Berliner outlines alternative Westbard sector plan

Montgomery County Councilmember
Roger Berliner listens as a Springfield
resident asks a question

Montgomery County Councilmember Roger Berliner gave some Bethesda residents a preview of what he thinks the new Westbard sector plan should look like last night. The plan, as currently drafted and approved by the Planning Board, has been soundly rejected by residents. At a special meeting of the Springfield Civic Association, which represents one of the communities most directly affected by the planned Westbard redevelopment, the councilman outlined what he called, "the Berliner alternative."

"I know how much stress this has caused the community," Berliner said, "and I regret that." He said the current plan is "far too aggressive," and includes "twice as much as we ought to be thinking about" in terms of housing units. Berliner got in front of the issue recently by issuing a memo with his general thoughts on the plan, and appeared to agree with the majority of residents on a number of the plan's most ridiculous proposals. With the alternative plan he previewed last night at the Fourth Presbyterian Church on River Road, Berliner fleshed out those comments further in terms of specifics he will present to his colleagues at upcoming worksessions.

The good news first:

Berliner criticized the attempt by Planning Board Chair Casey Anderson, and the County Department of General Services, to stuff a 75' building on the Little Falls Library site at the very last minute, when the public had no ability to comment on the idea. "The very end, the plan put things in like the library [proposal]. Really?" Berliner asked incredulously. "Nothing is going to happen on that library site," he promised residents.

A second point of contention, a high-density mixed-use building the plan recommends for the Manor Care site on Ridgefield Road, was also on Berliner's radar. Again, Berliner assured residents this, too, will not happen. "It's not gonna be a tall multifamily building," he predicted. "It's going to be townhouses. That's the Berliner alternative."

Berliner was less confident that he could bring the building height on the Westwood Center II site (corner of Ridgefield and Westbard Avenue) down from 90' all the way to 50', and later said, "I doubt we will get to 50'" on the Capital Properties site around the Park Bethesda. CP initially asked for at least 250' for two new towers on the Park Bethesda parking lots. That is not even legal. But the Planning Board has proposed 110' heights, stepping down to 35' adjacent to the Westbard Mews/Westwood Mews townhomes across Crown Street.

Praising Wood Acres PTA President Jason Sartori as "an extraordinary asset in your community," Berliner announced that Sartori's outreach and convincing arguments have led to him arranging a special meeting between the affected PTA representatives, Berliner himself, and Montgomery County Public Schools. He did not yet announce a date for the meeting, however.

On school overcrowding, Berliner said he wants to dial back the claims of the Planning Chair and MCPS - that the system can handle supersized Westbard growth - to more closely match "our sense of reality. Right now it's still too loosey-goosey." He said Anderson is "in error" if he believes the community desires the level of density Anderson and the Board forwarded to the Council for approval.

Berliner said developers would not guide his final decisions in the process. "What guides me is whether or not what is proposed...enhances our community," not development interests, he said. "I do not consider Westbard to be an activity center. I don't consider it to be urban. And that is my starting point." While planning staff and the Planning Board have made their recommendations, and MCPS has weighed in approvingly, "It is our responsibility, ultimately, to get it right," Berliner noted.

Most of this was well-received by the crowd, and Berliner's willingness to tackle some of the biggest problems with the current plan is encouraging.

Some aspects of the Berliner alternative weren't so pleasing to residents.

For example, Berliner strongly approves of Capital Properties' proposal to include 25% affordable units in its new towers on Westbard. 25% is great - if it was located in downtown Bethesda. 25% at Westbard is simply using the community as a dumping ground for low-income housing. The location is nowhere near a Metro station or to County services and facilities such disadvantaged residents need. There have been no County facilities in the Westbard area other than the library, and none are proposed in the new plan. How would it make sense to strand hundreds of low-income residents with no access to jobs, transit and services? In turn, will the Council insist that the redevelopment of the Apex Building include 25% affordable units or more, atop two rail stations?

Virtually no one opposes the current 12.5% affordable unit requirement, and that will happen automatically in any project of qualifying size at Westbard, generating as much affordable housing as Westbard can realistically bear, if not more than it can bear. There is today more affordable housing at Westbard relative to population than in developments approved in downtown Bethesda over the last 10 years. Park Bethesda and Kenwood Place have units that rent for significantly less than downtown Bethesda apartments, and Westwood Tower is nearly half affordable units.

Berliner also didn't mention any specifc projects that could add capacity to already-jammed River Road, to which the plan would currently add about 5000 cars during the morning rush. He also didn't discuss what he might do to preserve gas stations, nor the survival of small mom-and-pop shops in the Westwood Shopping
Center during and after the redevelopment of the site.

He said he thought the 1200 units he is proposing, half as many as are currently proposed in the plan (before density bonuses, at least), aren't too many. Many residents disagree.

And Kenwood residents are sure to be unhappy with Berliner's endorsement of the realignment of Westbard Avenue to meet River Road at Brookside Drive. While the Springfield neighborhood has complained of cut-through traffic, Kenwood residents have said such an alignment would simply funnel more traffic into their community. Having heard from both neighborhoods, Berliner told Springfield residents, "I'm with you. Your case is far more compelling" than Kenwood's. Surely, Kenwood residents will take issue with that statement.

But Berliner's proposal is at least a more-than-solid starting point for what should be an ongoing conversation between himself, Sartori and other PTA leaders, small business owners, and residents. Asked by one resident to be Peyton Manning against the developers' "Panther defense," Berliner responded, "I hope my arm is better than that, actually."

WESTBARD REDEVELOPMENT, CROWDED SCHOOLS PROMPT BERLINER INFRASTRUCTURE SUMMIT MARCH 7 IN BETHESDA

Responding to community concerns about the proposed redevelopment of the Westbard area, and school overcrowding in Bethesda, Montgomery County Councilmember Roger Berliner is holding a one-day summit entitled, "Infrastructure and Growth: Are We Keeping Pace?" on Saturday, March 7, from 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM, in the cafeteria at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School.

The event is expected to bring stakeholders together to have a dialogue on the topic. Berliner is not proposing specific changes to the County's Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance at this time, but beginning a community discussion on the topic. Based upon the feedback of public school PTAs, developers, municipal leaders and other stakeholders, action items proposed at the event could be addressed by the Council.

While the event was primarily prompted by the potential development at Westbard, it will consider the entire county, and officials from large municipalities like Rockville and Gaithersburg are expected to participate.

County-level officials currently scheduled to attend include County Council Deputy Administrator Glenn Orlin, Montgomery County Public Schools Director of Long-Range Planning Bruce Crispell, and Planning Director Gwen Wright.

This is a discussion that is long past-due. The Walt Whitman school cluster in Bethesda is already filled to the point where Wood Acres Elementary no longer has a music classroom, and some kids are taking gym class in hallways at Pyle Middle School. BCC High School is maxed-out on its site, and cannot be expanded further. Wood Acres will be similarly maximized after its current addition is completed, hemmed in by Wood Acres Park, forest buffers, and the residential neighborhood that surrounds it.

Yet, the Montgomery County Planning Department is rewriting the Westbard Sector Plan, and the current draft proposal would allow thousands of new residents and cars to be jammed into a roughly 2-block area. Developer Equity One last week unveiled a more specific plan for its Westbard properties, which would account for 500-700 new housing units (representing 1290-1806 new residents, using the current U.S. Census Bureau measurement of 2.58 persons per unit). How can this apparent disconnect between developer desires and zero school capacity be addressed? Something literally has to give.

County planners and the council will either have to scale back the Westbard redevelopment plans to a more appropriate height and density, or MCPS and developers will have to come up with significant new resources of money and land. It's one thing to talk about growth in newer communities. But we're now finding that those who criticized the reckless plan to allow massive "infill" sprawl redevelopment were correct in calling it irresponsible. When you destroy strip malls and neighborhood commercial and service areas, and replace them with luxury apartment towers, you get students and cars. Students and cars means more classrooms and more traffic.

The problem with infill development is that there is little-to-no capacity for either.

To go forward with a plan of thousands of new residents, there are really only 2.5 options. First, is the third rail of MoCo politics - major changes to school boundaries, which would result in long bus rides for some.

Second, developers would have to hand over significant plots of land. Where is that possible in 20816? Planners identified two sites for a new elementary school, those currently occupied by the vacant Manor Care Springhouse nursing home and the Little Falls Library. But neither site is large enough to hold an elementary school under MCPS guidelines. A shared school site with adjacent Westland MS at the library site is talked about, but that idea totally falls apart when you consider the common facilities such large student and faculty populations would have to share. Neither school's students would be adequately or justly served by the finished product. Those endorsing such a plan obviously are not planning to send their own kids there. I'm not even sure how sharing the site with Westland provides any more acreage to the proposed elementary school than if it stands alone on the library site. Westland currently occupies all the buildable space above the library, minus a service road and small forest buffer that stand between them.

The third, "0.5" solution is just that - only a partial solution: reclaim former schools such as that currently leased by the private Washington Waldorf School on Sangamore Road. WWS recently re-upped that lease, and my understanding is that the terms were quite favorable to them, with renewals at their option, not MCPS'. Again, it's a partial solution, because those former school buildings are smaller than today's, and wouldn't meet the demands at the elementary, middle and high school levels by themselves.

I haven't even talked about roads, stormwater and sewer facilities, and all the other things that people often forget are required to support residential growth (until the existing facilities fail).

Hopefully putting a lot of community leaders into one room will generate new ideas, because I'm not finding many options or solutions at this point, short of scaling back the infill sprawl plan for the Westbard Sector.

DUCHY TRACHTENBERG SEEKS CHIPOTLE VOTE IN BETHESDA (PHOTO)

The giant photo of Montgomery County Council District 1 candidate Duchy Trachtenberg reappeared again in downtown Bethesda. This time, it was parked out in front of one of the most popular businesses in town, Chipotle. Trachtenberg is running against incumbent Roger Berliner in the June Democratic primary.

DUCHY TRACHTENBERG ON WHEELS IN BETHESDA (PHOTOS)

Montgomery County Council District 1 candidate Duchy Trachtenberg's campaign rolled out a unique electioneering vehicle this week in downtown Bethesda - literally. A bicycle pulling a Trachtenberg election poster stopped in front of Bethesda Green.

Trachtenberg is challenging incumbent Roger Berliner, who has held the seat since 2006, when he defeated Howard Denis. Elected with labor support in 2006, Trachtenberg has followed a non-linear path since. In 2010, she declined to participate in the labor endorsement process, and subsequently was defeated by current councilmember Hans Riemer. In recent days, Trachtenberg has again been courting labor support.

While she ran on a slow-growth "slate" of sorts in 2006 (with Pat Baptiste, Marc Elrich, and Cary Lamari), Trachtenberg's current campaign is receiving energetic backing from several major development firms. Those firms were angered by Berliner's vote to reduce the size of their Clarksburg-area projects, after concerns were raised about their impact on the health of Ten Mile Creek. The move was viewed by developers as an unfair changing of the rules mid-stream (pun possibly intended). Several prominent company representatives organized a major fundraiser for Trachtenberg recently.

That money will make this an interesting Democratic primary to watch, but not quite the level of the battle royale ahead in District 5.

Trachtenberg resides in North Bethesda.