and Park Bethesda, The Kenwood, Westbard Mews - far more units than Congressional has.
What is there to evaluate? Good question. Again pretty simple lesson. You say Woodacres is working out of trailers. Why do you suppose that is? I havne't seen the numbers but I'm pretty confident it is because the County cannot find money in the budget to build the needed expansion so they stuff kids into trailers. In your society, we have more parkland, overcrowded schools and high taxes (and still a potentially polluted river from the cement factory not the townhomes). In mine, we expand the tax base, raiase revneue sensibly without hitting the little affordable housing that remains, and build sensibly with the highest and best use in mind. Again, it is more about the one sidedness than your arugment. You have an arguement, I just think it is wrong and one sided and you should try to be more balanced.
Back to EYA, the townhome massing may be equivalent to a boutique office but the comparison is totally flawed. Office space is currently utilized at 150sf per employee the townhomes are about 650sf per person so almost 400% more human impact in an office building. We are discussing only the new developments, what exists does not count. Nothing existed next to Congressional Plaza, does that mean it was okay to build residential? No. Obviously. You take each individual parcel and project and evaluate it on its merits and then evaluate it as a whole project. How many units is Equity planning to add? Do you know? No because no one does. Again unequivocally saying no resiential belongs is irresonsible and shows just how prograndist you can be. I am just trying to help people understand.
I don't know why the keyboard does not work right... prograndist is obviously propogandist.
The "expand the tax base" argument is often cited, but the reality is, the cost per new citizen exceeds whatever revenue is generated. Schools, roads, police and fire, county services - those and many other new costs are not factored into the promised revenue windfall.
In regard to the massing of the Little Falls townhomes, I'm referring to the physical massing of the townhouse structure. The new development is much more intrusive into the park than the factory was. The environmental impact is significantly worse than if the county had acquired the parcel, and converted it to parkland. Vehicular traffic and auto emissions are going to be far higher than those produced by the existing industrial use. There wasn't much going on there in recent years.
I wouldn't go as far as to simply say, "no residential." But the diagram shown indicates residential on the vast majority of the land. Mixed-use, in an abysmal office market, literally means residential. Otherwise, it would say "retail" or "commercial." You can't have mixed-use with only one use. Unless Equity One plans to operate a vacant office building, those structures will almost certainly be residential. The nursing home property is residential.
This isn't propaganda, because I did not produce the diagram; the developer did. I agree that each property should be considered on its merits, but we also have to put it into the full context of what is going on around it.
We're starting to agree! If all the residential is built at once, would be terrible idea and could tank the overall success. I believe the residential pieces will be built over a 5 year period after the retail. This is pure speculation but it makes total sense and I hope it is what happens.
Only other thing I want to note is that you cite "new costs" don't cover an expanded tax base. That only happens when you have large development or reach a certain mass. That is what the planning depts job is. They didn't go out and hire a new policeman or fireman because town homes were built. So the costs aren't new, and there the tax base argument hold however, it cannot be used in all cases because eventually you run into the situation you describe where you have a project that is going to "take" more than they "give". Again, since we agree each should be evaluated than assuming the planning dept is competent ( different discussion) they can figure out which scenario it is. They were right about the Hoyt site.
Based on the facts of the case, the board and council were wrong about the Hoyt property, and contradicted themselves on oft-claimed planning goals. They sabotaged both the Westbard Sector Plan rewrite, and the health of Little Falls stream, and set a new precedent for allowing private developers to utilize parkland. It was an astonishing decision that was never covered in-depth by the local media.
The Little Falls townhouses are a great design. I wonder if they have views of the surrounding industrial area or was EYA able to shield most of that?
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