Posts about Burtonsville

The way to get business back to the area, Norris says, is more people. Norris and adjacent property owners have formed a group called the Committee to Save Burtonsville. They say that pooling their land, which totals 40 acres, and building as many as 230 homes on it could be "the solution" for Burtonsville's ailing village center.

Meanwhile, county planners have their own ideas. Next week, they're submitting a plan to the County Council called the Burtonsville Crossroads Neighborhood Plan, which would allow property owners in the village center to build housing and offices alongside their shops.

Burtonsville Crossing could be redeveloped as a new, mixed-use neighborhood. Planner Kristin O'Connor told Colesville Patch last month that owner Edens, which is building a large mixed-use development in Fairfax County called the Mosaic District, is open to the idea. The plan could generate as many as 600 new homes in the area, but many properties including Norris's would remain under Rural Cluster zoning, which allows just one house per 5 acres.

Norris isn't convinced that new homes will get built at Burtonsville Crossing anytime soon. He accuses the county for perpetuating a "false representation" of his land. "It's obvious to the most uneducated person . . . that this 40 acres is no longer in the rural area," he says. "It's surrounded by two highways and shopping centers and four-story office buildings."

A petition supporting the concept has 52 signatures and shopkeepers at Burtonsville Crossing are on board, says Norris. "We want Burtonsville to be developed and look nice. We want Burtonsville to look like Maple Lawn!" he says, referring to the New Urbanist planned community being built a few miles north in Howard County.

Nonetheless, previous attempts to have the land rezoned for condominiums and senior housing on his property have been met with substantial opposition from the community. To Norris, they're holding Burtonsville back. "These planners and anti-growth zealots have ruined the town," he says. "They're making it seem like everybody wants a big field next to the big shopping center."

Residents say that big field helps protect the nearby Patuxent River, whose Rocky Gorge Reservoir provides drinking water for 650,000 people in Montgomery and Prince George's counties. "People came here for the woods, the land," says Don Chamberlin, who lives on Dustin Road. "They have very stringent building requirements and they accept that to protect the water supply."

Chamberlin and his neighbor Jim Putman are driving me down the narrow, twisty roads that serve the fewer than 100 homes located north of the village center. They're part of the Patuxent Watershed Protective Association, formed by residents living near the reservoir. The group has opposed other developments that they fear could hurt the water supply, and they feel the same about Norris's plan.

They worry the development could cause runoff and increase the potential for a sewer failure polluting the river, which would be compounded by 230 new homes connecting to the sewer system. Last summer, a ruptured pipe in Baltimore County dumped millions of gallons of sewage into the Patapsco River.

"You gotta have a lot of driveways and rooftops" in a development like the one Norris proposes, notes Putman. "Just think of the auto pollutants."

The land drops over 200 feet before reaching the Patuxent, meaning that any refuse or pollutants would roll right into the river. The construction of the Burtonsville Bypass, Chamberlin notes, has already overwhelmed local streams with runoff. And once the river is fouled, he says, it's hard to undo.

"You cannot unpollute a reservoir," says Chamberlin. "They move very slowly. The easiest way to solve this damn problem is not to create it."

Besides, they argue, Norris's plan won't provide enough customers to turn around a 70% vacancy rate in Burtonsville. "The primary cause of business going away was the [bypass]," says Chamberlin. "You are no longer a pass-through. You must have something to make people come."

Chamberlin and Putman are satisfied with the results of the Burtonsville Crossroads plan, having been involved throughout the planning process. ""There were times I got impatient 'cause it went so slow," says Chamberlin. "But they did a professional job, and they were persuaded by the same science I used."

Norris isn't convinced, saying the PWPA is anti-development. "They would link up with Stuart Rochester's group," he says, referring to the local civic activist who passed away in 2009, "and just block any development, any housing, everything was no, no, no. This group is just hanging in there and they'd come in and say 'You have to protect the reservoir.'"

"People need jobs, merchants need customers, communities need tax revenue," he adds. "If a town doesn't have a residential core, it's not a town."

