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 [...]

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 [...]

Landy: Not Ready for Prime Time

As you very likely know, the Landy Property would be a luxury development in a fenced, gated community with security on 34 acres off of Belcrest Rd. between Northwestern High School and Toledo Terrace. Originally approved in 2001, the plan has undergone a number of revisions. The revamped plans required a lot of work and [...]

Traffic & Whole Foods

Let’s examine the possibility of the Cafritz Property development including a Whole Foods. Many area residents might enjoy having a Whole Foods nearby—especially for rushed weeknight dinners. But are we ready for all the additional traffic?
If we give Whole Foods the benefit of the doubt and assume that their store will be at the small [...]

Where Were the Brownies?

I attended the presentation of the proposed Landy development last Tuesday. And while there were no brownies or slick promotional pieces like at the Cafritz meetings, a fair bit of information was imparted to the community members.
New designs for the buildings took center stage at the meeting. Slated to house 1216 apartments, they [...]

The Cafritz Candy Store’s Closed

Well, temporarily at least. The Landy and Cafritz developments have been approached very differently. But both are adjacent to communities of single family homes and will have large impacts on their neighbors. The Cafritzes invited us to dream a bit, perhaps because they wish to change their zoning. At Thursday’s summation meeting, community input [...]

Questions to Ponder

A guest blogger joins us today to pose some excellent questions. We share former Hyattsville council member Chris Currie’s thoughts on the Cafritz property and other area developments below (previously posted to HOPE list).
My views on urban planning were largely formed as a child witnessing the growth of suburban Detroit. It was a clinic [...]

What’s the Hurry?

The Landy property is located behind the Mall at Prince George’s and along Belcrest Road. The proposed multi-family development will have 1100-1,341 apartments and 2,669 parking spaces in several towers, including a 16-story building. Approval from the neighboring Hyattsville is contingent upon annexing this property to Hyattsville.
Sarcasm Alert. We are curious. The original Landy Property [...]

Doughnuts & the 1st Cafritz Community Input Meeting

I attended the Cafritz development community input meeting last Saturday and wanted to post an overview for other community members.
Jane and Calvin Cafritz, two members of the Cafritz family, opened with a welcome. The team members running the workshop portion were friendly and appeared interested to hear public comments. As an added bonus, [...]

Shopping List for the Cafritz Property

The following are my thoughts and some background on the Cafritz property that I’ve put together and may or may not represent the situation. We will learn more on Saturday but this will give those interested a little briefing on the property and some of the issues before the meeting.
Background
The original property was a [...]

A Big Week for Rt. 1 Communities

Mark your calendars. This week brings us two important opportunities to be heard:
Wed., May 30 7-10 pm College Park Route 1 Corridor Transportation Study (click for pdf)
Sat., June 2 10 am-2 pm Cafritz Property Community Input Meetings Please encourage your friends and neighbors to come out and voice their opinions. Spread the word [...]

Landy Property

Take a look at the proposed 1100-1300 unit Landy Property development (yes, that’s right–over 1100 units). Multiply that by 1.5 or 1.75 cars per unit…
It is located northwest of the intersection of Belcrest and Toledo Roads. Click the image above for a pdf with images of the detailed site plan, clearly many families are expected [...]