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| What's the deal with the new fad of developers canceling meetings?! |
Moved to new date, location
less convenient for neighbors
of property in question
Last night's scheduled and advertised public meeting regarding a proposed redevelopment of 4824 Edgemoor Lane was abruptly canceled at the very last minute, and rescheduled for September 4, 2019 at 6:30 PM. The rescheduled meeting, strangely, will be held at a location much further away from the property - the cafeteria at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School, at 4301 East-West Highway. In addition to being highly unprofessional, the 11th-hour cancellation and site change raise questions about both this gaffe, and an apparent new strategy of canceling these public meetings.
To state the obvious, the new location at BCC HS will be much less convenient for residents of The Chase, The Edgemont, The Christopher, The Metropolitan, and other nearby buildings to attend. Instead of walking down the block or across the street, they'll either have a long walk or slow rush hour drive to BCC. This move particularly seems to target those whom some developers refer to disparagingly as "the grey heads," older residents more invested in their property, who are more likely to turn out for these meetings. Those in The Chase who may be getting a 12-story brick wall outside their window would likely have the biggest concerns.
Second, I've been covering these meetings for many years. This year is the first I can recall a publicly-advertised pre-submission meeting being canceled. In fact, this is now the third such canceled meeting this year. All three were canceled at the last minute, with no public notice. The signs posted at 4824 Edgemoor displaying the time and date of the meeting were not updated Tuesday to announce the cancellation.
Perhaps someone in the industry can suggest how rudely and unprofessionally canceling advertised public meetings at literally the last minute helps a developer. It hasn't been done by any of the biggest names in real estate, like Federal Realty, JBG Smith, or Toll Brothers, for example. But then again, it's never been done before this year. Does it reduce turnout? What is this new trend about?
No one has forced these companies to schedule these meetings. So why in God's name would you advertise a public meeting if you aren't ready to present the project? It makes no sense at all.
The Planning Department should address this issue if it continues to be a new trend. Canceling an officially-advertised public pre-submission meeting should require an approval from the department, at least. This is a serious matter. The public has much more important things to do with their time than travel to the meeting to find it has been canceled. There is a process.
Respect that process. Show some professionalism. As they say, you never get a second chance to make a first impression. If this is how much you respect the neighbors of your property - having them show up to find a paper taped to a door - how do you expect to have a productive relationship with them during the years ahead, as your project goes through the process and is built?
30 comments:
Yes, let's immediately go to the conspiracy theories.
Maybe the original location was booked for the new date?
Is the BCC cafeteria a larger location?
Is the parking at BCC better or have easier accessibility?
There could also be a good reason for the last-minute change. Did you check into it?
LOL.
The services center is on top of county parking, at metro and across the street from the property in question.
So, the high school is in no way a better location to discuss this project.
So, paid parking vs free at the school?
Is the cafeteria space larger than the other meeting space?
It doesn't have to always be doom and gloom and conspiracy drama.
5:39: There's never a "good reason" to lure the public to a building, and then just not show up. That's called, "unprofessional," at best. You don't seem to realize that the people with the most at stake could just walk across the street to last night's meeting - not so at BCC.
""The rescheduled meeting, strangely, will be held at a location much further [sic] away from the property."
Distance from 4805 Edgemont Avenue to:
Bethesda Chevy Chase Community Services Center - 1/8 mile - 2 1/2 minutes walking time.
Bethesda Chevy Chase High School - 1/2 mile - 10 minutes walking time.
A difference of 3/8 of a mile - 7 1/2 minutes walking time.
Also, it should be "farther", not "further".
Actually, both date and venue are an improvement.
An extra 8 minute walk? Apparently an extra layer of tinfoil has been added to your hat. If a NIMBY isn't willing to walk an additional 8 minutes I don't care about their opinion.
For someone who claims to be worried about the poor business climate in Mont. Co. you slant your stories in the most anti-development way I've ever seen. 8 freaking minutes!!
It may have been rescheduled because of the storm. As you say, people were likely to walk to the meeting, which is suddenly a lot less likely if there's a severe thunderstorm going on.
Speaking of the storm - apparently there was hail in DC! Capitol Hill Books posted a video on twitter of hailstones bouncing down the escalators at Eastern Market.
6:11: I've never had a meeting canceled due to a thunderstorm. But if there was a good reason, it would have been posted on the message. It was not, and therefore could not be taken seriously.
6:10: LOL - not everyone is a member of SoulCycle. You're dodging the issue of moving a meeting from right where the people live to the other side of town. The services center isn't booked up every night this fall.
And again, you mistakenly believe that residential development = economic development. Fairfax and Loudoun do not, which is why they have been kicking our ass month after month in job creation and every other significant benchmark.
6:05: How so, old sport? The services center has the charm of a dungeon, but it's closer to the site.
As someone who is often critical of Robert’s reportage, in this case he is spot on. Public meetings are required by the planning department to get the developer to collaborate with the community during the design process. No developer wants this type of hassle, and would much prefer get their approvals as covertly and privately as possible. Dog and pony shows that are largely just perfunctory.
Of course most of these meetings are usually held well after the conceptual design has been fully established, and usually just a formality of the process. I have yet to attend a meeting where any public comment ever caused even a minor design change. Developers are required to advertise, and hold the meeting at a public place, record the presentation and the questions that were raised. Responses to these questions are also recorded, and become part of the record of the entitlement, but in my opinion, rarely have any impact on the eventual approval. Even speaking as a member of the public at a planning commission meeting is usually just a chance for stakeholders to be heard, but rarely makes any difference.