Nonetheless, Chamberlin insists that Burtonsville can redevelop without encroaching on the reservoir. "We all want to see Burtonsville succeed. But there's an environmental price we cannot pay," he says. "To propose that the only solution for Burtonsville is to harm the water supply makes no sense to me."

The County Council will hold a public hearing on the Burtonsville Crossroads Neighborhood Plan next Thursday, September 20 at 7:30pm. After that, the council's Planning, Housing and Economic Development committee will meet throughout October to study the plan in further detail.

The two communities are divided by Ballinger Drive, a public street where the popular Metrobus Z line runs, and a roughly 60-foot-wide strip of land owned by the Greencastle Lakes Homeowners Association.

Two years ago, the HOA began building a tall iron security fence on that strip of land, but construction stopped after a Montgomery County code inspector found they didn't have the proper permits. They're now seeking approval from the Planning Board, which will review the matter on September 13. This report assembled by Planning Department staff includes letters from over a hundred residents from Greencastle Lakes and Ventura, a townhouse community immediately across Ballinger.

Greencastle Lakes residents say they're just trying to replace and extend an existing chain-link fence that dates to the neighborhood's country club days, but also hope it will keep people out. They wrote of cars being broken into, "condoms, cigarette butts and drug paraphernalia" littering the streets, and teenagers smoking pot and having sex in the common areas. Many neighbors blamed Castle Boulevard.

"We have become victim to the crime from outside the community," wrote Marvin Kerdeman of Aldora Circle. "We pay a high homeowners fee to have the parking lot and trails available for our use, not for neighboring communities to trespass upon," wrote Julie and Ken Mackel, who added, "To access the metro [bus] stop, they still need to cross private land. Just because it is a convenient short-cut, it is still trespassing and should not be allowed to continue."

Ventura residents, meanwhile, say the fence would deny them access to the bus stops and Edgewood Park, a county park. The only other way to reach Ballinger Drive without crossing private property, they say, is a nearly 2-mile walk. "These facilities are public goods which we also contributed to and maintained with our paid taxes," wrote Dinah Teinor, also of Castle Terrace.

Some say it's just another sign of the discord between the two neighborhoods. "This has been an ongoing issue between both of our developments for several years. Something like the McCoy's and Hatfield's," wrote Ventura resident Sabrina Christmas.

In response, county planners have proposed that Greencastle Lakes build a gate and a sidewalk so Ventura residents could walk to a bus stop on Ballinger Drive. "The construction of a continuous fence without a pedestrian access does not support the existing walkable and sustainable character of the neighborhood, and will have a negative impact on the surrounding communities," the report says.

A fence may make some residents feel better, but if they really want to be safer, they should reach out to their neighbors on the Boulevard. Looking all of the letters, it's clear that safety is a big concern for everyone. After all, the fear of crime in Briggs Chaney is so strong that kids aren't allowed to play outside.

However, a safe space is a well-used space. Ventura residents may be "trespassing" on Greencastle Lakes' property to catch the bus or walk to the park, but their presence alone is a natural crime deterrent. Providing more foot connections between neighborhoods will build on the county's recent pedestrian safety improvements along Castle Boulevard and get more people walking, providing more "eyes on the street."

County planners decided where to put a gate in the proposed fence based on an existing desire path made by people walking to the bus stop. There are other desire paths in the neighborhood and in Briggs Chaney as a whole, and it may be worth seeing which ones could be formalized.

Residents should also be encouraged to use their common areas. Like other neighborhoods in Briggs Chaney, Greencastle Lakes also has lots of awkward, unused common areas, which look great but can invite crime if they aren't well-programmed. The homeowners' association took out benches in one common area to discourage loitering, but it also prevents residents from using them for legitimate purposes, which in turn encourages more loitering. It's time to put those benches back, and maybe even some tot lots.

Finally, Greencastle Lakes and Ventura should work together to fight the causes of crime in their community. For instance, they could organize a joint neighborhood watch or volunteer in the local schools. These may require more time and effort than simply erecting a fence, but they'll do far more to create a safer community.

