Posts about Gaithersburg West

Even before the vote, they had hired transportation consultants to study how to build the transitway on the cheap. Within days of the council vote, the developers pulled the plan out of their back pockets and began lobbying county and state officials for it.

The public has not been allowed to see the developers' plan. But reports are that it would delete overpasses from the transitway. Buses would get their own lanes only where the price is low. At intersections—the places where congestion is worst—the "rapid" buses would have to travel in regular traffic lanes.

Why would anyone want to spend tens of millions of dollars to build bus lanes where they won't do much good? The reason is that sprawl development in "Science City," on the west side of Gaithersburg, can't move forward until the CCT, or at least some version of the CCT, gets built. Johns Hopkins is the biggest landowner in the area.

Under a Master Plan approved in 2010, there can be no more development in Science City until certain requirements are fulfilled. The key hurdle is a requirement to "fully fund construction of the CCT from the Shady Grove Metro station to Metropolitan Grove within the first six years of the county's CIP or the state CIP." A transitway with overpasses left out wouldn't seem to be "fully funded," but Hopkins and its allies may have enough political pull to convince the county that it is.

Sometime in the future, after the dumbed-down transitway is built, the missing bridges could show up. But there's little chance of that happening if Hopkins can get a go-ahead for its real estate schemes. The developers are the main force pushing this transitway forward, and they are sure to lose interest once they have their approvals.

Meanwhile, the county Bus Rapid Transit task force has found itself in a pickle. Unless it abandons its commitment to "gold standard" BRT, it has discovered, it must choose between taking lanes away from cars and road widenings that would involve wholesale demolition of homes and churches. If Hopkins gets away with its bait-and-switch on the Corridor Cities Transitway, we can expect bus projects to suffer the same fate in the rest of the county.

The heirs are asking the Montgomery County Circuit Court for declarative and injunctive relief in order to stop JHU's implementation of development plans for the Belward Farm property, on grounds that the plans violate the donors' intent as shown in both the sales contract and the deed of conveyance.

According to the 1988 contract of sale and 1989 deed of conveyance, provided to me by one of the heirs, Tim Newell, there were no limits for the "use or dispos[al]" of the eastern 30 acres of Belward Farm. However, the proceeds of "any such sale or disposition" were to be "used to create or add to a fund established in the name of Elizabeth B. Banks for the benefit of" JHU.

Use of the western 108 acres of the property was restricted to "agricultural, academic, research and development, delivery of health and medical care and services, or related purposes only, which uses may specifically include but not be limited to development of a research campus in affiliation with one or more divisions" of JHU. This part was to be known as the "Belward Campus of the Johns Hopkins University". JHU was to preserve "an appropriate wooded and fenced buffer area" between the western and eastern parts of the property.

The use restrictions on the western part were "a covenant running with the land". However, if JHU violated the restrictions, the violation would not "result in a forfeiture or reversion of the fee simple title to the land".

And so, in 1989, JHU became the owner of Belward Farm. Then what happened?

In July 1990, Montgomery County approved the Shady Grove Study Area Master Plan, which proposed "expansion of the R&D Village concept west of I-270 to include [JHU's] proposed Belward Research Campus on the Banks Farm".

JHU accordingly applied for and received a rezoning of the property from low-density residential (R-200) to an office/research zone (R&D). According to the lawsuit, the donors "cooperated in [the rezoning] in the expectation that it would facilitate the college campus development of [the western part of the property]".

In March 1997, the Planning Board approved a preliminary plan of subdivision for the property, which JHU now called the "Johns Hopkins Belward Research Campus". The plan proposed a maximum of 1.8 million square feet of gross developed area, described in the lawsuit as representing "about 99.7% of the maximum development allowed under the then-existing R&D zoning [an FAR of 0.3]". Again, the donors did not object to this plan.

But JHU did not apply for final approval of this plan. Instead, according to the lawsuit, JHU and Montgomery County reached an understanding that was recorded on the deed to the eastern part of the property: JHU would donate the eastern part of the property to Montgomery County, in return for the county's support for development of the western part.

According to the lawsuit, this understanding violated the donors' intent in two ways.

First, Elizabeth Banks had told JHU before the sale that she opposed Montgomery County's efforts to control development of Belward Farm—part of which the county now owned, thanks to JHU's donation.

Second, although the sales contract specified that proceeds from the disposition of the land must go to the establishment of an Elizabeth B. Banks Fund, JHU disposed of the land through donation, not a sale. Hence no proceeds, and no fund.

