Route 1 Sector Plan Update Meeting & More

Fun new meetings on our Events page, most immediately a July 8 gathering on the Rt. 1 Plan. Rethink College Park provide a nice bit of data-driven context for this plan by tallying all the residential units and commercial square footage in the development pipeline at the moment. A recent note from Chad Williams at M-NCPPC updated citizens on the Route 1 Sector Plan. In case you did not receive it…

“I just wanted to let you know that due to circumstances beyond our control we will be unable to make our target date of tomorrow afternoon for distribution of copies of the Preliminary Central US 1 Corridor Sector Plan and Proposed Sectional Map Amendment document.

However, I do want to reassure you that you will still have plenty of time to read and review this document prior to the Joint Public Hearing that is scheduled for 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday, September 15, 2009 in the County Administration Building in Upper Marlboro. The legally mandated timeframe for review of preliminary plans is 30 days, which would mean copies must be available no later than August 15. We will continue to make every effort to provide copies as early in July as feasible to provide extra time for your review and to prepare comments on the plan for the public hearing record.

In the meantime, the meeting that has been scheduled for 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday, July 8 at the Gildenhorn Recital Hall in the Clarice Smith Center will still occur. The purpose of this meeting is to present an overview of the recommendations of the preliminary sector plan to provide some background as you begin your reading and review.

I will send another message to this group once copies are available for pick-up and online.”

Other notes from our inbox included these tidbits:

Green Infrastructure Plan Legislation In 2005, the County Council approved the first-ever Green Infrastructure Plan for the county. The legislation to implement the plan has recently been transmitted to the County Council for review. Details on the plan and legislation can be found at Environmental Projects.

Review of County Zoning Ordinance and Subdivision Regulations The Planning Department has recently hired a consultant to propose amendments to the county’s existing regulations to better implement the General Plan. More details on this new project can be found at Development Review.

Envision Prince George’s Lives And you thought all that visioning stuff might have died a quiet death. “The Prince George’s County Planning Department is pleased to announce the selection of AmericaSpeaks—a nationally recognized nonprofit organization specializing in public engagement on community and policy issues to support Envision Prince George’s! We are excited that the organization pioneered concepts in community engagement and has an exemplary record of doing so with both the strategic expertise and the energy that is needed to make this initiative a success and sustain our efforts.”

A new  newsletter includes the dates of community planning events and updates from the Department and information on upcoming Envision workshops and events…eventually they will think to put these on the event calendar.

Activists’ Guide to Surviving the Planning Board

A cooperative group of communities and citizens constitute the Indian Head Highway Area Action Council, Inc. and they work across community boundaries on quality of life and planning issues. They have recently updated and distributed their  Activists’ Guide. With upcoming meetings  and the slew of plans in the pipeline at Park and Planning, this may be helpful to some.

The Guide remains a work-in-progress. IHHAAC seeks to assure accuracy and completeness. If you see any material which is not correct or is misleading, please advise us so that the next revision can include such changes. Similarly, if there is information which you would like to see added to expand this Guide, please share that information with us. We have no pride of authorship; the Guide is the work of many hands whose contributions are much appreciated.

Feel free to share this material widely. You also may post it anyplace you feel would be advantageous for the citizens of Prince George’s County.

Public Input 101–FAIL

The new Mixed-Use Zone legislation’s progress has slowed down somewhat and M-NCPPC has heard from enough people about the lack of public input, that hey, they decided to do more! During the last week of school and on a Monday night, yippee! Hopefully you have received this postcard inviting you to a meeting next Monday, June 15 7-9 pm. It’s also on the M-NCPPC site’s google-y calendar. However, the project’s schedule does not include this meeting nor a press release been issued or posted. No email to the gazillions of addresses they have collected.

This sort of half-hearted, last minute effort is why people remain skeptical of a wide range of Park & Planning efforts. Their outreach attempts are perceived as less than sincere and undercut promising initiatives. The M-NCPPC public affairs department should provide early guidance to planning staff in these matters and adjust outreach efforts–and work flow–as necessary. Council staff learned of this Monday. First-class postcards landed Tuesday. Six days notice is really not defensible–30 days is the minimum.