This isn't the first time that a Montgomery County neighborhood has used a fence to seal themselves off from perceived "undesirables," but it should be the last. Good fences may make good neighbors, but real crime prevention also requires that neighbors work together.

Part of the trail runs parallel to Columbia Pike between Fairland Road and Briggs Chaney Road in East County. Like the Forest Glen pedestrian bridge that crosses the Beltway, it runs under a highway. As a result, the trail is also lightly used and has already been vandalized.

This is unfortunate, because the trail could tie neighborhoods on both sides of the ICC together and is a crucial part of a "commuter bikeway" along Columbia Pike first envisioned in master plans 15 years ago. But this part of the ICC Trail won't get any busier or safer without better foot and bike connections to get people to it.

Let's take a look at the trail:

Here we are on the trail, just north of Fairland Road. That's the exit sign for the InterCounty Connector up ahead.

First we pass this small seating area. People do use it, judging from the abandoned pair of shoes. I enjoy the dry stacked stones and wooden bench, which give the trail a woodsy, rustic feel despite its surroundings. Behind the seating area is the recently-built Fairland View subdivision.

The development is separated by a grass berm and has no connection to the trail, despite being yards away. (The view, of course, is of the InterCounty Connector.) I assume these nearby chalk drawings came from kids living there.

Now we're heading under the interchange between Columbia Pike and the ICC. This part of the trail is almost invisible from either road and the surrounding houses, and I passed a group of young men smoking right before I took this picture.

There is Sharpie graffiti in the tunnel, though it's not much worse than anything I saw or did myself in high school. The tunnel appears to have been repainted a few times since it opened; in fact, since I took this photo, the scribbles have already been painted over. It's good to see that the state is maintaining the trail, though I wonder how regularly they patrol it.

After the tunnel, we go under a couple of overpasses. The roar of traffic is pretty intense, and I noticed some broken glass on the path where lights have been knocked out.

We're now between Columbia Pike on the left, and the Montgomery Auto Park on the right. Turn around and you get a great view of the interchange. There are maybe waist-high concrete walls on either side of the trail and a chain-link fence separating it from the Auto Park. The wall might keep bicyclists safe from car traffic, but I wonder if it's also there to protect the car dealerships from bicyclists.

And then we hit a wall. This is the interchange of Columbia Pike and Briggs Chaney Road, which was completed about four years ago; the trail takes a hard right to get around it and then joins Briggs Chaney Road.

Across the street is the Briggs Chaney Plaza shopping center; there's a stoplight and intersection in front of us, but no pedestrian signal or even a crosswalk. From here, we can continue down Briggs Chaney, which has a nice, wide shared path for about a mile and a half before connecting to a portion of the trail that's actually on the ICC.

Residents of Tanglewood, a subdivision on the south side of the ICC, complained that a trail would invite "criminals" from the apartment complexes along Briggs Chaney Road. While I still think that accusation was unfair, residents' predictions that there would be vandalism on the trail turned out to be true.

But as WashCycle points out, the best way to make a safe trail is to make it busy. In the handful of times I've used this one-mile portion of the ICC Trail, I've seen maybe a dozen people there. The trail is new enough that some people haven't heard of it, but it's also obscured by a highway interchange and sound berms.

It would've been ideal if the State Highway Administration had laid out the trail first and then worked around it, rather than the other way around. The trail would be more direct, and possibly more visible, while having little or no effect on the ability of drivers to pass through.

Since that opportunity no longer exists, the best thing we can do is to improve foot and bike connections to nearby destinations like Briggs Chaney Plaza and neighborhoods like Castle Boulevard, which recently got new sidewalks and medians. The easier it is to walk or bike in the area, the more likely people are to use the ICC Trail, and the less destructive behavior will occur.

