2005 Meetings
December 13, 2005
Summary of December 13, 2005 meeting
Posted by Art Brodsky, 11/152005
Note: This is an informal summary and does not substitute for the official minutes.
The State Highway Administration project team will recommend building an underpass where the Intercounty Connector (ICC) crosses Georgia Ave. near Norbeck Road.
At the December 13 meeting, John Kramer said a compromise was worked out so that some of the 750,000 cubic yards of dirt which had been designated to build an overpass near Georgia Ave. will be used to build a berm at Brooke Manor, and to be added to a park and ride lot that could be placed behind The Preserve at Small's Nursery.
In other activity at the meeting, developer Fred Nichols and his engineer Philip Perrine presented the details of their proposed development in Ashton at Route 108 and New Hampshire Ave. where the Sandy Spring Bank is now. The development would include a restaurant, Harris Teeter grocery store, bank and shops, along with five or six condos. The developers and the state would jointly pay to improve the intersection, Nichols said. The development would present a two-story building, with Harris Teeter presenting a 210-ft. long wall along Route 108. At the conclusion of the meeting, GOCA attendees criticized the proposal because, among other reasons, there won't be enough parking to support the popular grocery store and, on a larger issue, because the development would be out of scale with the rural character of Ashton.
Nadine Mort of Ashton said Nichols also wants to build a large Sheetz gas station where the former Freestate station is which would have 10 pumps and a car wash.
President John Lyons reported that Winchester homes submitted a plan to build 322 homes on about 43 acres at the site of the Golden Bear driving range. Lyons said he "can't fathom" what dumping 1-1/2 cars per household onto Norbeck Road will do to traffic at the intersection. The only access to the development would be onto Norbeck Road. John also reported he and Barbara Falcigno met with County Councilmembers Mike Knapp and Marilyn Praisner about the proposed town center advisory committee for Olney. GOCA is concerned that the committee will have no substantive voice in planning deliberations. Knapp and Praiser committed to write a letter to other council members and the Planning Board outlining their expectations for the advisory group.
Ron Berger reported that he's looking for nominees for GOCA officers for 2006 and for GOCA community awards. The elections are in February, and the awards ceremony is in March.
November 8, 2005
Summary of November 8, 2005 meeting
Posted by Art Brodsky, 11/152005
Note: This is an informal summary and does not substitute for the official minutes.
As a nice change of pace from always hearing about land-use problems, investigator John Lewis from the Montgomery County Division of Consumer Affairs had a cheery message for the GOCA meeting: Scams are alive and well in Montgomery County.
Many of those are centered around the building trades -- air conditioner installation, burglar alarm installation, chimney cleaning and repair, general home improvements, gutter cleaning, leaky basements, paving, termite inspection, and roof repair. Lewis' advice was to make sure you get a written contract, with a firm start date and completion date and a down payment of not more than one-third of the job cost. Be suspicious of contractors who come to you at home. It's better for you to find a contractor and check out the business to make sure it is licensed.
Just the same, there was still much discussion of land use. Leslie Cronin, a resident of the Southeast Quadrant, said her group would ask GOCA for support in SEROCA's efforts to scale back the Ashton Meeting Place development proposed for the intersection of Route 108 and New Hampshire Ave.
Barbara Falcigno had attended earlier in the evening the County Council hearing on Private Institutional Facilities (at which Susan Petrocci testified on behalf of GOCA). There was much attendance from the religious community and discussion of whether a limit on the impervious cap would result in charges buyiing more land than needed. An aide to Councilman Mike Knapp is working on a compromise. Barbara also attended a Planning Board roundtable looking ahead to the county developments over the next 20 years. This is a product of Park and Planning's strategic planning staff, not community planning.
Our planner Khalid Afzal is still trying to set up meetings with Knapp and Marilyn Praisner to discuss the Town Center Advisory Committee. He had wanted this effort to become more advanced than it has. GOCA has not submitted nominees because we don't know what's involved with said committee.