Municipalities’ involvement in this process has been sketchy at best, so a meeting has also been added for mayors and council members. But, gee whiz, all those impacted towns could have included this meeting in newsletters, cable access announcements, town council meetings and let their residents know.

The new Mixed Use Zone proposed is a version of Form-Based Code. This type of code is not inherently bad by any means; however, it has usually been used in specific neighborhoods, towns or cities–rather than county-wide. Typically, it involves an extensive community visioning process, charrette and hopefully results in a community-driven form-based code.

The county’s desire to simplify our development review process is understandable. But the big concern is that the public input process, the key to a successful buy-in from the impacted communities, appears to have been faulty from the start.

Note that our current conventional zoning process is not set aside, but exists in tandem with this new Mixed Use Zone based on Form-Based Code. This could create conflicts. There will be three or four types of mixed-use zones in place: the new Route 1 Sector Plan will use SmartCode (an open source form-based code planning system by one of its leading proponents), the proposed Mixed-Use Zone, the Mixed-Use Town Centers and “Town Center in a Box” packages for developments like Konterra.

Let’s really simplify and philosophically unite the huge and odd compendium of county code. Theoretically, you do this through a community visioning process, kind of like the stalled EnVision Prince George’s. Let’s take time to get it right. We agree with the points made recently by the Sierra Club:

Prince Georgians deserve cutting edge development where we can work, live, and shop, especially near Metro stops. But the design will be satisfactory only if we the people still have a say in what goes where. Yet reading of M-NCPPC’s draft bill raises many questions, such as:
-The newly greased approval pipeline removes the opportunity for residents to express their opinion on the shape of mega-developments.
-The bill transfers the review and approval of site plans from our elected representatives and the Planning Board to planning staff.
-This new MUZ legislation does not encourage or mandate that these large developments be located at or near transit centers, where they would be most successful. Potentially all 26 designated centers and 7 corridors would be eligible for fast-tracked, large developments—whether they are appropriate for the surrounding communities or not. See the General Plan on the concept of mixed use.
-Significant modifications to the site plan can be granted by the Planning Director after site plan approval. Once a site plan is approved (without public input or review by elected officials), deviations of up to 10% for building height, architectural materials, and parking spaces can be granted—again by planning staff.

How much do we trust M-NCPPC?

This will be a critical question in the next month or two as our County Council considers a significant change in the planning process that would limit public input on many projects.

Next week the Maryland National Park & Planning Commission (M-NCPPC) is expected to present the County Council with an important 160-page package of Mixed-Use Zone legislation granting M-NCPPC staff the right to administratively approve mixed-use projects. The fast-track timeline calls for this to be passed in July.

Currently, the Planning Board approves projects subject to review by the County Council, acting as District Council. Council members–our elected representatives–wield a good deal of power in the planning process in Prince George’s County…something that has an up side and a down side (more on that later).

The M-NCPPC proposes giving developers incentives to create true mixed-use development with a sense of place. The intent is to create a new mixed-use zoning category utilizing what is called a form-based code. Approval of a specific site plan would be an administrative matter handled by planning staff–without public input because there would be no Planning Board or District Council review.

The form-based code Mixed-use Zone legislation has many worthwhile elements that can facilitate smart growth and transit-oriented development; other elements leave something to be desired. And whether it is appropriate for Prince George’s County is something we will explore later. But the legislation’s genesis is the real worry.

While the Mixed-use Zone legislation has been two years in the making, the public has only recently, and somewhat ineptly or disingenuously, been invited into the process. Three poorly publicized meetings occurred in the 9 days preceding the Planning Board’s vote, the last was the evening of May 13–the Planning Board voted on May 14. The mayors and councils of municipalities have not been briefed. Some might perceive this as M-NCPPC rushing through, with little input from residents, municipalities, civic associations and environmental groups, legislation that transfers power from our elected representatives to merit employees.

Additionally, this legislation is proposed by a planning agency that has failed to master the basics. They regularly produce staff reports late, provide inadequate notice of hearings, make half-hearted attempts at public outreach and are not responsive to public input or requests. The agency is often disconnected from the communities and taxpayers they serve.