This isn't the first time planners have looked at Burtonsville. In 2007, the county studied local retail (PDF), concluding that Burtonsville couldn't compete with larger shopping areas and needed to differentiate itself. A charrette in 2008 resulted in recommendations for mostly aesthetic improvements, like new landscaping on Route 198 and facade improvements for local businesses. Many businesses along Route 198 received new storefronts from that proposal, which was carried out with grants from the Montgomery County Department of Housing and Community Affairs.

Nonetheless, challenges remain, such as a lack of sidewalks, visual clutter, and a lack of community organizations. The Burtonsville Bypass, completed in 2006, deprived many businesses of customers. As a result, 30% of the area's retail space is now empty. Many shops have moved to Maple Lawn, a planned community a few miles north in Howard County, or just across the street to the newly built Burtonsville Town Square shopping center.

The area does have some strengths, however. A strip of well-reviewed sit-down and ethnic restaurants has emerged along Route 198, earning it the name "Restaurant Row." Five bus routes now serve the Burtonsville park and ride lot, including the Z Metrobus, one of the most popular lines in the region.

Though many residents were once skeptical of any new development, they're now anxious for the same jobs and shopping amenities other parts of the county enjoy. When Colesville Patch polled residents about what stores they'd like to see in Burtonsville, many asked for "nice restaurants" and "entertainment venues" while lamenting that they now have to drive to Silver Spring, Rockville or Columbia for them.

In response, county planners seek to make Burtonsville a destination, using its rural heritage to distinguish it from surrounding areas while allowing property owners to give residents the amenities they want.

Though the Burtonsville Bypass and recently-opened Intercounty Connector take potential shoppers out of Burtonsville, they also reduce the burden of car traffic on Burtonsville's two main streets, Route 29 and Route 198. Thus, the plan proposes converting Route 198 from a run-down highway into a "main street" serving primarily local traffic. The street would have new sidewalks and bike lanes, along with trees and a landscaped median. Left-turn lanes and curb cuts would be consolidated to calm traffic. And a new grid of smaller streets would tie the village center together, making it easier to walk or bike throughout the district.

The plan also bolsters the existing "Restaurant Row," proposing additional funds for façade improvements and the creation of a chamber of commerce for area businesses. It also replaces the current zoning, which basically only allows strip malls, with a new CR or Commercial-Residential Zone that allows property owners to add housing or other uses alongside existing shops.

Property owners can also build up under the new plan. Building height limits would be raised to 75 feet at the Burtonsville Crossing shopping center and adjacent Burtonsville Office Park, which already has buildings about 50 feet tall. Planners hope this will encourage the redevelopment of the shopping center, which is more than half empty. Elsewhere in the village center, height limits would range from 45 to 65 feet.

There are also provisions for additional open space. A 3-acre lot in front of Burtonsville Elementary School would become a "Public Green," which was first proposed 15 years ago in another plan. The green could accommodate large gatherings, like the yearly Burtonsville Day festival and parade. Planners recommend that an adjacent 15-acre plot called the Athey Property become a public park with playing fields, which may be needed in the future (PDF).

North of the village center, the plan keeps the existing Rural Cluster zoning to preserve woods, farmland, and the Patuxent River, which provides drinking water to the area. It also proposes restoring the Burtonsville Forest Fire Lookout Tower, which was built in 1945 and is eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places.

In total, the plan could allow for as many as 600 new multi-family homes and between 150,000 and 670,000 square feet of new office and retail space, which could accommodate as many as 2,100 new jobs. If built out, the plan would effectively double the amount of commercial space and employment in the village center today.

Nonetheless, there are some issues with the type of development the plan proposes. Although it calls for multi-family housing, there may not be any demand for apartments or condominiums in an area so far from established job centers, and neighborhood opposition to that type of development remains high. But with just 8 single-family homes, the village center could use additional residents to support existing businesses and provide a market for new ones to fill vacant spaces.

As a result, senior housing may be more feasible than conventional apartments. Senior housing has been proposed before for the village center, and could allow older residents to age in place near friends and family. Planners should also look at townhouses or small-lot single-family homes like those at Wyndcrest, a New Urbanist neighborhood in Ashton designed as an extension of a semi-rural village. Not only are homebuyers interested in that kind of housing, but they could provide a better transition to surrounding areas than apartments.

