Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Council feeling heat over Westbard plan; time to crank it up

The Montgomery County Council has clearly heard the voices of residents who marched in protest against the Westbard sector plan twice this past weekend. Council President Nancy Floreen has now delayed the final vote on the plan - despite the appearance of sufficient votes to easily pass it - until the first week in May.

But while they may sense some danger to their political careers, they don't yet seem to fully understand the depth of opposition to their so-called "compromise." Floreen suggested yesterday that "most community members" would eventually like the plan they are poised to approve.

Really? The plan hundreds were marching against was that compromise plan! Among the signs carried by protesters was one calling on voters to "Dump Berliner" - Roger Berliner, the Councilman who was behind the compromise plan folks were marching against.

Floreen also claimed their work had addressed the issues of transportation and school capacity. Absolute baloney! There is not a single project in the plan to add capacity to River Road, which would be receiving 2618 new automobiles, in addition to the 3000 new commuters who will start driving to the ICC-B intelligence campus on Sangamore Road this year.

Nuts.

The Council's analysis included their staff ridiculing the hard work of the PTA volunteers in the Whitman cluster, even though the latter's numbers were more accurate than staff's. Staff produced no potential school site, and we've learned in the process not only how expensive it is to reopen a closed school, but that MCPS is loathe to do it for just that reason. Ultimately, the staff and a majority on the Council concluded that there is no capacity problem(!), and that any students generated will be well-absorbed thanks to millions in magic money that will somehow appear just in time, and under the premise that the U.S. economy will not enter recession through the year 2040. This in a cluster where kids take gym class in a hallway at Pyle MS, and a cart on wheels passes for a "music room" at Wood Acres ES.

Nuts.

Floreen also claimed that there won't be tall buildings adjacent to the single-family homes in Springfield, despite having cast a straw vote to approve a 75' (before density bonuses) building directly across the street from a single-family home on Ridgefield Road.

Then, astonishingly, Floreen doubled down on the literally-illegal argument that urban heights can be added to Westbard because "there already are very tall buildings" there. This coming from a former Montgomery County planning commissioner who regularly touts that credential during election season is a disqualifying statement. She is attempting to mislead her constituents. Floreen was a major proponent of the County's new zoning code, under which the buildings she is referring to could not be constructed today. They are non-conforming structures.

She then repeated it again, claiming residents "don't realize there are some pretty tall buildings there on Westbard." Unreal! Floreen just claimed you, the resident, are an idiot. You've lived there X number of years, and you haven't realized there are a handful of non-conforming high-rises scattered across the plan area. What is the Council President's level of self-awareness? Does she think about these talking points before delivering them?

So, does Nancy Floreen not know the County's zoning code, or is she intentionally trying to deceive her constituents? Neither one is a winning attribute.

Even Bill Turque of the Washington Post noted to Floreen that the compromise she is still touting "is simply not enough" in the view of residents. Given that, he asked, would the Council address those public concerns by further reducing the density of the plan?

"At this point, no," Floreen responded. She said you'll be "pretty comfortable with how it turns out." Floreen is probably pretty comfortable with the $250 check she received from Equity One's attorney, Barbara Sears.

The bright spot of Floreen's news conference was her acknowledgement of the protests, in her admittance that "We've never quite had this situation, where people have continued to be unhappy after we've really done our best." Well, they've done their best for the developers, that's for sure.

"Do you think there's a larger problem about trust and credibility here," Turque asked. "The folks who are out there protesting simply don't find the numbers credible, they don't find the school population numbers credible, and the traffic numbers credible." Citing the lowball Council student generation predictions for the already-overcrowded Whitman cluster, Turque suggested, "It doesn't ring true."

Floreen replied that the Council and Planning Department are having to "constantly help [you, the resident] appreciate these analyses." Huh? Then, Marco Rubio-style, she repeated that phrase twice: "help people appreciate the analyses." A buzzphrase that seems to mean you, the resident, are a dummy. The same condescending attitude we heard toward residents throughout the worksessions. You just don't understand how good this plan is for you, and we will have to educate you. And you're a racist, and lucky to live in 20816!

Then she threw in that whopper of a talking point that's been floating around in recent times: the perverse claim that traffic "congestion levels have decreased the last few years...The data is the data." When is the last time Council President Floreen has been on I-270 or MD 355 during rush hour? If you don't know that the data from which these false conclusions are being drawn is totally bogus, you might be fooled. They're counting on it, in fact.

This is the same Montgomery County political cartel that claimed they had created more jobs in recent years than D.C. or Northern Virginia, until Turque exposed their fake numbers in a 2014 article in the Post.