For many residents, M-NCPPC is simply not an agency that has earned their trust. When you look around the county, the organization’s product has been less than stellar. Dotting all their Is and crossing all their Ts on such routine matters is essential prior to expanding the agency’s powers.

While form-based code may be an excellent tool in high-density areas and has been successful in other jurisdictions, notably on Arlington’s Columbia Pike, this legislation is an attempt to resolve problems that are largely attributable to Prince George’s County’s planning priorities, process and follow-through. Until our legislators, M-NCPPC and the county address these larger systemic problems, we need to think long and hard about ceding more authority to the planning staff at the Maryland National Park & Planning Commission.

In the next days we expect to provide more information on the details of the legislation, form-based code and questions you should be asking of council members. In the meantime we hope you will set aside 30 minutes and look around the Mixed-use Zone site, reviewing the presentations and definitions. If you are concerned, like we are, that this legislation is premature and requires careful exmaination, please let your council member know now.

Cafritz Conundrum

Well, the Cafritz family will be updating our community next Saturday on the status of their project. Whether our much sought “input” has been considered as they revised the project is debatable. Apparently, the number of residential housing units has been roughly halved, while the commercial space remains the same (or slightly expanded).

Mmm, those traffic guys–were they listening? Has Traffic Wizard Wes Guckert magically rerouted traffic from the failed Route 1/410 intersection to accommodate additional commercial traffic?

It is the holiday season, so everyone’s getting together and doing the “hey, long time, no see” routine. But this update’s timing is a little odd. We can hope for nice cookies and all, but why now?

Turns out the clock is ticking. The Cafritz team suddenly realized that they needed to file for a rezoning ASAP, probably January 2009. Why? Oh, it takes a little while, sometimes 18 months. Out of respect for the electoral process (2010 is a local election year) the County Council, acting as District Council, stops reviewing development projects in April 2010. So, darn-they better hurry.

Please try to attend. But, we know (and they know), the timing is just horrendous. Here’s the Email Lady, just click to her to send a note to the Cafritz team–be sure to cc Council Member Eric Olson and Chief of Staff Dannielle Glaros of District 3. Ask the Cafritz team to post this presentation online immediately, let them know what you think of their plans and inquire about a second January presentation for the many folks who cannot attend. For your review: our past posts and the Cafritz team’s past presentations.

Buy Local: Shop, Eat & Drink

This holiday season keep your hard-earned dollars in the community and working for you by spending locally.

You can have an impact. Shifting even a small amount of your spending from chains to locally owned businesses can have a major impact on the local economy. According to a new study, in Western Michigan, if the 600,000 residents of Grand Rapids and surrounding Kent County were to redirect just 10 percent of their total spending from chains to local businesses, it would create nearly $140 million in new economic activity for the region and 1,600 new jobs.

Add that to a recent report on how Wal-Mart and other big box retailers legally skim sales tax and you have to wonder how priorities became so skewed. In Maryland alone, we’ve lost $31,000,000 in potential sales tax revenue.

Our new and redeveloping districts need you this season. Please support the locally owned businesses of Gateway Arts District, Hyattsville, EYA, University Town Center and in College Park. Think of these businesses for gift certificates, catering, office or class gift exchanges and more. Many are new businesses–let them know what you are looking for, ask if they order, speak up if you’d like to see a menu item added.

Buying locally creates community: support our local economy to build a sustainable future for the Route 1 Corridor.

Bring Joe’s Electric Bus to Route 1

At a meeting in June of 2007, a group of Route 1 area residents had a chance to talk frankly with SHA Administrator Neil Pederson about transportation issues, congestion, capacity, possible improvements and Route 1. During the meeting, Riverdale Park resident Joe Kelly popped out with a great idea that’s been talked about since with public officials, now we need you to add your voice to the chorus.

Here’s the concept: Joe’s Electric Bus would run regular loops on Route 1 for a nominal fee, just as DC’s Circulator does. It should serve the Route 1 communities, Arts District, Gateway and area Metro/Purple Line stops from Eastern Ave. to the Beltway, perhaps running loops north from 410 and south from 410. Joe thought this would be convenient, environmentally friendly and a perfect opportunity for an innovative business person (or forward-thinking government). Somehow the picture of a purple bus with bright, psychedelic lettering gained currency and this imaginary bus was christened Joe’s Electric Bus.