Turning the Athey Property into a small neighborhood like Wyndcrest is a better use for that land than a park, especially since it was already approved for houses in 2007. The "Public Green" in front of Burtonsville Elementary provides more than enough open space for events like Burtonsville Day. If there's a need for playing fields, they can go on some of the 170 acres purchased by the county and the state throughout Burtonsville for new parks.

The Burtonsville Crossroads Neighborhood Plan takes stock of Burtonsville's potential and creates a compelling vision for its future. With some small changes, it can get the village center on the right track.

The Planning Board will hold a public hearing on the plan at 7:30 pm on Thursday at the Planning Department headquarters, located at 8787 Georgia Avenue in Silver Spring. To testify or for more information, visit their website.

It's unfortunate that the new façades no longer have a covered arcade in front. Suburban strip malls have long included arcades because they shield shoppers from the rain and sun, but such arcades are often narrow and cheaply detailed. They also block views into shops from passing cars.

As a result, most new shopping centers in East County, like the WesTech Village Corner and the recently-renovated Briggs Chaney Plaza, don't include arcades. Yet when done well, arcades like this one in Rockville can create a nice "outdoor room," the kind of space humans flock to like bees to nectar.

Despite its good intentions, DHCA's façade improvement program undermines itself by paying little attention to public space. This building has a new, arcade-less storefront, but the parking lots still have huge potholes, adjacent property owners who didn't participate in the program still have dumpy buildings, and there's absolutely no accommodation for pedestrians. Route 198, a twisty old rural road that has become a congested through route, does not even have a continuous sidewalk.

When asked, area residents say they want more from Burtonsville. Results of a planning workshop held by Montgomery County last spring revealed that residents want more things to do, a more attractive streetscape, and more alternatives to driving in the village center. Some respondents explicitly called for an "old town", "village," or "urban-lite" feel in the area, giving people more reasons to spend their time and money there.

One thing that could draw more shoppers to Burtonsville is some sort of public gathering space. For nearly 15 years, there have been plans to create a "village green" behind the shops on Route 198, despite fears from some that a village open space would bring "undesirables" to the community.

A small pocket plaza was built as part of Burtonsville Town Square, a strip mall at Route 198 and Old Columbia Pike that opened last fall. It's a very attractive space, with a ring of benches and ample landscaping. At the center of the plaza is an interactive sundial and a piece of public art that appears to be the door from a bank vault.

However, the plaza isn't used. I visited on a pleasant, cloudless, 82-degree summer afternoon, and the space was empty.

Why? It's in the middle of a parking lot, placed as an afterthought in an awkward location where no more parking spaces could fit. Customers are unlikely to pass through the space on foot, because it's far from most of the shops and restaurants in the shopping center. And customers probably won't walk through a boring, empty parking lot just to sit here.

Also, as a privately-owned space, the plaza is meant only for customers of Burtonsville Town Square. Anyone visiting other businesses along Route 198 isn't welcome.

The problem with Burtonsville's village center isn't a lack of retail. Developer Chris Jones has cannibalized the community's existing businesses, leaving another nearby shopping center half-empty and in need of government assistance. Meanwhile, shoppers are already traveling two exits up Route 29 to Maple Lawn, a pedestrian-oriented, mixed-use complex with upscale stores and restaurants that directly competes with Burtonsville for customers.

What Burtonsville really lacks is a sense of place. It has great ethnic restaurants and long-standing family businesses, but they're obscured by a mess of cracked parking lots and congested highways. These assets deserve to shine. To do so, they need attractive storefronts, complete streets that slow traffic and encourage people to look around, and legitimate public gathering places.

As Montgomery County planners work to create a neighborhood plan to revitalize Burtonsville's village center, these are the goals they should seek to accomplish.

