A plan to redevelop the residential area next to the Glenmont Metro station will move forward, after the Montgomery County Council agreed to hear arguments about the proposal.
The JBG Cos. wants the land rezoned so it can develop 1,300 apartments, 250 town houses and 90,000 square feet of retail space in the 30 acres north of Glenallen Avenue, east of Georgia Avenue and west of Layhill Road.
The 18 existing apartment buildings there would be demolished.
“Thirty acres are not often available near a Metro station. It’s a unique opportunity. We are trying to make it a model project for a transit area,” said Khalid Afzal, team leader for the Georgia Avenue Corridor Team, which reviewed the initial rezoning application.
The Montgomery County Planning Department assigns government planning teams to develop master plans for new developments.
The council has not set a date for the oral arguments, but expects them to be before the end of the year.
Afzal said his team’s main concerns were about the integration of two 10-story buildings into the neighborhood and the need to upgrade an existing steam buffer that has become degraded.
The 366 existing apartments, in a complex called Privacy World by Glenmont Metrocentre, are nearly 40 years old and “falling into disrepair,” according to the Development Review Division memorandum to the council.
They are not government-designated low-income housing but are low income by market demand.
Of the 1,550 new residences planned for the area, 194 would be labeled as “moderately priced dwelling units” under county rules requiring that a minimum of 12.5 percent of new subdivisions be affordable to a family earning the median income for the county, which was $71,551 in 1999.
“We like it here, but things change,” said Michael Mackenzie, a resident in the existing apartment buildings.
Mackenzie said the management in his building has signs offering leasing through 2011.
His main concern was the effect on traffic.
“Traffic on Georgia Avenue is increasingly worsening. When the [Intercounty Connector] is built, I am dreading that … I don’t know how the infrastructure is going to support the traffic from all the new housing.”
