Thursday, March 14, 2013
Ever wanted to be on the county planning board? Now's your chance!
For anyone who's ever dreamed of serving on the planning board of a fast-growing county, your chance is here: The Montgomery County Council is seeking applicants to fill a vacancy on the Montgomery County Planning Board. Planning board member Marye Wells-Harley's term expires on June 14, 2013, and she has "indicated her intent to apply for reappointment to a second term," according to a statement from the office of the county council. Want to run for the $30,000-a-year, council-appointed position? Submit a letter expressing your interest and a resume "listing professional and civic experience, political party affiliation, home and office telephone numbers and an email address" by 5 p.m. on Wednesday, April 17, according to the statement. (…
Thursday, March 7, 2013
Square footage and building heights scrutinized; others praise the plan's transit-oriented nature.
Residents took concerns about the size of the “Town Center” portion of the Chevy Chase Lake Sector Plan to the Montgomery County Council at a public hearing Tuesday night. Nearly 40 people testified before the council about the plan recommended by the county Planning Board. Many took issue with the size of the “Town Center” portion of the plan, particularly the number of square feet the board recommended be built before the Purple Line is constructed. The Purple Line, a proposed 16-mile light rail line from Bethesda to NewCarrollton, would have a station in Chevy Chase Lake. The board recommended that the old Chevy Chase Lake Shopping Center (on the east side of Connecticut Avenue at Manor Road) be built up to 790,000 square feet of mixed-…
Read about the planning board's agenda for Thursday, March 14.
At next Thursday's county planning board meeting, planning staff will recommend the approval, with conditions, of a plan to redevelop 7535 Old Georgetown Rd., Bethesda. According to a planning department memo: "The Applicant is proposing a mixed-use redevelopment with up to 120 multi-family residential units, including 12.5 [percent] Moderately Priced Dwelling Units (MPDUs), 5,000 square feet of retail space, belowgrade parking, and public use space and amenity space. The application proposes the 5.0 FAR allowed by the Zone. The building proposal is 15 stories, or 143 feet as measured from Commerce Lane," the memo added. "The open public amenity plaza will create an appealing pedestrian experience with an intimate vest pocket park in an …
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
County planners still are determining the details of just how the Purple Line would cut across the region, but the biggest issue of all is funding.
County planning staff are slated to update the planning board about the Purple Line, Capital Crescent Trail and Silver Spring Green Trail projects at the planning board's meeting on Thursday at 2 p.m. A variety of issues still remain in the Purple Line planning process: planning the rail's connections to the Red Line's east and west branches, its connections to the MARC train and the Capital Crescent Trail, its crossing over Connecticut Avenue, the landscaping along the rail—but one of the biggest issues is how it will be funded, according to a memo from county planning staff to county planning board members. The preliminary engineering phase of the Purple Line is expected to be completed this summer, after which the Federal Transit …
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
The county planning staff will make recommendations to the board about future bus rapid transit systems at the meeting on Thursday.
Discussion about the implementation of dedicated bus lanes or bus rapid transit systems in Montgomery County will continue at the Montgomery County Planning Board's next meeting, on Thursday, Feb. 21. The county planning staff will update the board on its recent work on the Countywide Transit Corridors Functional Master Plan. A public hearing for the plan will be held on May 2, according to a planning department briefing. The planning staff recommends that Maryland State Route 355 "is the best candidate for pursuing a high-quality BRT treatment to serve future planned growth," and that U.S. Route 29 "is the best candidate for implementing dedicated bus lanes in the near term," according to the briefing. There is a concern, however, that …
Thursday, January 10, 2013
The Montgomery County Council will hold a public hearing on the bill Jan. 17.
The Montgomery County Planning Board today will review a tree canopy conservation bill proposed by the Montgomery County Council in November. Bill 35-12 would protect existing tree canopy, create a fund to plant new trees, and "establish procedures, standards, and requirements to minimize the loss and disturbance of tree canopy as a result of development," according to the language proposed. Planning staff has recommended that the Planning Board support the bill with amendments. The county council will hold a public hearing on Bill 35-12 on Jan. 17 at 7:30 p.m. at the Council Office Building, 100 Maryland Avenue, in Rockville.
Thursday, December 20, 2012
Neighbors say the traffic added by a seven-story building on West Lane would render Montgomery Lane unsafe for pedestrians and cyclists.
A plan for a residential building near Montgomery Lane that's been hotly contested by downtown Bethesda residents is set to go before the Montgomery County Planning Board Thursday afternoon. Residents who live near the proposed building at 4831 West Ln. have filed more than 100 pages of correspondence with planning staff opposing the seven-story, 120-unit proposed apartment building, The Gazette reports. The community supported a previous plan that would have brought 48 residential units to the site, said Jon Weintraub, chair of the Downtown Bethesda Condo Association. But with 117 underground parking spaces, the added traffic from the new proposed structure would gridlock Montgomery Lane and render it unsafe for cyclists and pedestrians, …
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
A Chevy Chase Lake Sector Plan public hearing is also on the Montgomery County Planning Board agenda.
Campus plans for Naval Support Activity Bethesda and the National Institutes of Health are set to go before the Montgomery County Planning Board for advisory reviews Thursday. A public hearing on the Chevy Chase Lake master plan is also set to go forward at Park and Planning. The hearings are set to begin at 2 p.m. with a review of an NIH draft master plan. Proposals for NIH campus upgrades include consolidation of surface parking into new parking structures, the construction of a new administrative building, and the addition of workers from leased space in satellite locations. The planning board hearing will include a look at traffic impacts of the proposed construction, but a draft environmental impact statement being prepared by NIH isn…
Monday, October 8, 2012
Planning Board schedule, zoning amendment and study into top county salaries top Oct. 9 agenda.
The Montgomery County Council gets back to work Tuesday after a two-week break, taking on an amendment to the Commercial/Residential Zone, a study of salaries for councilmembers, the county executive, sheriff and state's attorney, and its twice-annual meeting on the County Planning Board's work schedule. DECISION ITEMS INTRODUCTIONS HEARINGS The council will also have its twice-annual meetings with the Montgomery Business Development Corporation and the County Planning Board. The Planning Board meeting will update the council on the study for a countywide rapid-bus network and on the revision of the county's zoning ordinance, which is on track to present to the council for approval in December. The Planning Board will also hash over its …
Thursday, September 6, 2012
The Montgomery County Planning Board will hold public sessions and work sessions on the zoning code rewrite.
Close scrutiny of Montgomery County's revised zoning code draft by the county planning board starts on Monday. "[An] ambitious schedule of [work sessions] and public sessions [will] consider the proposed revision of the Montgomery County Zoning Ordinance. [County planning] staff will present a consolidated draft of the Zoning Rewrite in sections to the [Montgomery County Planning] Board from September through the end of the year, with opportunities for public input along the way," according to a planning department news statement. The last time that the county's zoning code was comprehensively rewritten was in 1977. "The revised code is expected to reduce the number of zones, clarify what uses are permitted in each zone, and rethink 1950s-…
Bob Hydorn
9:25 am on Tuesday, October 9, 2012
PART 2 OF LETTER TO COUNTY COUNCIL Our community worked very hard to prepare its Vision 2030 report in time so that it would nicely coordinate with the original master plan start date of May2012. Then, that date was delayed until mid-2013. It is with great disappointment that we learn of the potential of another delay to update the Gaithersburg East/Montgomery Village Master Plan, which could be … more ›