Meanwhile, Prince George’s County has been working on a draft Transportation Master Plan that strongly recommends the developed tier implement a strong “urban-style” bus system. Although several points highlighted as possible connections in a July presentation fall in the Rt. 1 area, there are very few specifics available online currently. This Thursday, the Planning Board will take up a staff request to print the preliminary plan–it would be great to have Joe’s Electric Bus included.

So click the Email Lady to send a note to Planning Board Chairman Sam Parker and your county council person urging them to include a Route 1 looped bus route in the plan. Then get your friends & neighbors on the bus, OK?

More on the Preliminary Countywide Master Plan of Transportation
Presentations
Open House Comments
Timetable

Countywide Visioning Process Launches

Friday brought the second one-day economic outlook forum called “Envision Prince George’s” sponsored by the Prince George’s County Planning Department of The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC), along with the Prince George’s County Economic Development Corporation (EDC) and Prince George’s County government. And while the morning was interesting and worthwhile, the afternoon presentations were the real deal.

Dr. Stephen Fuller, Director of the Center for Regional Analysis and professor of public policy at George Mason University gave a frank and unvarnished assessment of the strengths of the county and pulled no punches as he discussed where we were and where we needed to be to compete regionally for jobs. He spoke persuasively about past land use decisions and current opportunities. Richard Florida, professor at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto and author of The Rise of the Creative Class and Who’s Your City, followed with a fairly general talk. But on the heels of Fuller’s brief, it had a little more impact.

Planning Board Chairman Samuel J. Parker, Jr. stole the show though with his announcement that the Planning Board would launch a visioning process, with an opportunity for significant public input. This process, while long overdue, will allow community input to shape our area’s future development.

Envision Prince George’s has four major goals:

• Educate a broad cross-section of community stakeholders about the collaborative visioning process and need for their participation.

• Engage individuals and groups across the county in a facilitated process to solicit their input into the vision for the county’s future.

• Articulate their desired outcomes as a shared vision for quality of life in the county.

• Translate that vision into subsequent goals and implementation strategies that help shape agency work programs and guide county policies. (Emphasis added)

The final product will be a community development framework that can inform decision-making, for example, in land use development, planning, and community services that are in alignment with future vision of the county as described by its committed and engaged citizenry.

Many jurisdictions across the country have forward-thinking plans, one of them is just across the Potomac. In 1960, Arlington County, Virginia adopted a comprehensive plan with five basic elements. Politicians have come and gone, but the comprehensive plan has continued to provide a unifying framework for Arlington’s growth. It has been updated, but basic principles remain intact and the county is now the transit-oriented development model for the rest of the nation.

Let’s hope that the same sort of coherent and community-driven plan, along with an updated zoning ordinance, can come out of Prince George’s visioning process. Kudos to Mr. Parker and his colleagues for kicking this off. Visit the project site and sign up now to help shape your county.

US 1 Corridor Sector Plan News

Why Are We Doing This?
If, like me, you were curious as to the rationale for the sector plan update, here’s the short version. The City of College Park requested that M-NCPPC revisit the sector plan to better address development concerns such as architectural guidelines, building height and other issues. To quote the project site:

Unanticipated development pressure in the area and an inadequate transportation system has resulted in conditions at odds with the recommendations and design standards of the current plan.

Updated Boundaries
On September 17 at a community meeting in College Park, M-NCPPC planner and project manager Chad Williams announced revised boundaries for the update to the US 1 Corridor Sector Plan. The new boundaries will stop at Guilford Road, the southern edge of College Park, and will not include the Cafritz property, portions of University Park or Riverdale Park. In response to opposition from the University Park Town Council and other county officials, this area was dropped from the plan. The northern boundaries of the proposal remain unchanged and have expanded beyond the 2002 sector plan.

Understanding the Process
You maybe be wondering: what’s the process and how does the community fit in? The US 1 Corridor Sector Plan will follow an 18-month planning cycle. The College Park community meeting was part of the pre-planning phase, presumably to hear initial public comment.

