News and Blog - Page 5 of 5

15 Jul

Kentlands Square

What next, Now that Beatty has withdrawn their proposed change to their site plan?

For my way of thinking, the big win is the vision in the City’s master plan, which would greatly increase the amount of shopping, office, and residential space in Market Square and Kentlands Square. Imagine the two shopping centers filled with four-story buildings and multilevel parking garages, like Rockville Town Square. The plan shows these buildings going where the large open parking lots are today and also replacing the existing shopping buildings.

In conversations with the management of Saul, owner of the Kentlands Square side, they are looking at the proposed CCT transit project as a key driver for moving forward. Now that Beatty’s proposal is off the table, I anticipate our planning staff and elected officials having conversations with the developers about the future of the shopping centers here. There is a large investment required, so the developers cannot be forced to proceed — they need to understand why the master plan vision benefits their organizations.

We don’t want empty storefronts, and we don’t want the nature of the center downgraded, so the best direction I see is to bring the parties together to work on the upgrade plan. From Ken’s note, it looks like he is moving in that direction, and let’s hope his owners and investors are, too.

Aside from the Kentlands project, I am hoping to move forward with a project to bring together all the city stakeholders to create a longer-term vision for the city. More news on that if/when it develops.

07 Jul

Improving Our APFO

We are in the process of re-evaluating Gaithersburg’s Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance (APFO) with respect to school crowding. Proposed changes would provide funding to build new school capacity.

The city’s APFO was originally adopted in 2007 and modified in 2012. The County and the City of Rockville have adopted similar ordinances. The objective is to ensure that development does not exceed the capacity of our schools, roads, and other infrastructure. Exceeding the capacity of resources can result in a moratorium on new development that would worsen the issue.

However, it has become clear that new development is not the sole cause of overcapacity. Some communities with good schools have found that enrollment continues to rise as houses are sold, with more families with young children moving in than families whose children “age out” of those schools. The APFO may reduce the issue, but it does not appear to solve it. Even worse, by blocking development, the planners at MCPS do not provide for new capacity in the MCPS capital improvement plan (CIP).

Before there was an APFO, the danger was that development would move faster than MCPS could construct schools. This seemed sensible at the time, but as we have seen it has not solved the issue. Without new school construction, the issue keeps getting worse.

Last night, the Mayor, City Council, and the Planning Commission held a joint public hearing to review changes to the program developed by the Planning Department staff under direction from the elected officials.

The proposals in development for a revised APFO for Gaithersburg would require developers to pay a special fee for developments that would increase usage of over-capacity schools. That fee would be calculated to cover the cost of new classroom construction and would be earmarked specifically to relieve congestion in the affected school. The fee would be turned over by the city to MCPS when school construction is approved.

Short of the state government suddenly finding itself in a position to provide the funding necessary to build the schools we need in the county – which could literally run more than a billion dollars, just to catch up to current capacity needs – the revised Gaithersburg APFO would permit new development as long as the development itself funds the new schoolrooms that are needed.

MCPS is still going to need to chip in, which means that the county and state are going to need to find additional funding, since existing homes that turn over are contributing to the issues and there is no clear source of funding there. But the new APFO that is being discussed should go a long way to providing the relief we need.

The presentation on the proposed APFO changes can be found here: http://sirepub.gaithersburgmd.gov/…/4553207072015045532482.…

And more details are here: http://sirepub.gaithersburgmd.gov/…/4553307072015045733500.…

You can view the video of the Joint Work Session here (beginning at 1:26): http://video2.siretech.net/…/Mayor%20and%20Ci…/2350/2350.mp4

17 Apr

Chemical Herbicides

The county council is considering legislation to ban the use of synthetic herbicides and pesticides in the county. We faced that discussion in the Kentlands HOA in 2013, and I’d like to share what we did.

We had a full house at a board meeting, with about 100 people evenly divided between those who wanted the chemical ban and those who felt that the chemicals were safe and were important to the neighborhood’s beauty. So we did what any good board does and we appointed a committee. We chose a balanced list of residents, some from either camp and some who were still undecided on the issue. The committee brought in experts from the University of Maryland and other organizations, and after a good six months of weekly meetings and field trips, made its recommendations.
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17 Apr

Strategy for Growth

Transportation makes growth possible. Land use planning makes growth possible. But too often these are viewed as separate processes, when in reality they have huge effects on each other.