Ron Berger announced that the Department of Public Works and Transportation now has a one-stop phone number for permits, burned-out streetlights, etc. It is 240-777-6000. Art Brodsky reported that the committee working on candidate forums for the spring decided there would be three events, one hopes in May, for candidates running for County Executive, for County Council District 2, Knapp's district and District 4, now represented by Praisner. The events will be cosponsored by GOCA and the Olney Chamber of Commerce. GOCA members of the committee are Art, Ron Berger and Arnie Gordon. Joe Buffington and Marc Rosendorf represent the Chamber.
October 11, 2005
Summary of October 11, 2005 meeting
Posted by Art Brodsky, 10/18/2005
Note: This is an informal summary and does not substitute for the official minutes.
County Council member Nancy Floreen attended the GOCA meeting to wanted to get an in-depth, community-level view of the county's planning process. What she heard at the GOCA meeting wasn't pretty.
In asking for suggestions on how the planning process could be made better and how better accountability could be improved, Floreen encountered a very testy GOCA membership, who were very critical of how the process worked generally, and in the Olney Master Plan specifically. GOCA Pres. John Lyons set the tone when he said that the planning problems start at the Council with the perception that existing communities matter less in the process than whatever new project is coming in. The quality of life for people paying taxes should be "the first principle" before new development is added, he said.
Many other comments were along that line, with Susan Petrocci arguing that tightening of regulations or adding staff were "band-aid approaches to a festering infection." She said there was no surprise that the Clarksburg situation happened, but was surprised "that elected officials are surprised because the climate is that developers can have what they want." Arnie Gordon said the Council was "part of the problem," and Ron Berger said he wasn't surprised that Clarksburg happened because years ago the Planning Board and staff were more responsive to residents.
Art Brodsky asked how it was in the Master Plan that extra density was added by the Council to the plan without anyone mentioning it or pointing it out. Floreen replied she didn't know. Floreen said she is sponsoring a forum Dec. 10 on planning issues.
On the issue of how to deal with the Agricultural Reserve, which is being threatened by development, Floreen predicted the Council will work to stop development generally, but said that she and her colleagues are "antsy about how to deal with the faith community" as the mega-churches are asking to build in the Reserve.
Also at the meeting, the membership discussed crime in the community with Lt. Willie Parker-Loan, who said crime "is not really happening in Olney." Attendees at the meeting disagreed, and a there was a discussion of how and when incidents are reported by officers, to be included in crime statistics.
GOCA also agreed to sponsor debates next year for candidates for the District 2 and District 4 County Council seats and for County Executive. Art Brodsky will chair the committee. Ron Berger and Arnie Gordon, who suggested the debates, also volunteered. More volunteers are needed.
September 13, 2005
Summary of September 13, 2005 meeting
Posted by Art Brodsky, 9/18/2005
Note: This is an informal summary and does not substitute for the official minutes.
The town center advisory committee proposed by the Park and Planning staff does not adequately represent the community, according to several of the representatives attending the September 13 meeting.
Planner Khalid Afzal suggested a10-person group largely drawn from neighborhoods surrounding the project as well as from GOCA. But those at the GOCA meeting said that neighborhoods from the rest of the community, as well as representatives from youth groups, the library and the police department should be on the panel also, as well as some members with professional experience as architects, engineers or urban planners.
Also at the meeting, GOCA President John Lyons said Mike Knapp had telephoned to discuss land-use issues and to suggest a public dialog on the issues. Lyons told the GOCA meeting he replied that the county has a "huge credibility problem" and until elected leaders recognize that a situation has developed in which developers can co-opt the regulatory process, few people are likely to take a public dialog seriously.
In follow up to the July 29 meeting at the State Highway Administration on the ICC interchange and Georgia Ave.-Norbeck Rd. intersection, Anthony Watkins of Brooke Manor said the public needs to begin writing letters to Neil Pedersen, the SHA administrator, in favor of an underpass. Del Karen Montgomery said that Council Councilmember Nancy Floreen, who chairs transportation issues, should also be contacted. Del. Anne Kaiser said she had asked SHA to resolve the confusion over the watershed boundaries near the intersection, but had not received a reply.
July 12, 2005
Summary of July 12, 2005 meeting.
Posted by Art Brodsky, 7/13/2005
Note: This is an informal summary and does not substitute for the official minutes.
The ICC and the Clarksburg planning fiasco took up most of the meeting as our expected guest speaker, a representative from the Montgomery County Police Dept., failed to appear.