So what’s next? Next week, there’s the Planning Board initiation to formally begin the project. In two months, December 5-10 (location TBD), there will be a series of open design meetings (called a charrette) where community members can make specific recommendations. This is our best opportunity to express specific ideas and concerns about development along US 1.

Next summer, there will be public hearings on the first draft of the plan and the following spring (2010) the proposal will go before the county council for approval. The project web site has more information on the process and schedule.

And The Next Meeting is…
On Thursday, October 2 in Upper Marlboro, the Planning Board will initiate the US 1 Corridor Sector Plan. What is this, you ask, and is it important for the community to attend? This is a regular meeting of the Planning Board and the Sector Plan will be one of many issues discussed. Can the public comment on the proposal to the full planning board? Yes. If you would like to speak, please contact the Planning Board at 301-952-3560 to ensure adequate time is added to the agenda.

This excerpt from the RFP for this project summarizes the public outreach plan; hopefully a more complete plan will be available after the project’s formal initiation. The full RFP appears here, skip to page 10 for the meat of the request.–Michelle H.

Meetings, meetings

and more meetings are sure to come. Please check the Events page for a list and links.

Plus East Campus is on the fast track for development review. If you care about this development and its impact, please file a Request to Become a Person of Record. This is a easy way to stay up to date on all actions regarding a development you are concerned about. Just complete the form and use the project name University of Maryland East Campus and the DSP 08030. M-NCPPC’s Henry Zhang is doing the review along with Jeanette Reed.
9/10/08 parties were to identity major issues of concern
9/19/08 subdivision review
9/25/08 referral due date–response from concerned parties

Updating the Route 1 Sector Plan

Planner Chad Williams of M-NCPPC will make a presentation on the Central US 1 Corridor Sector Plan and Sectional Map Amendment on Monday for the University Park Town Council (event details here). The public is invited and Mayor John Tabori hopes residents of neighboring communities will attend as well.

Williams will discuss the possibility of extending the Route 1 Sector Plan’s boundaries, which encourages dense, mixed-use development along Route 1. The plan is currently confined to Route 1 in College Park but a preliminary proposal would move the southern boundary to East-West Highway/410. Williams will discuss

• the plan’s purposes
• preliminary boundaries
• consultant team
• timeline
• citizen participation process

But the plan’s proposed boundaries will be the evening’s focus. The towns of University Park, Riverdale Park and the Calvert Hills neighborhood of College Park would be impacted by the boundary extension. What are the positives and negatives?

Would this allow Route 1 towns to better address traffic concerns? Would it involve rezoning Route 1 properties from single family to mixed use? Would it be better to pursue comprehensive planning standards along Route 1 from Eastern Ave. to 495? This might knit together our sector plans, transit districts and overlays into a coherent whole.

Williams presented a lot of information on growth in the Route 1 corridor at a crowded November gathering in College Park. His PowerPoint and the plan is available here, under Council Forum on November 2007. It provides an overview of projects already approved and in the pipeline and details the dramatic increase in housing and commercial inventory headed for Route 1.

Last? East Campus Meeting

UPDATE: Portions of the presentation from this meeting are now available, including the PowerPoint with a look at the architecture. Check our Events page–if you missed the meeting, you have another chance. Time to start thinking about the $180 million dollar question: do taxpayers wish to foot the bill (through a TIF) for East Campus infrastructure in exchange for future tax revenues? Will the traffic and school impacts be worth it?

Did you miss the June 19th East Campus Open House? That’s OK, it was not really ready for prime time: significant building changes were made just before the meeting, no presentation or informational session took place and out-of-date architectural renderings were shared. The Gazette, Rethink College Park and Diamondback all offer reports.

But we’ll hope for the best as the East Campus public input process lurches forward with the next meeting on Monday, July 14. This Steering Committee meeting provides an opportunity to see Foulger-Pratt/Argo’s Detailed Site Plan (DSP). No conceptual site plan is needed and the DSP will be submitted for development review shortly. Then, especially if you live nearby, you can become Person of Record (actually anyone can).

