DP... let's not be ridiculous. There is plenty of green space in MoCo other than Potomac or Olney. I live in Rockville, and we have plenty of greenspace. I don't go to the pike to look for greenspace. I don't care if the pike is overdeveloped in terms of greenspace, but I do care if the over development impacts school overcrowding. |
| I left DC for the close in suburbs, specifically, Bethesda, 20 years ago. If I wanted a dysfunctional urban area, with crappy schools, I would have stayed in DC. Instead I moved to Bethesda, which they are turning into an urban area, and the schools have gone down hill steadily for the past 10+ years. I don't see any way out. Looks like we'll be heading to private. Well, there's three more spaces in the schools! Don't worry they'll still be overcrowded. |
Bethesda was urbanizing 20 years ago too. Maybe you should have moved to Olney. |
Except that it's not just one or two pockets of overdevelopment in Montgomery County. It's all over. Montgomery County has been slowly paving over all the empty space, and putting in high density housing. It's been hundreds of thousands of additional housing units in the past 5 years even. Pike and Rose, Rockville Town Center, Crown - are all high density development. Plus tons of additional housing going in near the Shady Grove Metro. Plus, all the high/mid rise apartment complexes near Shady Grove hospital. The residents of Rockville Town Center asked for a park. Instead the City Council wants to build more housing. Multiple pockets of urban development absolutely change the character of the whole county. We've been watching it happen! |
This is the "OMG big giant apartment buildings" = overdevelopment argument. Before Pike + Rose was Pike + Rose, it was shopping centers with very large surface parking lots. It was already paved. Before Rockville Town Center was Rockville Town Center, it was a mall. It was already paved. Before the housing on 355 near Shady Grove Metro was built, it was used car lots, etc. It was already paved. Crown, of course, was a farm - decades ago. I guess it was open space, but it was open space held for development. If you think that right next to I-270 in Gaithersburg is a bad place for development, take it up with the City of Gaithersburg. There are about 387,000 housing units in Montgomery County. About 184,000 of those units (48%) are single-family detached houses. Another 72,000 (19%) are single-family attached houses. There's plenty of driving-around suburb still in Montgomery County, for people who want that. And for people who want something else, Montgomery County is getting that too. |
DC has way better parks compared to MoCo and especially Bethesda. DC has a lot of buildings obviously but the parks are amazing at the same time. |
Kids along Brickyard Toad go to Whitman, Pyle and Carderock Springs - all in Bethesda. Upper Potomac kids go to Churchill. |
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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
[b]MoCo doesn’t even keep up with the parks and community centers for older established neighborhoods, never mind for the new builds. Bethesda is just a paved over high rise mess with more high rises being built every day with features like ‘parking lots’ and ‘still more shopping’. [/b]
Virginia gets amazon and job growth, educational growth , and good public transportation. MoCo gets more housing and shopping, no tech jobs or tech community but lots of new laborers, high taxes, traffic and special interest groups all with their hands out - but no economy except higher and higher taxes. [/quote] It's so crowded, nobody goes there anymore.[/quote] Bethesda is BORING. The parking is terrible and you’re likely to get a ticket and it’s modtly about [b]high end shopping and restaurants that turn over every few months because they can’t afford to stay. MoCo keeps putting in more and more high rises because they think that that’s their meal ticket but there is no infrastructure - no place to walk the dog, where are the ball fields for social kickball or a soccer game for the young adults?, [/b]the ice rink is gone. They’ve pretty well Crystal City-ized it you might as well put a Costco and a Wal Mart in now.[/quote] Agree completely. It's depressing. And, it's what they are trying to do/doing to Rockville Town Center. And, at Pike and Rose (blech!) and at Twinbrook. Like it or not, people move to the suburbs so they can have some SPACE and green areas. The urbanization of Montgomery County is going to make it a much less appealing place for families. [/quote] I stead of useable park and green space and a community center near Pike and Rose the numerous new high rise apartment buildings along the pike they added a swath of sand that is basically used as a rat toilet , but the county calls it a ‘beach’. Wee-haw - great planning! |
Instead of useable park and green space and a community center near Pike and Rose the numerous new high rise apartment buildings along the pike they added a swath of sand that is basically used as a rat toilet , but the county calls it a ‘beach’. Wee-haw - great planning! |
Marc Elrich visited the Potomac people and promised that nothing would be built on that school property. At least that is what some in the Potomac community in that area stated on their list-serve. |
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Here is the Walt Whitman high school map. It clearly shows that kids from the Brickyard Rd and McArthur Blvd areas of Potomac are bused to Walt Whitman in Bethesda - an 8-10 mile drive for those students.
https://maryland.hometownlocator.com/schools/profiles,n,walt%20whitman%20high,z,20817,t,pb,i,1051982.cfm |
Yes, but Brickyard Road also continues into the Churchill cluster, and that is where the MCPS-owned site is. |
But there is no school there, just a huge school lit that instead of being used for a school instead is being used by one man who is farming on it for $99/year. But hey - Potomac people have to have their Whitman high school which is basically like getting free private school. |
If you don't like it, you don't have to move there. There are plenty of other options in Montgomery County. |
OK, we'll call it West Rock Run High School. But surely the people around there wouldn't object to a high school, after stating so emphatically during the soccer imbroglio that it wasn't development they objected to, it was the lack of transparency in leasing the field to MSI when it was supposed to be used for a school? Right? |