Water main break spawns sinkhole in Bethesda

A major water main break turned into a major sinkhole on Cromwell Drive in Bethesda, directly in front of Wood Acres Elementary School, on Tuesday. The sinkhole formed in the 5800 block of Cromwell, between Newington Road and Wiltshire Drive. In addition to causing a prolonged shutdown of the street in that area while a WSSC crew attempted to make repairs, the sinkhole blocked some residents into their driveways. This is, by far, the worst water main damage seen in the Springfield neighborhood in some time. It's fortunate no one was hurt or caught in their vehicle when this collapsed.

MCPS art show at Montgomery Mall in Bethesda (Photos)

Artwork by Montgomery County Public Schools elementary school students was displayed at Westfield Montgomery Mall in Bethesda. The annual All-County Art Show is designed to show the results of visual arts studies by MCPS students. Here is a sample of works that were on display:

Trump threat posted at Wood Acres ES in Bethesda

The message board in front of Wood Acres Elementary School was broken into sometime between Friday afternoon and Saturday morning, and the letters were rearranged to create an assassination threat against President Donald Trump. According to Wood Acres principal Marita Sherburne, the vandalism and threat were reported to both Montgomery County Police and Montgomery County Public Schools security.

A nearby resident discovered the message Saturday, Sherburne said. The message read, "EW, TRUMP! MURDER HIS [EXPLETIVE]" according to ABC 7, to which that resident, Andrew Johnson, provided photos of the message before he removed the letters. A second nonsense message on the other side of the marquee read, "TRUMP! ART THEE PEASANT UNDER ME [space]_{space] YES."

Johnson told ABC 7 he reported the threat to the Secret Service.

This will be the first notable test of whether or not MCPS has whipped itself into shape with regard to the its security cameras, after the alleged gang rape at Rockville High School revealed that many cameras were not being monitored. Several graffiti incidents in 2016 also exposed that many MCPS schools do not have cameras in common areas at all, since not a single one of those cases has been solved to date. Had a camera been recording, suspects would have quickly been identified.

If no security camera footage shows the sign being broken into, we will know that MCPS has failed to cover the front of the Wood Acres property in its video surveillance, despite having over 3 months to correct the problem. Wood Acres is located at 5800 Cromwell Drive.

Wood Acres ES addition complete in Bethesda

The addition at Wood Acres Elementary School at 5800 Cromwell Road in Bethesda is now complete. Construction workers have a few loose ends to tie up, including troubleshooting the fire alarm system. Fencing around the construction site is expected to be removed before the end of the Montgomery County Public Schools school year in June.

Eight new classrooms are the major benefit of the new rear wing, as well as the restoration of a dedicated music room. There are also new administrative offices, and an interior courtyard. Students will return here from the nearby interim campus for the fall semester.

There will temporarily be more room than expected, as a number of parents chose to pull their kids out of the school altogether, rather than have them bused over to the Radnor Center at 7000 Radnor Road. Before the addition, Wood Acres had 7 portable classrooms outside.

Schematic courtesy MCPS

SCHOOL RAGE: RESIDENTS QUESTION HIGH-DENSITY WESTBARD PLAN, NEW ES SITES NOT LARGE ENOUGH (PHOTOS)

"This is crazy!"

UPDATED: 12:30 AM, November 16, 2014*

Friday brought one of the most contentious meetings of the Westbard Sector Plan charrette, and not surprisingly, the topic was schools. Current and future public school parents in the Wood Acres-Pyle-Whitman cluster acutely aware of existing overcrowding questioned how Montgomery County planners could recommend a high-density growth plan for Westbard in that context.

Concept 1 - all of the red
structures are new apartment
buildings

Planners released their first projections for total housing units, and students to be generated by the plan, at the meeting. Those numbers were met with skepticism. Under a full build-out of Concept 1, Westbard residents would find 2529 apartments dropped into their community. That would, under the current U.S. census bureau statistic of 2.58 persons per housing unit, bring 6525 new residents (and 4932 additional cars!) to the 153 acres that comprise the Westbard Sector. In other words, 43 people per acre, which is quite a change from the area's single-family-home suburban character.

The Planning Department projection calculated Friday predicts 306 new students, with 153 of them being elementary school students. Those numbers generated some grumbling among the crowd of residents at the meeting. If one has been on Westbard Avenue when the school buses stop there in the morning, you know there are quite a few students coming from those few buildings now. In fact, Park Bethesda alone has 59 students, and Westwood Tower adds 65. Unfortunately, the chart shown did not have the numbers for the Kenwood Place condominium, which is also in the Walt Whitman HS cluster.

Bruce Crispell of MCPS
on the hot seat Friday

MCPS' infamous forecaster Bruce Crispell made a late arrival to the meeting, but tried to generate some numbers more in line with what we've seen in the Westbard area. Crispell's calculator gave him a projection of 750 students, more than double what planners forecast - and equal to the size of the entire Wood Acres ES population, one resident noted. In the context of 6525 people coming under Concept 1, 750 still sounds a bit low.

Under Concept 2, the numbers are lower. From those 1386 units, planners forecast 199 students, with 97 of them being at the elementary level. Crispell's number was 425, again more than double, but still sounding a bit off the mark for 3576 new residents (bringing 2703 cars with them to the community, by the way).

"Why are we building

more housing?"

Clearly, I think MCPS forecasters need to apply a new "Westbard" or "Whitman" factor to their prediction formula. The residential community that surrounds, and is served by, the commercial-retail Westbard area is one of the most desirable in America. Atop the list of Pros that make it so is the Whitman school cluster. When you ask yourself how much do people want to live here, just remember: 30 billionaires are actually willing to pay well over a million dollars, to live in a cramped townhouse in the middle of a contaminated industrial dump off of Little Falls Parkway.

Much has been made of the supposed lone student who has been generated by that unfinished townhome development being the norm for that type of housing. But remember, those homes are in the BCC district, not Whitman. Fair or not, most well-off parents moving here want Whitman. I think one can reasonably expect student generation rates to exceed those of virtually any other community in America.

Map of current schools in
the area; not shown are
several leased to private
schools by MCPS

The other problem? "We're already bursting at the seams," as one parent put it so well yesterday. Community members actually forecast the number of students that would eventually attend Wood Acres better than MCPS did, noted Springfield Civic Association President Phyllis Edelman. Another parent made the excellent point that the county and state can't even fund a new gym at Pyle Middle School, where students now take gym in a hallway - so how can they fund entire new schools? "This is crazy," she said, asking why developers aren't being asked to shoulder more of the burden they are creating.

"We don't want it."

Earlier in the morning, the new president of the Sumner Citizens Association - who moved here six months ago for the schools in the Whitman cluster, said "now I'm thinking, well, shoot, maybe I'm not going to get the benefit of this school system like I thought." Several parents expressed frank opinions that the quality of schools in the Whitman cluster is today being degraded by class size, lack of space and reduced amenities caused by overcrowding. 

One bright spot in both plan concepts is a new elementary school site near Westbard Avenue. There are two problems with that, however. As Rob Snow, a parent and officer with the Springfield Civic Association noted, "ignoring the impact on middle schools and high schools is silly." Crispell said there simply is no room left in the area for a new middle or high school.

"We bought for

Whitman and Pyle."

The other big problem? It turns out that neither proposed school site is big enough. Planners say they are going to pitch a new type of taller, "urban school" to MCPS. But there is no guarantee that MCPS will adopt that, meaning that the promised new school could go unbuilt. Even moving Ridgefield Road eastward won't expand that site large enough to meet the current 7.5 acre MCPS standard for elementary schools. It would seem that reality should be addressed now, and a larger site found before the plan is finalized in April 2015.

Planner Marc DeOcampo stressed that the concepts shown were hypothetical full build-outs, which are unlikely to occur, he said. However, if you apply the "Whitman" factor, my guess is that you'll see developers moving quickly in this area to build once the plan passes, than you would in Wheaton or Long Branch. One has to ask where the impetus for high-density urbanization of Westbard is coming from. Certainly not the residents. DeOcampo concurs, noting that "85-90% of the comments we've heard are, 'Keep it low density.'"

A final hybrid concept with some options will be presented this coming Tuesday night, November 18, at 7:00 PM at Westland Middle School. If you have concerns, this is the time to come out and express them.

* The article was updated to correct the estimated number of vehicles per unit that would be brought to Westbard under Concept 1 and Concept 2, based on the latest statistical data.

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.