Some meetings held by urban planners and for public projects do welcome public input, typically called charettes or community workshops. These meetings do allow the public to be heard as stakeholders, and can often impact the process and improve the built environment.
In this case, the extra time will only allow the “greyheads” at the Chase to sharpen their pitchforks. I did walk by the site on my way to the canceled meeting, and I don’t think any other event was booked in the meeting room. I noted that the Chase is about 30’ from the abutting property line, so their should be some separation. A 120’ high rise is not required to provide any tower separation on their property, so they could indeed build a solid wall facing the Chase. Since the site is only 8000 SF, I suspect they will need to use every bit of the site to get 75 to 85 units.
Maybe the owner of the property pulled the PSA (look it up BTB)? Maybe these young and inexperience developers didnt know what they were doing and the planning board gave them time? Everyone wants to be a bigtime developer, but few can pull it off.
"Last night's public meeting regarding a proposed redevelopment of 4824 Edgemoor Lane was rescheduled for September 4, 2019 at 6:30 PM. The location of the meeting has been changed to the cafeteria at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School, at 4301 East-West Highway."
This is how a normal news service would report this story.
From the Same Egg blog:
"Watkins MIll I-270 interchange construction update (Video+Photos)"
"Here's a look at the current status of the new Watkins Mill Road interchange with I-270 in Gaithersburg. Some views are from the "Paramount" side to the east, and others are from the Parklands development side to the west. You'll also see some sad scenes of the promised-but-never-built Watkins Mill Town Center, which joins the never-built Clarksburg Town Center in Montgomery County's Hall-of-Shame. It's still just an empty field, like Clarksburg's."
Waah waah waah
How hostile will The Chase owners be? If they're really against this, I imagine the new meeting will be structured to minimize negative feedback - i.e. more of a show & tell with easels.
I don't know if they're as organized as The Christopher people, who got lucky with the 1 level bank at Old Georgetown & Woodmont but will have to deal with Edgemont II.
I walked by the site at 4824 Edgemoor early on Tuesday afternoon Aug 20, and I noted that the sign indicated a Sept 4 date for the public meeting. I was confused because I had been expecting to go to the public meeting on the evening of Aug 20. To clarify, I called the point of contact listed at the bottom of the sign, Patricia Harris 301-841-3832. She confirmed that the Aug 20 meeting was cancelled and was rescheduled to Sept 4. She indicated to me that the reason for cancellation had something to do with some inaccurate information on the sign originally posted at the site; I don't recall the specifics, so if you want more details I suggest that you contact Ms. Harris.
By the way, I am still a bit confused, as the sign shown in the blog article indicates a time of 6:30 PM, but as I recall, the sign on the development site indicates a time of 7:00 PM.
6:57 AM Local journalists aren't supposed to just be note takers and republish stuff without any critical analysis or thought, my friend :)
Seems like a number of these meetings have been cancelled at the last minute recently.
#ShiftChange
Why does Bethesda Beat and MoCo Show have advertisers and you don’t?
Why are you too much of a coward to answer?
6:16 AM, August is fairly a traditional month people take vacations. If you do not believe so, research courtroom schedule changes and which months are the highest. Our HOA is very adept at scheduling it's meeting at the height of typical vacation periods. My first thought on the date change is someone is ill, or people expected to show were away. More like bad planning than anything nefarious.
So, Robbie...
Have you contacted them to find out the reason for postponing the meeting?
Moving it from August to September is a good idea -- fewer people on vacation then.
I wonder if the required sign posted to notify folks of the meeting, was put up to late to comply with the rules, and the room was no longer available for a meeting, hence the move to the high school?
12:26 PM There wasn't anything else on the schedule for that room last night. It was booked and then cancelled at the last minute.
Also, I didn't see any change on the property signs yesterday with a new date.
What's hilarious about Dyer's Metropolitan Garage debacle is that he could have been legitimately outraged by the fee increase that actually happened at the Waverly Garage.
7:54: Most people are outraged, but the story was about the cost at Metropolitan garage, and that they still couldn't fix the elevators.
12:26: Room was empty.
11:00: They should have done that from the beginning, instead of tricking people to come out.
6:47 (really 9:47) All these things are what a proactive responsible adult might do. Robert plays the ‘oh poor me’ victim of the EVIL DEEP STATE council.
I believe the required signs need to be in place 1 month before the meeting. I bet the sign installer was late getting the sign up, and the August meeting would not count as a required public meeting, so to comply it had to be rescheduled to a later date, and perhaps the meeting room was not available at that site, so they had to find another venue.
Or simply the developer had an emergency or meeting conflict, and could not attend as required.
Let’s not blame the developer for something we don’t understand.
Meeting must have been cancelled extremely last minute since it was on the Services Center agenda the day of the meeting. Someone crossed it out with a pen.
Someone didn't do due diligence.
It is doom and gloom. It will create a traffic nightmare - adds to the thousands of new apts no one can afford, it a tiny lot that will look ridiculous and was erratically introduced. It is an absolutely nightmare for anyone living or driving in the area with THREE apt high rises going up at the same time
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