On the ICC front, John Kramer from the Preserve said he had scheduled a meeting with Neil Pedersen, administrator of the State Highway Administration, for July 29. The meeting will deal only with the design for the interchange of the ICC at Georgia Avenue. This meeting will follow one earlier attended by John, GOCA Pres. John Lyons and others with SHA staff. Also on the ICC, GOCA plans to file comments on the final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the ICC project. The draft ICC found, among other results, that traffic flow in our area will not be relieved by the highway and could be made worse.
The Clarksburg situation, in which the plans for the new town center were not followed, and one planning document was changed by planning staffer after the fact, pointed out the lack of enforcement in the planning process with multiple builders participating in multiple phases of the project. GOCA managed to avoid one issue that plagued Clarksburg residents – the height of buildings. In our Master Plan, we insisted that height for buildings be expressed in feet, not in stories, in order to be more specific. The Clarksburg plan called for buildings according to the number of stories, leaving much more room for design flexibility, but also for mischief. The height requirement was one of the changes made by the planner, who resigned.
The Planning Board conducted a 10-hour hearing on its processes, and John Lyons reported that the situation at Park and Planning now is, according to Khalid Afzal, the planner in charge of our area, “a major bureaucratic crisis.” Lyons said that a major problem is that the planning process takes place largely out of sight because the public is not invited to the meetings that review the plans. Developers and their attorneys can attend and, while they aren’t supposed to participate, often do.
At the time of our meeting, it was our understanding that Park and Planning was to appoint an outside consultant to examine the agency’s processes. The morning after, however, news reports said that the County Council (which approved increased development in our Master Plan with no public input) has appointed its own Office of Legislative Oversight – the local Government Accountability Office – to undertake the review. We had planned to ask the consultant to make the review public, and may yet ask the OLO for some transparency as well.
June 14, 2005
Summary
posted by Art Brodsky, 6/16/2005
This is an unofficial summary of the June 14 meeting. It does not replace the official minutes.
The controversial Winchester School proposal continues its muddled journey through the county planning bureaucracy. GOCA President John Lyons reported that the Planning Board approved a forest conservation plan for the school’s proposed parcel on Georgia Ave., but that the Board also, on a 3-2 vote, determined the project should not get a special exception. Under normal circumstances, that might be the end of it, but not in this case. Because the forest plan was approved, Winchester owner Mary Rhim can bring the case before the Board of Appeals to try to get the special exception denial reversed.
A group of Laytonsville residents, organized as the Committee to Preserve the Reserve (CPR), led a discussion of the challenges they are facing as the Derwood Bible Church wants to build a megacomplex on 225 acres under the category of a Private Institutional Facility (PIF), a favored category of development, eligible for water and sewer in areas in which other projects would not. David Parkhurst, leader of the group, said the Church development would be located within the county’s Agricultural Reserve. Under normal conditions, nine homes might be built on the 225 acres, but this project calls for a 1500-seat facility for events and services with office space, high school, a 20 acre cemetery, sports complex with concession, residential facilities and impervious parking. The facility would operate every day of the week.
Parkhurst termed such developments a breach of contract between the county and residents because it would reverse the promise of less development in the Reserve in exchange for more development in other areas (like Olney). Parkhurst also called the development out of character with the Laytonsville community, and said that other PIF developments, like schools or churches, could change the character of the county.
The next step in the process is a June 30 report to be released by an interagency task group reporting to the Council’s Transportation and Environment Committee, which may have recommendations on how to proceed. GOCA members were generally sympathetic to the Laytonsville cause, but couldn’t offer much encouragement in stopping the project, given recent County Council actions favoring development. More details are at www.saverurallaytonsville.org.
Finally, residents from the Preserve appear to have made some progress in persuading the State Highway Administration to consider seriously designing an underpass for the ICC at the intersection of Georgia Ave. and Norbeck Road, rather than the overpass the staff had wanted. John Kramer of the Preserve and GOCA Pres. John Lyons attended a meeting with State Highway staff in Baltimore, and argued that the underpass would be more in keeping with the intent of the Master Plan. Kramer said the state had wanted to build an overpass in part to use up millions of cubic yards of dirt dug up from the rest of the ICC project.