In short, residents now have the Council's attention. The protests over the weekend were "unprecedented," to use Floreen's term. Usually County residents are too obsequious and laid back to challenge the Council on anything beyond a certain point. I'm proud of the neighborhood for turning out in force, in numbers that even surprised me. Clearly, the organizers of the protests knew what they were doing, and they have been very effective.

But the Council still doesn't completely get it, and this course of action will have to be kept up until they start downsizing this plan toward the demand of the majority of their constituents: 580 new units, and maximum height of 50'. More protests, perhaps at the Council Building, exploration of incorporating the area as a separate municipality, etc. And signing the petition to get term limits on the November ballot. I don't want to suggest or rule out any particular option, as the organizers likely have a better sense than I of what the next moves should be. What I do know, is that residents now have an additional 3-4 weeks to make their case.

We saw what happened with the transit authority proposal - citizens shut it down. It has to be public, and it has to be a show of force like the demonstrations to get results. The only thing the MoCo cartel understands is the threat of losing power.

With voters in other areas now freshly aware of the stakes as the Council attempts to urbanize the suburban areas of Montgomery County - from Damascus to Lyttonsville -we may be on the verge of what Save Westbard activist Stan Wiggins hinted at: another Neal Potter-style victory as in 1990, when multiple incumbents were tossed out on the street by voters angry over development issues, among other complaints.

#ThrowTheBumsOut!

78 comments:

Anonymous said...

Impotent rage + crank + DMX = Word dump.

Anonymous said...

More on term limits please. Where is the petition and how can I sign it?

Anonymous said...

For those of us just tuning in, is my understanding correct:

1. Save Westbard: 580 units, which is already permitted under existing zoning
2. Berliner plan: 1,000 units
3. Original plan: 2,000 units

I'm getting confused with all these different requests and plans.

Anonymous said...

Keep up the pressure! Insist that the Council not urbanize any of these peaceful, safe neighborhoods - at least until they can bring corporate headquarters by the numbers into the county. Create some traffic going the opposite way.

Anonymous said...

The Absurd primacy of the Automobile in American Life:

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/04/absurd-primacy-of-the-car-in-american-life/476346/?utm_source=SFFB

Anonymous said...

Face it, these folks are standing in the way of an oncoming freight train.

Anonymous said...

Come on guys keep up the pressure! Maybe we can win the White Flight Lifetime Achievement Award!

Anonymous said...

Why no link to Bill Turque's article?

Anonymous said...

"But while they may sense some danger to their political careers"

Just curious: is this a joke or are you delusional?

Anonymous said...

Looks like the NIMBY outrage is dying down. The article on Soup Up's shrinkage got four times as many comments.

Anonymous said...

It's not the NIMBY posts that are missing.

Anonymous said...

Zzzzz this issue must be dead. On to the next outrage.

Anonymous said...

Our roads are in terrible state and haven't been repaved in decades, and we are going to trust the council to get the Westbard renovation right???

Anonymous said...

11:56: nah not doing it for me. More melodrama.

Anonymous said...

What does lacking enough funds to repave roads have to do with approving a development?

Betsy said...

http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/Elections/Resources/Files/pdfs/OfficialEARLYVOTINGELECTIONDAYABSENTEE1PROVISIONALANDABSENTEE2RESULTS.pdf

So the winning council members got 14-16k votes each. If you spread the 300 Westbard voters across the four, that's a loss of 75 votes each.

Which also illustrates that the 300 hardly speak for all their constituency.

That being said I also agree the Westbard plan is a bit much and could be scaled back some.

Betsy said...

Oh my I seem to have misplaced a zero. That seems to be 140,000 to 160,000 votes for each of the at large council members. 300 protestors or even the 1500 communications is a small percentage of votes.

Anonymous said...

Betsy, what happened in Westbard will happen in other neighborhoods. It's not a Westbard issue alone.
Urbanization of suburban neighborhoods is a wider issue.
Having council members who ignore citizens will be a big issue also.

Westbard Concerned Citizens said...

Believe me, Betsy, we are reaching out to citizens' groups in Rockville, Chevy Chase, downtown Bethesda, North Bethesda, Silver Spring, and beyond; I second what 1:33 p.m. states above. Westbard is the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

Anonymous said...

Looks like 1:33 PM and 1:42 PM are talking about a "silent majority". LOL

Anonymous said...