However, JHU did not tell the donors about its transactions with Montgomery County. As a result, the donors had no significant objections to the subsequent commercial development of the eastern part of the property, believing that JHU planned to use the money from the development to pay for building of the campus on the western part. The eastern part was developed into 390,000 square feet of R&D buildings, with associated parking lots. A strip of forest now divides it from the western part.

Elizabeth Banks died in 2005. That same year, according to the Planning Board website, "JHU [began] to rethink their original plans for Belward". Because the 1997 preliminary plan had already proposed the development of the property to the maximum allowed by the R&D zoning of the time, JHU's "rethinking" also required a second round of rezoning.

In 2007, the Planning Department started work on the new area master plan, then known as Gaithersburg West. The final master plan, renamed the Great Seneca Science Corridor, recommended re-rezoning the property from lower-density R&D to higher-density LSC, with a maximum FAR of 1.0, or approximately 4.7 million square feet of development.

The County Council approved the master plan in May 2010 and the rezoning request in July 2010. And in July 2011, the Planning Board approved JHU's request to amend its 1997 preliminary plan.

Due to staging requirements in the master plan, JHU has immediate approval only to build the 1.4 million square feet of development left over from the 1997 plan.

Once the staging requirements are met, however, JHU's concept plans for the "Belward Research Campus" include:

• 4.6 million square feet of development,
• 23 buildings up to 150 feet tall,
• parking structures for 12,000 cars,
• 10 acres for the original Belward Farm house and outbuildings,
• 50% and 40% of floor area, respectively, for R&D/office and life sciences use,
• a road with a 150' foot right-of-way, including room for the CCT,
• no sign or mention of a wooded and fenced buffer between the commercial land use and the academic land use (if there is any).

JHU has said that its plans are consistent with the deed, because development will be limited to "agricultural, academic, research and development, delivery of health and medical care and services, or related purposes".

And surely JHU does plan to limit development to this wide range of possible uses. But equally surely, JHU's current plans are not at all what Elizabeth Banks and her relatives intended when they signed the sales contract that donated Belward Farm to JHU.

Other universities have also been sued for not using a gift as the donors had intended. In another recent case, Robertson v. Princeton University, the donors eventually settled with Princeton about the university's use of a $900 million endowment to educate students for careers in government. But Tulane University was allowed to merge Newcomb College into the university's arts and sciences college, despite Josephine Newcomb's wish to establish a women's college in honor of her late daughter.

In the meantime, Montgomery County continues with its plans for the creation of a transit-oriented, urban development that will actually be car-dependent sprawl. Sadly, JHU's planned development of Belward Farm into a "research campus" the size of a Tysons Corner Silver Line redevelopment project fits right in to this absurdity.

(Disclosures: I testified against the Science City master plan on behalf of the Action Committee for Transit. Also, I have a graduate degree from JHU.)

This development, close to Shady Grove, was explicitly built around a central boulevard with a very wide median that could accommodate a light rail line in the future. Yet some residents afraid of a transit line have organized against bringing the line where it was always meant to go. Marcuccio and Gajewski both voted to ask the state to reroute the line.

Gajewski, who lives in King Farm, said the line would provide "no benefits." It's strange to think that a quick ride to the Metro in one direction and jobs in the other wouldn't benefit residents. Fortunately, the state isn't heeding this bad advice.

Patch contributor and lobbyist Richard Parsons wrote a useful summary of the growth and transit issues in Rockville. He says that few candidates in either city want to reform the damaging Adequate Public Facilities laws that hinder walkable development while encouraging sprawl. These laws, designed to ensure development doesn't overcrowd schools or roads, actually end up just stopping growth in the core and pushing it to less dense outer areas which will create more traffic and a need to build schools in the future.

Parsons' summary of Gaithersburg's races, on the other hand, are a lot more suspect because he was previous paid by Johns Hopkins to promote their so-called "Science City" development. The Gaithersburg council opposed the project at its proposed size, and Parsons criticizes this decision without disclosing his conflict of interest.

2 challengers to the Gaithersburg incumbents are criticizing that decision, which Parsons applauds on behalf of "those who want to see a more aggressive approach to job creation and transit-oriented development." "Science City" could have been true transit-oriented development by locating around Shady Grove or other underdeveloped Metro station areas; instead, Johns Hopkins brought enormous pressure and lobbying dollars to approve widely-scattered "towers in the park" office parks, connected by a winding bus route, and stamped as "transit-oriented development."

Gaithersburg voters should make up their own minds, but be wary of any recommendations around "Science City" from anyone who made some real money in exchange for promoting this lousy project.

"The scale of FDA's impact is much more modest than anticipated by some supporters," says the report, which cites "limited potential for life science business development" as a result of the FDA's relocation from Rockville, which will bring 9,000 workers to White Oak.

The consultants say that the biotech and life sciences companies that planners want to bring to East County are drawn to the Great Seneca Science Corridor along I-270, where those kinds of businesses are already located.

Landlords in White Oak have already reached out to biotech companies and received little interest about properties in the area, the consultants say, while a survey of 24 life science companies located along I-270 revealed that firms won't move to be closer to the FDA. Many said that being close to the FDA wasn't as valuable as being near other science and technology firms, which provide opportunities for collaboration with their peers. A quarter of the companies said proximity to the owners' houses was a factor in where their offices located.

The InterCounty Connector will make it easier for biotech firms to take advantage of the I-270 corridor's amenities while still having easy access to the FDA, the study notes. "When coupled with the U.S. 29 corridor's road congestion and limited transit service, the [East County Science Center] will have difficulty competing for life science companies in any significant number," concludes the report.

Successful research parks also tend to be affiliated with universities, the consultants found, like the University of North Carolina and the Research Triangle, or Stanford University and the Stanford Research Park in California. Though the University of Maryland is only a few miles away from the East County Science Center, and part of the center was once the university's experimental farm, the school is likely to focus efforts on their own research park, located adjacent to their campus in College Park.

The consultants recommended that the county seek a major research institution or university to anchor the East County Science Center, much as Johns Hopkins University and the Universities at Shady Grove already do at the Great Seneca Science Corridor.

Yet the most significant recommendations made by Partners for Economic Solutions involve changing the East County Science Center from the spread-out office park it is today into a more well-rounded community. They say that massive investments in public transit, like the Bus Rapid Transit system currently being studied by the county, will be necessary to provide an alternative to the area's congested roads. The consultants also suggest that the East County Science Center incorporate some sort of walkable, mixed-use development, including housing, shops and restaurants, and hotels.

East County is "vulnerable to new and existing competition that offers a superior pedestrian experience," say the consultants. The new model for research parks looks like Cambridge, Massachusetts, home to Harvard and MIT, where scientists live, shop and hang out a few steps away from where they work. Johns Hopkins University, who's planning a mixed-use development in the Great Seneca Science Corridor, has compared their project to Harvard Square in Cambridge.

Not only does this put East County in competition with other research centers, but with communities that already offer a walkable, urban environment, like downtown Silver Spring, where pharmaceutical company United Therapeutics is building their headquarters.

The consultants propose creating a mixed-use community at the White Oak Shopping Center, noting that there's an untapped demand for high-end retail and a more attractive shopping environment in East County. However, the shopping center is successful enough now that any redevelopment would have to happen at much higher density to be economically feasible.

Instead, the consultants recommend building at LifeSci Village, a complex of housing, offices, shops and a conference center proposed by local developer Percontee on the site of a concrete recycling plant next to the FDA campus. A development at either of these sites would not only give researchers a place to hang out, but it would serve East County as a whole, which lacks such a place today.

For decades, East County's community leaders have sought to bring the kinds of jobs, retail and other amenities enjoyed by the more affluent west side of Montgomery County. Yet this report suggests that high-paying jobs aren't enough to create a better community.

Ironically, the one thing that could truly make East County a better place to work is the one thing it's fought off for years, as community activists in different neighborhoods have opposed new sidewalks, new housing, improved retail, public spaces, improvements to local transit. Attempts to place shops and housing on the 710-acre FDA campus, which would've helped to create the kind of environment science and technology workers want, were shot down by neighbors fifteen years ago.

The study by Partners for Economic Solutions confirms existing trends that say companies are less interested in suburban office parks, and if East County wants to draw those businesses, it should follow suit. So far, we've thought of the East County Science Center as a place to work. Yet the plan has even more potential if we consider it a place to live, shop, eat, and gather as well. After all, how can we cure cancer if our researchers are spend all their time in traffic driving to and from work?

The first two realignments, those shown in green and yellow, would more directly serve dense, walkable, mixed-use developments. The green one would move to run through the center and densest part of Crown Farm, a massive TOD-to-be. The yellow alignment would provide a station at Kentlands, the famous New Urbanist development.

The red alignment will more directly serve the so-called Science City. Although that won't be a particularly walkable destination, it is dense with jobs and will provide a significant boost in expected ridership.

All together, these three changes are expected to increase ridership from somewhere between 21,000-30,000 daily (depending on mode and other factors) to between 29,000-42,000 daily, at a cost of about $100 million on top of the estimates for the original alignment. That's such a phenomenally good deal that it would set the Corridor Cities Transitway as one of the most cost-effective projects in the pipeline in the entire country, therefore positioning it excellently to receive federal funds.

MTA should adopt all three realignments. Each one improves transit access to important destinations over the original route, and each improves Maryland's chances of receiving federal funds.

Marc Elrich has been a strong proponent of a Bus Rapid Transit network, pushing the idea tirelessly and making it a signature issue. However, he's also the strongest defender of traffic-based tests that in effect hinder walkable development.

Nancy Floreen pushed through the White Flint plan, one of Montgomery's biggest opportunities for meaningful transit-oriented development, and opposes the traffic-based tests that Elrich likes. On the other hand, she also opposes most rules that would limit development in rural areas far from transit. She generally advocates building in the county and is less discerning about what or where.

George Leventhal has been a leader in the fight for the Purple Line, and for transit in general in the county. Yet he also strongly supported widening I-270, and basically favors any transportation project of any kind in any location. Duchy Trachtenberg has been good on the environment and transit issues as well and not a road booster, but hasn't shown as much leadership on growth and transportation issues generally.

I'd recommend Montgomery residents (like my in-laws) vote for Mr. Riemer and decide among the other candidates based on the other issues, like schools, budgets, labor relations and many more. If you're not sure of some of the candidates, it's also fine to vote for only two or three. Leaving a blank or two on the ballot makes the votes you do cast count even more, as the top four total vote-getters win the seats.

Two district seats are also contested, which happen to be the two that had Montgomery's greatest development debates in the last few years. District 1 includes Chevy Chase, Bethesda and Potomac, and has significant numbers of residents who oppose the Purple Line and/or White Flint. Roger Berliner, the incumbent, has championed both projects a good future for his area despite the short-term political risk. Meanwhile, his challenger, Ilaya Hopkins, has chosen to throw her lot in with the antis. Mr. Berliner should be reelected to prove that anti sentiment doesn't drive Montgomery politics.

In District 2, the suburban and rural northern part of the County, former Planning Board Chair Royce Hanson is the best choice for the open seat. He's been a strong proponent of Smart Growth on the Planning Board, and was largely responsible for the Agricultural Reserve, the large belt of (mostly) protected land at the County's edge, much of which is in that district. His support for the sprawl development at Gaithersburg West was more of a disappointment, but his multi-decade track record warrants your vote.

The other district members, Phil Andrews, Nancy Navarro, and Valerie Ervin, do not have primary challengers.

Councilmember Roger Berliner, whose district includes White Flint, wrote,

When you look at the area today, it is hard not be struck by the large amount of asphalt found in the strip malls and surface parking lots. Asphalt is not the highest and best use of this incredibly important real estate. We need less "impervious surfaces" and more trees.

The White Flint Sector Plan will provide both. It will transform the proliferation of surface parking lots into a greener, more vibrant network of mixed use development that will produce vast improvements in stormwater management and overall water quality to the benefit of our local watersheds like Rock Creek.

Streetscaping and street trees, along with other environmental incentives in the Commercial/Residential Zone (CR Zone) will also help to reduce CO2 emissions and absorb some of the heat produced in urban areas. In fact, it is the goal of the plan to double the tree canopy.

The plan calls for 2,600 affordable housing units, parks and plazas, daycares, hotels, retail, a conference center, walking and bicycling trails, and more. Under the new, innovative CR zone, developers must provide one of a menu of different amenities in exchange for maximizing their density to that allowed under the plan. Buildings can reach 30 stories in the central area right around the Metro station, tapering down to much lower maximums toward the edges.

Rockville Pike will become more of an urban boulevard, accommodating bus rapid transit and becoming more hospitable to pedestrians and cyclists. The adjoining parcels will get a street grid, taking some traffic off the Pike. Even so, the County Council had to grapple with existing traffic modeling rules that prioritize vehicle throughput and don't adequately consider the effects of side streets. County Executive Ike Leggett and his transportation officials also advised against any changes that inconvenience drivers.

Berliner said,

The White Flint Sector Plan is also predicated upon a deepening commitment to mass transit and calls for a new MARC station on Nicholson Court and the transformation of Rockville Pike into a lovely grand boulevard that will include state-of-the-art bus rapid transit.

