In the strange world of public space requirements, one artsy fence equals one, 1,400-square-foot playground.
At least that’s the solution Discovery Communications and the Montgomery County Planning Board staff have come up with to compensate for Discovery’s request to section off its playground from the public. The trade-off — adding public art — is to satisfy the county’s public space requirements for high-density projects. For those especially curious about the reasoning, check out item No. 6 on the Montgomery Planning Board’s agenda.
Discovery is seeking approval at Thursday’s planning board meeting to install an 8-foot fence around its playground, which is in the publicly accessible Discovery Garden. Discovery would also add a doorway allowing direct access to the playground from the building. Discovery is also retrofitting its main atrium to install additional security measures, but that does not affect public space requirements.
The request is in response to last year’s incident in which a gunman took two Discovery Communications employees and a security guard hostage before being shot to death by police.