Folks, this is where the rubber meets the road. The committee will likely be looking for more detail on these issues:

• LEED certification
• Storm water management
• Sustainability
• Parking update
• UMD shuttle status
• Traffic study
• the TIF necessary to make the project possible
• East Campus’ impact on area infrastructure
• and last, but not least, architecture. That’s a whole ‘nother post.

Please attend the meeting, talk with your rep about any concerns or email your rep. Unfortunately, nothing new has been posted to the East Campus site, but you can review materials from past meetings here, just click on the meeting’s topic. Previous posts here, Rethink College Park’s work here.

From Our Inbox: East Campus & College Towns

East Campus Steering Committee meetings have had a number of careful observers. Many agree that three divergent tracks–the university’s goals, the community’s concerns and the developer’s interest in the bottom line–have not coalesced. This may be attributable to a backwards process. The Steering Committee’s work has been akin to a rushed, project-specific visioning process, something that clearly should have preceded the RFP and selection of a developer. Progress has been made with the campus on sustainability issues. Unfortunately, they are simply joining the parade, rather than leading it. But the project’s character will make or break it. One of our readers addresses this below.

The Foulger-Pratt/Argo team doesn’t seem to understand how college towns work, but after listening to the presentations I think it might go beyond the question of what kinds of stores people like to frequent.

My impression is that the team consists of generally well-informed and well-intentioned regional suburban developers. They are very conscious of market trends,

East Campus Input Needed 2/27

The East Campus community review process began in August as a series of topical meetings to solicit input and build support. But the process evolved resulting in these principles intended to guide the planning, design and development of East Campus. While the principles are more specific than the University’s first attempt, many worthwhile citizen (and some campus) suggestions were discarded, although there may be hope for sustainability issues. This stage of the community review will conclude on Wednesday, February 27 at 7:30 pm. Please read through the document below and attend the meeting or email your rep with input. Previous posts here, Rethink College Park’s work here. Updated per 2/21/08 revision.

East Campus Principles
The University of Maryland (“University”) and Foulger-Pratt/Argo (“Developer”) are committed to creating a vibrant mixed-use town center (“Project”) on the East Campus to help the University attract top-notch students, faculty and staff, revitalize the physical environment, and enhance the quality of life in College Park and along the Route 1 Corridor.

To that end, after receiving input from the East Campus Steering Committee (“Committee”) representing the University, College Park and surrounding communities, the University and the Developer:
• acknowledge that East Campus constitutes an open, public forum and the First Amendment’s protection of free speech is fully applicable;
• embrace the key principles listed below as a guide in developing the Project;
• commit to exploring the list of specific strategies bulleted below, incorporating these where feasible, and returning to meet with the Committee at appropriate stages of Project planning and design for further consultation;
• understand that the Project must balance competing interests to be both community responsive and economically feasible;
• pledge to effectively utilize public and private financial tools and programs to finance the Project, and that public investment funds, paid for out of Project revenues or tax revenues, will be used to help pay for utilities, infrastructure, parking, public amenities, public art, and environmental enhancements; and
• will submit the Project to all applicable local, state and federal laws and regulations, as well as to a University review process.

East Campus Committee Update & Meeting

The final East Campus community input meeting takes place Monday, January 28 at 7:30. The group will discuss principles to guide the East Campus development. We strongly encourage members of surrounding communities to attend and to pass any questions to a community rep. Committee contact info here.

Foulger-Pratt/Argo, the developers of the East Campus project, made a number of presentations to the Committee and public during the fall and finished with a discussion of their traffic study in mid-January. These presentations focused on their schematic design and assumptions for various parts of the project: design, environmental impact, uses, parking, traffic impact, etc. The word schematic is the operative principle here; the developers have not presented much in terms of the actual design of the site. The lack of hard facts on the development posed problems for the Steering Committee since there has not been enough information to really give much feedback or approval of the total project.

In response to this dilemma, Douglas Duncan, UMD’s Vice President for Administrative Affairs and the University’s lead on the project, altered the scope of the Committee’s work to have the Committee provide principles to guide the planning, design and development of East Campus by Foulger-Pratt/Argo. After a plan is available, the Committee will re-group and review the project, likely when the developers are ready to submit their plans to the M-NCPPC.

There have been some glimmers of hope: