Montgomery faces long winter of big decisions
By: Bill Myers
Examiner Staff Writer
October 11, 2009
Montgomery County leaders will take up several major development projects in a just a few scant months, intensifying already vitriolic questions over the county's long-term prosperity.
Between now and April, the County Council will weigh projects ranging from the White Flint redevelopment to the widening of Interstate 270 to the so-called "Science City" project in Gaithersburg West. It's the most frenetic schedule in recent memory.
As developments warrant? The Montgomery County Council will face numerous development projects in the next few months:» White Flint: A proposal to redevelop the area around the White Flint Metro station by replacing strip malls and parking lots with mixed-use, high-density "downtown" development that supporters say would bring in nearly 10,000 new homes over the next 30 years.
» Science City: A massive proposal, championed by Johns Hopkins University, to build a 60,000-job center for biotechnology businesses and researchers.
» Shady Grove Metro: A plan to rezone the area, mostly populated by industrial buildings, with mixed-use buildings and better parking for commuters.
» I-270: Plans to widen the interstate would cost $4.6 billion.
» Corridor Cities Transitway: Plans for a bus rapid transit or light rail system, called the Corridor Cities Transitway, or CCT, that could cost up to $770 million.
» Bethesda National Naval Medical Center: With thousands of new workers pouring into the realigned Navy hospital, the county will have to find a better way to get commuters to and from the facility, the National Institutes of Health across Rockville Pike, and the nearby Metro station.
"This set of projects will determine the development pattern of Montgomery County for at least a generation," said David Alpert, an urban planner who writes for the Greater Greater Washington Web site. County leaders, Alpert said, "are definitely digging in. I'm hoping they're thinking about the long-term implications of it beyond the immediate lobbying and influence on it."
An alphabet soup of coalitions and interest groups -- captains of industry, real estate brokers, environmentalists, transportation advocates and neighborhood groups -- are already clamoring around the different projects. All of them are trying to claim the mantle of "smart growth." Public meetings, including a town hall at the Universities at Shady Grove last week, have been crammed.
It hasn't given a quiet life to county leaders.
"Now we're getting it all at once," said Councilman Mike Knapp, D-Germantown. "We've got a hard stop because it's an election next year."
What has many anxious is that many of the projects overlap, so a "loss" on one project could set back others.
"This is one of the reasons I got involved personally involved in this. I live sandwiched between the Purple Line and this huge military expansion," said Ilaya Hopkins, chairwoman of the Coalition of Military Medical Center Neighbors, a group lobbying on the coming expansion of Bethesda National Naval Medical Center. "This is not a backyard issue. If we don't get it right here, we won't get it right anywhere."
On that last point, all sides agree.
"It's a very kind of historic moment," said Rich Parsons, a former president of the Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce, "where a lot of things are coming to determine whether or not we'll be a thriving center in the future or whether we're going to stagnate."