The plan calls for significant parking restrictions and aggressive mode share goals that will help take cars off the roads; a new street grid which should help diffuse traffic and make it easier to get around the area; and protective measures that will be put in place to prevent cut-through traffic into the neighborhoods surrounding White Flint.

Yesterday's approval isn't the end of the road for White Flint. There are still issues yet to be resolved around the traffic modeling, and the County needs to set up the financing mechanism, including getting buy-in from property owners if they create a special district to pay for the needed infrastructure.

Today, newcomers to DC visit Bethesda and see a lively, thriving area with many stores and restaurants, numerous apartment buildings, attractive streetscapes and cute small alleys, and single-family housing not far away, all atop a Metro station. Only the occasional car dealership or empty lot gives a glimpse back to Bethesda's past when none of that existed. One day not too far in the future, newcomers will exit the Metro at White Flint and similarly see little resemblance to the strip malls of today.

White Flint stands in clear juxtaposition to the other two major development plans under debate, Tysons Corner and Gaithersburg West. In Tysons, Fairfax County is wrestling with the same issues as in White Flint: Conventional traffic modeling says that creating a real city on the scale of downtown DC can't possibly succeed without widening the Toll Road and the Beltway and creating massive traffic sewers around the area. Meanwhile, downtown DC itself stands as living proof against the models. Can Fairfax similarly see past the parking lots and formulas and take the plunge?

Meanwhile, twice as far from the region's core as White Flint and Tysons, Montgomery County is considering a very different plan. Instead of converting a large traffic sewer into a street grid, Gaithersburg West creates more of them with grade-separated interchanges even while assuming unrealistic mode shares. Instead of adding residents and jobs atop a Metro station near many other residents, it proposes disconnected job growth in an area that will force very long commutes, either by private car or by at least two modes of transit.

Montgomery County is turning some of its worst sprawl into real walkable urbanism. Will Fairfax have the courage to do the same? Will Montgomery have the courage not to simply create a larger amount of sprawl as it yesterday voted to replace?

Those jobs give the Washington region a significantly different commuting pattern than other cities.

Over 30 percent of D.C. residents who work outside the city take transit. This compares with only 17 percent of San Francisco residents who take transit to their jobs outside of the city. In general, it is difficult to get a large share of residents to choose transit over driving for reverse commute trips. Not only is there less congestion leaving the city in the morning commute, but parking is usually cheap or free in the suburbs. So to attract reverse commuters, transit must be particularly convenient and work destinations must be directly adjacent to suburban transit. Due to the design of many Metrorail stations outside of D.C., this is the case for many reverse commuters.

That also brings a very significant benefit to Metro from collecting fares in both directions. When most riders use a system in the peak direction, the transit system has to run empty trains the other way; the more people commute to jobs at outer stations, the more use they get from that extra capacity. SPUR credits this with generating a 71% farebox recovery rate (in 2008) for Metrorail, compared to only 52% for BART (in 2007).

Why did the Washington region do things differently? Smart leadership in Arlington and Montgomery County played a role. So did a few factors that, SPUR notes, "are difficult or undesirable to replicate," such as the height limit, higher taxes, and DC's "poor reputation" in the 1970s, which drove more jobs outside the city core. However, many other cities also experienced this flight of jobs to the suburbs, and failed to concentrate them around new or existing transit.

One of the largest factors in this TOD success story is the federal government's "policy (dating to the Carter Administration) to locate federal agencies near Metrorail stations," and the federal transit benefit for employees. Those are some of the reasons, SPUR says, "federal employees represent nearly 50 percent of all peak period Metrorail riders."

The federal role in Metorail's tremendous success makes it all the more tragic that the government is now proceeding to reverse its brilliant policy by relocating defense jobs away from Metro-adjacent offices through BRAC. So too is the tragedy of Montgomery County's plan to create a "Science City" 4 miles from Shady Grove Metro instead of utilizing all the empty space and industrial parks on top of it.

And for every TOD success story in the suburbs, there's a park-and-ride station no better than BART's disappointing stations. Even in DC, there are plenty of areas that successfully prevented new housing and offices atop Metro stations, like Cleveland Park and Tenleytown, just as many residents of Berkeley have since the 1970s.

The Metro system and jurisdictions' good TOD choices across the years have created a transit network that's enormously valuable to the Washington region. It's up to residents and leaders to continue and expand the good practices of the past as the region continues to grow, instead of foolishly abandoning them for the sake of expedience.