1. Save Westbard: 580 residential units (existing zoning); building heights 50 feet max

2. Berliner: 1,213 residential units; building heights 45 feet-110 feet (most 75 feet-110 feet)

3. Planning Board (original plan); 2480 residential units; building heights 55-110 feet (most 75-110 feet)

What is tricky (needs clarification): Do the Berliner and Planning Board (original plan) unit counts include the 580 units that could be built under current law? If not, the unit counts for these plans should be increased by 580. (Has been reported both ways.)

Anonymous said...

@2:03

It is a building movement accross Montgomery County. Many communities are facing the same issues and are angry to have been dismissed by elected officials in favor of over development.

Here in Lyttonsville, we are a majority minority community with a variety of incomes. We have abundant affordable housing. We DO NOT want to urbanize our suburban community. This has nothing to do with white flight and everything to do with preserving the community we chose to invest in. Reasonable growth is not the problem, but rather the imposition of sterile Main Streets and Town Centers meant to mask soviet style apartment blocks.

Those cute little pictures they draw have nothing to do with reality.

Hang tough.

Anonymous said...

"sterile Main Streets and Town Centers"

"Soviet style apartment blocks"

Love the way they parrot one anothers' idiotic talking points.

Anonymous said...

So where is this "sterile main street and soviet style apartment blocks" proposed for Lyttonsville?

Anonymous said...

3:07PM - "They"? Who are "they" and what's your argument against them? Where do you live? Is it even Montgomery County?

Anonymous said...

That's good!!

Anonymous said...

Let's just leave @ 3:30 PM in suspense for a while. LOL

Anonymous said...

Astro turfers with the idiotic talking points.

Anonymous said...

@ 4:17 PM - I know you are, but what am I?

Robert Dyer said...

7:23: The quotes are from his questions to Floreen at her press conference Monday.

Anonymous said...

"Save Westbard activist Stan Wiggins hinted at: another Neal Potter-style victory as in 1990, when multiple incumbents were tossed out on the street by voters angry over development issues, among other complaints."

Over-the-hill dude re-living past glories.

Robert Dyer said...

7:03: The Montgomery County Council has already won the White Flight Award, for opposing every black candidate for U.S. Senate from the state of Maryland since 2006. Why are they so racist?

Anonymous said...

The Montgomery County Council does not nominate or elect US Senators, Dyer.

Robert Dyer said...

6:18: Interesting choice of word, when the Montgomery County Council is pictured next to the word "impotent" in the dictionary. Liquor reform disaster, no major corporation moving here in almost two decades, collapse of the nighttime economy in Bethesda, taxpayer bailout of the Silver Spring Transit Center disaster on their watch - utterly impotent. All they can do is raise taxes and ban stuff. Embarrassing.

Robert Dyer said...

5:20: Says the over-the-hill dude still smarting from that thumping. Fasten your seat belt for a repeat.

Robert Dyer said...

5:24: They do endorse, and they've opposed every black candidate since 2006. What do they have against Maryland electing its first black Senator?

Anonymous said...

Still smarting from your thumpings in 2010 and 2014?

Anonymous said...

"All they can do is..ban stuff."

Biggubmint! Freedumb! says Dyer.

I assume that you're referring to the recent tax on plastic shopping bags and the ban on styrofoam restaurant cups and trays. It seems that you can't be bothered to read why these products are bad for our environment.

Anonymous said...

Dyer @ 5:31 PM - How many black Maryland voters actually voted for those pathetic tokens?

Anonymous said...

So concerned Westbard citizen still only has 300-1500 or whatever the numbers are. Anything else is just as valid as any "silent majority" that has been touted.

Anonymous said...

"the PTA volunteer[s'] numbers were more accurate than staff's."

They were?

Anonymous said...

The trolls seem to come out in regimental strength when the statements and contradictions of Authority become more self-evident. If they were really following events they would know that people in communities all over the county are bothered with council's record, and its approach. Not that they could bear to face that. You have to wonder about the vehemence and personal attacks. It's just a fundamental difference of opinion, folks, no one's questioning your identity --- unless it's wrapped up in subservience to Authority.

Anonymous said...

@ 7:23 PM has Daddy-issues.

Anonymous said...

Yes, the trolls are definitely working overtime today.

Robert Dyer said...

7:01: You've come up with zero live bodies, and you're claiming you outnumber 1500?

7:15: Yep. And the staff couldn't even read their own presentation.

6:35: You're calling Donna Edwards a "token"? You sound like Robert Byrd.

Anonymous said...

7:23: Exactly, you hit the nail on the head.
7:34: Yup, wonder what they're so afraid of? Hmmm, I do wonder indeed.

