More MOCO Upzoning - Starting in Silver Spring

[Anonymous]

I went to a meeting of Action Committee for Transit. The discussion was mostly about the need for more housing in Rockville to draw people there to support already existing amenities. It wasn't about the need to house more people, but the need to draw people to downtown Rockville from other areas.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow, that presentation was even nuttier than I expected. If you didn’t attend, please watch the recording.

Sixty to seventy foot tall mixed use buildings in 4 Corners? Duplexes, quads and six plexes in the 4 Corners neighborhoods?

lol…all enabled by the magic bus? it’s insane.

It is pretty convenient to the beltway so that they can just jump on to drive to Tysons for work.

[Anonymous]

I still wasn’t clear on their answer re “eminent domain.” It sounded like a No but then the zoning but maybe the..? Was there a clear answer? And the remark about the 12 acres at St. B’s? Why the exact acreage?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow, that presentation was even nuttier than I expected. If you didn’t attend, please watch the recording.

Sixty to seventy foot tall mixed use buildings in 4 Corners? Duplexes, quads and six plexes in the 4 Corners neighborhoods?

lol…all enabled by the magic bus? it’s insane.

Why is this nutty? What is insane about it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow, that presentation was even nuttier than I expected. If you didn’t attend, please watch the recording.

Sixty to seventy foot tall mixed use buildings in 4 Corners? Duplexes, quads and six plexes in the 4 Corners neighborhoods?

lol…all enabled by the magic bus? it’s insane.

It is pretty convenient to the beltway so that they can just jump on to drive to Tysons for work.

Oh no, don’t you get it? We are all just going to put in our tiny wooden shoes and cycle around with bread and wine in our bike baskets, ready for a picnic at any time! It will be SO EUROPEAN. When we tire of local chocolates we can simply jump on the magic bus for a gentrification tour! Work? So AMERICAN. it’s going to be a New Amsterdam! Or a new Portland. Or SF. Maybe New DC. The good news is that there will be so many new homeless people that we will have a Manneken Pis on every corner!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I went to a meeting of Action Committee for Transit. The discussion was mostly about the need for more housing in Rockville to draw people there to support already existing amenities. It wasn't about the need to house more people, but the need to draw people to downtown Rockville from other areas.

Oh, are you talking about the meeting where the speaker was a planner for the City of Rockville, and the Rockville Town Center master plan was the speaker's topic? I was at that meeting too, and yes, unsurprisingly, the discussion at that meeting was about the Rockville Town Center master plan. I'm not sure how that's relevant to the University Boulevard corridor plan, though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHQ0T8gqH_4
https://www.rockvillemd.gov/2309/Rockville-Town-Center-Master-Plan-Update

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow, that presentation was even nuttier than I expected. If you didn’t attend, please watch the recording.

Sixty to seventy foot tall mixed use buildings in 4 Corners? Duplexes, quads and six plexes in the 4 Corners neighborhoods?

lol…all enabled by the magic bus? it’s insane.

It is pretty convenient to the beltway so that they can just jump on to drive to Tysons for work.

Oh no, don’t you get it? We are all just going to put in our tiny wooden shoes and cycle around with bread and wine in our bike baskets, ready for a picnic at any time! It will be SO EUROPEAN. When we tire of local chocolates we can simply jump on the magic bus for a gentrification tour! Work? So AMERICAN. it’s going to be a New Amsterdam! Or a new Portland. Or SF. Maybe New DC. The good news is that there will be so many new homeless people that we will have a Manneken Pis on every corner!

I think you've had quite enough wine already.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow, that presentation was even nuttier than I expected. If you didn’t attend, please watch the recording.

Sixty to seventy foot tall mixed use buildings in 4 Corners? Duplexes, quads and six plexes in the 4 Corners neighborhoods?

lol…all enabled by the magic bus? it’s insane.

It is pretty convenient to the beltway so that they can just jump on to drive to Tysons for work.