May 10, 2005
Summary
posted by Art Brodsky, 5/11/2005
This is an unofficial summary of the May 10 meeting. It does not replace the official minutes.
GOCA at the May 10 meeting decided to send a letter to the State Highway Administration (SHA) favoring an ICC-related underpass at Georgia Ave. and Norbeck Road, while still maintaining its opposition to the $3 billion project generally.
Michael Weiser and John Kramer from the Preserve at Small’s Nursery presented the issue. They said that current plans for the ICC call for a large overpass, which, of course, would pass over their development creating much more noise than the current state studies admit. The surrounding neighborhoods would prefer an underpass at the intersection, but the state hasn’t planned for that, saying it would add $21 million to the cost of the road. Weiser and Kramer wanted a letter of support from GOCA for their position.
Kramer also mentioned that any improvements to the Georgia/Norbeck intersection, such as that underpass, would have to wait until after the ICC was built, and that detail design work on the intersection plans have been suspended.
GOCA members debated whether they writing a letter endorsing an underpass for the ICC could somehow be interpreted by the state as GOCA backing off from its opposition to the project, and whether this was the proper time for GOCA to express its position. Kramer said the state Transportation secretary wants to start building in a year, and that the only option now in the draft environmental impact statement is an overpass. GOCA Pres. John Lyons said he would write the letter, which would combine our preference for an underpass with opposition to the ICC. Art Brodsky suggested that the letter also ask that any ICC construction be coordinated with whatever the state wants to do with the intersection. A motion was passed, with two abstentions, to authorize Lyons to write the letter. There will be a meeting at SHA on the May 19 on the overpass issue, at which GOCA may be represented, schedules permitting.
Also during the meeting, Delegates Karen Montgomery from Dist. 14 and Carol Petzold from Dist. 19 briefed the group on the legislative session that ended last month. Following on the ICC theme, Montgomery said that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is examining the northern ICC route, which had been rejected by the county, on the grounds that option was less environmentally sensitive than the southern route. She disagreed, noting that much of our drinking water comes from that area. Montgomery also said the state budget worked out well for Montgomery County, ticking off a variety of projects for which we received funds, including the Olney Theatre and a gym for Greenwood Elementary. Petzold gave a detailed run-down of her work on the Judiciary Committee.
There was also discussion of the sale of state park land, and of the political climate in Annapolis.
In addition: (1) There is apparently a new plan for the Winchester School, but no one has seen it. (2) Rob Gibbs of the Maryland National Capital Park and Planning Commission said the state is moving aggressively to cut down the deer population on state land, such as parks, but can’t do much on private property or other areas. He is available for presentations to homeowner associations on the deer issue, at 301-949-2909.
April 12, 2005
Summary
posted by Art Brodsky
The April 12, 2005 GOCA meeting featured County Council members Marilyn Praisner and Mike Knapp discussing the Olney Master Plan as well as public safety issues for our area.
Asked what benefits the new plan would bring to Olney, Knapp mentioned that the zoning for the 32-acre site on Bowie Mill Road will allow for 117 units, and said the decision was “a step forward.” He also mentioned the new Town Center Zone. Praisner said the only benefit to the community was the Town Center, which could allow for public facility needs, such as a satellite police station, service center or library to be built.
Praisner had generally supported policy positions taken by GOCA on Master Plan issues, while Knapp did not. Praisner voted against the Master Plan, while Knapp supported it. Those views were reflected in their comments to GOCA. He defended what he called the “relatively manageable increases” in density. The community got “close to what it wanted” on the Bowie Mill site and on the Silo Inn site. Asked about the 70-foot height allowance for the Town Center, Knapp said that size was needed to make the Town Center viable.
Praisner said she was “not happy” with how the Master Plan was considered, saying it went parcel by parcel, rather than in an orderly fashion of starting with the Town Center and extending outward to the Southeast Quadrant and the rest of Olney.
The councilmembers followed the discussion of the Master Plan with one of law enforcement and related budget issues. They agreed that although there are pressing needs in Olney, there are also pressing needs everywhere and we are unlikely to see an increase in staffing in our area any time soon.
March 8, 2005
February 8, 2005
January 11, 2005