Anonymous said...

im not claiming anything. Just working on your logic.

So will these 300-1500 votes affect the council outcome you think? Betsy has a good point. It's a drop in the bucket. They have to worry about their full constituency. Not just 300 west bard NIMBYs.

Anonymous said...

Where did they get their numbers from?

Anonymous said...

This comment is jibberish.

Anonymous said...

@ 7:34 oh yeah definitely you are right the trolls are working overtime. 300 of them even went so far as to show up and protest the west bard development. 1500 communications to the councilmember!! Wow. They sure were out in numbers.

Anonymous said...

4:19: Put the crack pipe down now c'mon!

Robert Dyer said...

4:19: You can't produce any live bodies on your side, but you think somehow you're ahead of the residents who can bring out 300 and 1500? 4:39 is right, you must be on crack!

Anonymous said...

3:07: I can see Russia FROM MY HOUSE.

Anonymous said...

I'm still waiting for the Lyttonsville NIMBY to tell about the "sterile main street and soviet style apartment blocks" proposed for his neighborhood.

Anonymous said...

4:15: NIMBY = Not In a Million Billion Years.

Oh and "Westbard" is a actually one word not two.

Robert Dyer said...

5:33: The funny thing is, the concrete canyon "Main Streets" don't resemble the classic American Main Street at all. The authentic ones are usually 2-3 stories, with smaller individual buildings that create diverse architecture and rooflines along the streetscape. Not just a Soviet apartment bloc here, a Soviet apartment bloc there, all the same box.

Anonymous said...

The concrete canyon "Main Streets" are all just "Anytown, USA", and have NO local character.

Anonymous said...

As someone pointed out above, 150,000 voters per winning council member is a number that's bigger than 300-1500 angry NIMBY's.

Anonymous said...

What exactly makes an apartment building "Soviet-style", apart from "within a mile radius from a NIMBY's house"? That has never been explained here.

Anonymous said...

6:06: Trolls fishing.

Anonymous said...

Do you suppose that the trolls get healthcare? Or are they strictly minimum wage?

Anonymous said...

Oh, look. Dyer's 98-pound weakling "Muscle" is talking to himself.

Anonymous said...

6:18: Don't know but some good questions.

Anonymous said...

6:28: ??

Anonymous said...

Haha, the trolls screeching nimby nimby nimby, have the whiff of eau de desperation

Anonymous said...

Oooooo! The big bad N word.

Anonymous said...

He's talking to himself again.

Anonymous said...

6:34 YUP!

PFJohns said...

To bring this comments section back on track, a significant majority of the local residents in the Westbard area strongly oppose this developer-driven initiative to increase housing density without any consideration of increased traffic or pressure on the Whitman cluster school system. The developers (from New York) will build, take their money, throw the County Council members a few crumbs for their next campaigns, and run. Local residents will remember the County Council's kowtowing to the developers and vote them out next time they're up for election.

Anonymous said...

"from New York"

Dog-whistle alert!

Anonymous said...

@9:44 must have more acute hearing than myself. Equity One is in fact based in New York, as its website and records of donations to council indicate. Why is pointing
out their absentee status, which aligns with the fact that no council members live in the affected sector, a dog-whistle? No one said anything about values, or Trump, or the rest of that brouhaha. Just keep trying to derail the reasoned commenters, and revealing your limitations.

Anonymous said...

I think Westbard plans look really nice.

Anonymous said...

Is the property owner's location of residence relevant?

Anonymous said...

Where does it say that Council members cannot vote on policies relating to a particular neighborhood, unless they actually live there? A better question would be, why can't Westbard produce residents of sufficient quality to be elected to the Council?

Anonymous said...

4:06 Looking forward to you putting your name on the ballot.

Anonymous said...

Haha, the trolls screeching nimy nimby nimby are going to have Westbard in their backyard no matter how inch they protest.

Kgn01800111 said...

Mr. Dyer,

A VERY interesting follow-on story would be a closer examination of Berliner's campaign donations in 2015 from attorneys at Linowes & Blocher, one of the law firms representing developer Equity One in the Westbard proposal. Berliner's donation report is littered with donations from attorneys at the aforementioned law firm. Coupled with the FOIA email correspondence between the Council staff, the planning commission, Equity One, and their legal representation regarding Westbard, it paints quite a picture. FOLLOW THE MONEY...: https://campaignfinancemd.us/Public/ViewFiledReports

Anonymous said...

Dyer hasn't really followed up on anything so don't hold your breath.