CROWDED SCHOOLS TOP RESIDENT CONCERNS AT WESTBARD SECTOR PLAN MEETING (PHOTOS)

Already-overcrowded public schools, along with traffic and building heights, were among the hot-button issues discussed at a Westbard Sector Plan "Primer" last night in Bethesda. The meeting was organized by the Sumner Civic Association, after Sumner residents expressed alarm in May at the rapid pace of the redevelopment process, now driven by developer Equity One's plans for the Westwood Complex. The association's president said the short-notice meeting was needed to alert residents before school ends, and many families leave for summer vacations.

At the River Road Unitarian Church last evening, Montgomery County planning officials laid out the timetable and public input process for the Westbard Sector Plan rewrite, which launches next month.

Planning staff work - including a Scope of Work - will begin in July and run through February 2015. A draft sector plan will go before the public and Planning Board between March and August 2015. The public will speak at a County Council hearing in November 2015, and the council review period and approval will stretch into Spring 2016.

Westbard Sector Plan timeline
from Montgomery County Planning
Department presentation

Pamela Dunn, of the Planning Director's office, explained that the county's new zoning code would be applied to the Equity One properties once the county council passes the map amendment. According to Dunn, the Westwood Shopping Center would be then eligible for a 45' building height, and a .75 FAR density ratio. However, Equity One could - and almost certainly would - request additional height and density through the Westbard Sector Plan rewrite. That puts such factors ultimately in the hands of the Planning Board and County Council.

EYA, the development partner selected by Equity One, has made sizable campaign contributions to county elected officials. Campaign signs promoting Councilmember Nancy Floreen (D-At Large) were erected on the Westwood Shopping Center and Westwood Center II properties owned by Equity One last week.

Pamela Dunn of the Montgomery County
Planning Department explains how the
new NR and CRT zones would apply
on Westbard Avenue as early
as this summer

That is where citizen input in this process is going to be critical. Bob Cope of the Citizens Coordinating Committee on Friendship Heights urged residents to get involved at every stage of the process. Schools were on top of Cope's list, as they were on many other participants'. If the new sector plan doesn't address current and Westbard-related school overcrowding, Cope said, there shouldn't be a sector plan at all.

Rob Snow, representing the Wood Acres PTA, outlined the grim situation at Wood Acres ES, as well as in the Whitman Cluster. Wood Acres was built in 2002 for 550 students, but currently houses about 800. A new addition scheduled to open in fall 2016 will bring capacity to the mid 700s, still short of today's 800 student population. That is before any new students are added from new development on Equity One's sites along Westbard Avenue and Ridgefield Road. Incoming Wood Acres PTA president Jason Sartori noted at a recent community meeting that Wood Acres could lose its music room, if it has to be converted to a classroom in the coming years. The music program there would be reduced to a cart rolling to classrooms. There simply is no more room at Wood Acres, the assigned elementary school for all of the Equity One properties. According to the county, Wood Acres ES cannot be expanded any further after this addition is constructed. End of story.

One attendee commented that, while she recognized the Equity One retail and commercial sites were not modern in design, and that they could be enhanced, that she did not want the high-density, urban-style development proposed by Equity One. Her remarks generated enthusiastic applause among the crowd.

I thought it was notable - and reason for concern - that planners are going to use the "Visual Preferences Survey" for the Westbard plan, as they currently are on the downtown Bethesda Plan.

The "data" generated by these surveys are in no way scientific. If you ask anyone who works in the field of scientific surveys, they will tell you that the data generated by this sort of anonymous online poll is absolutely, positively useless (unless you are seeking junk data!). A majority of poll-takers may not even be actual residents. I recall seeing someone on Twitter referring to taking the downtown Bethesda survey, whose Twitter bio stated he lived in the District.

What's troubling, is that the planners know this. So why do they want to sort through bad, useless data? If they are really serious about a Visual Preferences Survey, they should mail either a paper survey to residents, or a password to take a locked survey online. You have to ask yourself why they aren't doing that. In effect, a developer can have its own people click on these surveys repeatedly, to generate the results they want.

With jammed schools and roads already a problem, either the residential component of the Equity One plan - and the larger Westbard Sector Plan vision - will have to be scaled back, or developers will have to foot the bill for a new elementary school, at minimum. Pyle MS and Whitman HS are over-capacity, as well.

One issue that didn't come up last night, was the health of the Little Falls Stream. Councilmembers recently curtailed development plans in the Ten Mile Creek watershed in Clarksburg. What residents in Bethesda need to know is, will those principles apply to the Little Falls watershed, which is in far worse condition than Ten Mile Creek's? Some of the Equity One property is literally on the banks of the stream, with the Westwood Center II being the most notable case.

The Ten Mile principles did not apply here in the Hoyt property case two years ago (which also involved EYA). Will they apply now with the Ten Mile precedent being set?

Certainly, the 1982 Westbard Sector Plan is in need of an update. But since the county took its time all these decades, and allowed the area to become the self-storage capital of the world, it can certainly take the time now to create a plan that puts residents first.