Why does Restaurant Row work? Since I moved here in 1999, Burtonsville's gone from being a town of chicken fingers to one of empanadas with the growing immigrant population in East County. The restaurants are located in old buildings that are likely paid off already, keeping rents low. And while the recently-built Burtonsville Bypass has deprived many local businesses of customers, it may have kept Restaurant Row alive. They're easier to reach, but still in such an obscure location that chain restaurants wouldn't be able to push them out.

As anchors for growing immigrant communities, and as one of the few interesting parts of Burtonsville, Restaurant Row is also the only place you'll actually see people here. The buildings are close enough to Route 198 you can see into dining-room windows while driving by. And even though these restaurants serve food from Ethiopia, Afghanistan, or Cuba, you'll see all kinds of people eating there, white, black, brown or whatever.

Economist and foodie Tyler Cowen points out that ethnic restaurants are a sign of economic vitality. People are investing here. They're just not the ones we expected. "These days," he writes, "the most authentic, spiciest food comes at cheap, ugly strip malls, far from the District and miles from the Metro."

Because Burtonsville may be cheap, ugly and suburban, Restaurant Row can develop a surprisingly international and almost urban feel. And this can happen even as the community as a whole continues to act quite conservatively, opposing sidewalks on Route 198, improving Metrobus service, or complaining that the proposed village center green would "attract undesirables."

Down the street from Restaurant Row, Chevy Chase Bank, Hair Cuttery and Giant will soon open at Burtonsville Town Square, the new strip mall at Route 198 and Old Columbia Pike. If those sound familiar to you, it's because they're already at the twenty-year-old Burtonsville Crossing shopping center, which will lose its major tenants this summer when they move across the street. As new construction, the mall will likely be too expensive for local businesses to open there, meaning the many remaining vacancies will be filled by chains.

That's a net gain of zero new retailers, despite over 100,000 square feet of retail space being added to Burtonsville's village center. But it's actually a negative number if you count the dozens of vendors at the Dutch Country Farmers Market, a local institution and proclaimed "town square" of Burtonsville. The goods offered at the so-called "Amish Market" were a kind of ethnic food as well, celebrating local culture while supporting local businesses and bringing people together as well.

But the market moved to Laurel last fall after being evicted by BMC Property Group, who is building the new Burtonsville Town Square. It's debatable whether the Amish Market could drawn more customers to the shopping center than the chain supermarket that will take its place, but a net loss of retail - specifically retail that can't be found in every other strip mall in Montgomery County - could still reduce sales.

With the first buildings at Burtonsville Town Square set to open May 1, it remains to be seen whether they'll bring more shoppers to the village center. If it does, Restaurant Row and other small businesses will hopefully benefit from spillover traffic. But the new development won't be able to house them, meaning it won't contribute to Burtonsville's local economy, its local culture, and its sense of place. If that happens, you'll still find me at Soretti's, sipping coffee and watching the cars go by.

Meanwhile, our homeowners' associations fight a status quo war of their own, saying thatbuilding affordable housing will create open-air drug markets. They've lobbied to keep public buses from serving their subdivisions and said they don't want poor people walking through them, either.

And yet all this non-progress hasn't made traffic any better. Our neighbors who advised County officials on the 1997 Fairland Master Plan declared that transit-oriented development was "unworkable" here. Nevermind the success of TOD in places like Downtown Silver Spring or Rockville Town Square. In an already built-up area, no transit means no development, which means no amenities, which means more traffic as we drive to get the things we need.

"Burtonsville has had a chance to get some really nice stuff," fellow board member Tom Aylward said to Luedtke, "but it's been killed by the master plan and the ardent supporters of the master plan." East County's civic establishment has spent decades complaining that we're a "dumping ground" for poor people. They assume that if we just build enough expensive single-family houses we'll turn into Bethesda. But Bethesda has sidewalks, a clean, attractive downtown, and quite a few apartments as well, not to mention excellent bus and Metro service. I think we're missing something.

We should celebrate Burtonsville and try to hold on to the things we love. But as our NIMBY games slowly kill the business district, will we have anything left to save?