Opportunities abound in Gaithersburg. The Corridor Cities Transitway (CCT) will connect our western side to the Metro system and to points north. It runs right through the middle of our most vibrant economic corridor, home to NIST, Johns Hopkins’ planned Science City development, MedImmune, and much more. And the route 355 Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) plan runs past Olde Town and LakeForest and through what was once our major shopping and job centers as well as the new Watkins Mill Interchange developments.
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17 Apr

School Construction

We need more schools. This is not just an issue in Gaithersburg – it is a county-wide and even a state-wide issue. There is not nearly enough money to build the new classrooms we need. So what do we do?

A recent county conference focused on infrastructure needs, mainly on schools but also on transportation needs, and a number of creative approaches were presented that impressed me and much of the audience. There is a lot of empty office space – can we use office buildings for classroom space? Alexandria Virginia has used this kind of creative thinking to reduce costs for adding classrooms and it’s working – we need to get there in Montgomery County, too.
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17 Apr

Government In Transitions

Governments seem to keep focusing on where we are now and where we want to be, without paying attention to what comes in between. The in-between can be very painful unless there is good planning. Highway planners learned this lesson long ago – they carefully plan detours and timing to minimize disruptions.

Some places where we get this wrong:

School systems adopt a new standard (like Core States), which needs to be implemented overnight. What about teacher training? What about adapting the curriculum for special needs kids?

Trade agreements are signed, which have very beneficial effects in the long run but cause great challenges in transition. NAFTA resulted in job losses in the USA, which will be regained, but they will not be the same jobs. There should have been accommodation for displaced workers – not just unemployment insurance, but training and relocation programs to match capabilities with job needs.

There are great ideas and great opportunities, but there is a path from Point A to Point B that needs careful planning.

17 Apr

Stormwater Treatment, or the “Rain Tax”

The EPA requires everyone whose water drains into the Chesapeake Bay to treat their storm water to remove pollution. Gaithersburg will be required to treat 20% of our storm water within seven years. Our staff estimates that this is going to cost nearly $30 million, and this is not a project we’ve been saving for already.

Although the regulation focuses on improvements to water quality in the Bay, the money we spend will actually result in big improvements locally. The cities streams get runoff way too fast and have regular problems with bank undercutting. This makes the channel wider, which exposes it to sunshine in the summer. That combined with heat from the pavements raises water temperature excessively. The erosion also leads to a muddy bottom, which doesn’t provide the stability and habitat of a pebbly bottom. The benefits will be seen in our own back yard as well as in the Bay.

17 Apr

City Budgeting

We are a “pay as you go” city with no debt and a balanced budget. When we want to build new facilities, we save money for a few years, then spend it all at once. This makes our budget look “lumpy”. We run a surplus while we are saving money for a project, then we run a deficit when we launch that project.

Our staff was sensitive to how this looks, but I strongly support moving forward with projects that we need. So let me make sure everyone understands how the capital budget process works here. I’m sure you will see that it makes good sense.
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13 Mar

Speech to the Mayor and Council

In 2014, our former Mayor, Sidney Katz, won election to the Montgomery County Council. Jud Ashman was selected by his colleagues on the City Council to serve as Mayor, opening a seat on the Council. I was selected to fill this seat for the next year, and as part of the selection process, I had to make a 3-minute speech to the Mayor and Council. The text is here:

Mister Mayor, members of the city council, city staff, and fellow citizens of Gaithersburg, thank you for this opportunity.

I once asked an old friend, a political consultant, what makes a good politician. He told me, it helps to be tall. To be a confident public speaker… and to have great hair…

01 Nov

Statement of Priorities

This document was submitted to the Mayor and Council of the City of Gaithersburg as part of the package submitted to express my interest in becoming a member of the city council, late in 2014. It covers many of my priorities as a council member, and is still relevant.

Fiscal Responsibility and Budgeting

The top priority for any organization, before any other priorities can be addressed, is fiscal responsibility. The City of Gaithersburg is in an excellent condition in this regard, with recent budget surpluses and well-funded capital accounts. Maintaining and continuing to improve this status is a top priority for me.
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