Oh no, don’t you get it? We are all just going to put in our tiny wooden shoes and cycle around with bread and wine in our bike baskets, ready for a picnic at any time! It will be SO EUROPEAN. When we tire of local chocolates we can simply jump on the magic bus for a gentrification tour! Work? So AMERICAN. it’s going to be a New Amsterdam! Or a new Portland. Or SF. Maybe New DC. The good news is that there will be so many new homeless people that we will have a Manneken Pis on every corner!

I think you've had quite enough wine already.

If you are supporting this ridiculous plan you should really check the lead content of your water, at least for the sake of your family.

The session was recorded, people can listen for themselves, and I recommend that they do so.

[Anonymous]

Is this headed towards a 15 minute City concept?

[Anonymous]

They did post more residential examples. And mentioned 6-story apartment blogs. Small-scale apartment bldgs. A lot more density than I had imagined. But more information dribbles out bit by bit.

[Anonymous]

Definitely listen to recording. And many questions not answered. They chose questions to answer from a Q&A list.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP, this is an argument for never allowing any change, on grounds that the change would be change.

But change happens, one way or the other, even if you don't allow it.

And we don't give current residents veto power over the future.

No. It is an argument for change to come with proper input, principally from those most directly affected. Government by consent of the governed-type stuff.

This involves well-informed compromise, neither veto from the one side nor railroading from the other -- which largely is what we see, today, with limited exception for those most wealthy/powerful.

The Planning Department RIGHT NOW is collecting that input. Everyone has their opportunity RIGHT NOW to offer their input. Actually everyone has had their opportunity to offer their input for well over a year, but there is even more opportunity RIGHT NOW.

Government by consent of the governed comes when the Montgomery County Council, which is elected by the voters of Montgomery County, officially adopts the plan.

Great. Then right now, there should have been:

Postcards received 2-3 weeks ago by all of the residents of neighborhoods of which any of the study might reasonably be considered a part (this clearly did not happen),

Providing the kind of reasonably fullsome understanding as noted above (e.g., 3 suggested visualizations with public facility impacts), and

Allowance for meetings long enough to permit free-form input from any of those residents who wish to provide it and all of that input considered for changes to the scope of the study, itself, as that requisite level of impact awareness was not a part of the well-over-a-year part of the engagement.

The County Council is politically astute enough (as is the planning board) to make sure that the public engagement box has been checked (you don't see presentations on these matters without a slide showing that timeline) so that they can claim consent of the governed. Those in the system, Councilmember and otherwise, are also politically astute enough to adopt approaches that limit likely opposition to their policy aims.

Well, no, the County Council gets the consent of the governed when the County Council gets elected.

If I were you, I would stop complaining about the community engagement that I thought the Planning Department should have done, and start engaging with the community engagement that the Planning Department is actually doing.

When the decisions are made ahead of time it is no longer community "engagement" but rather community management.

What decisions have been made ahead of time, who has made these decisions, and how do you know?

It sounds like you'd rather complain about the process than engage in the process.

The expansive definition of transit center.

Density in White Oak, Silver Spring, etc is good and useful. Density along the in between stops is not and cannibalizes efforts to revitalize the hubs.

The proposed STATIONS (not "centers", not "stops") in the Countywide Transit Corridors Functional Plan are at University Boulevard and

-Amherst Ave
-Inwood Ave
-Arcola Ave
-Dennis Ave
-Colesville Rd

They are bus stops. It's this sort of word game that annoys people.

The word game is being played by you, and yes, it's annoying me. You are deliberately using "bus stop" as misinformation.

People who want to know the difference between a bus "stop" and a BRT "station" can go look at Columbia Pike next to Trader Joe's. That permanent construction with the ticket machine? That's a station for the FLASH bus, which is supposed to be BRT, although unfortunately it mostly isn't, because it has to operate in the same lane as cars. That sign on a pole, near a bus shelter? That's a bus stop for the Z Metrobuses and the 21 and 22 RideOn buses.

They're still bus stops. They have the potential to be something more down the line if the system works. At this point in time it is foolish to jump the gun on density with regard to the potential of those peripheral stops. The success of the project hinges on the big core terminuses that connect to the metro, beltway, etc.

You know what will really help the BRT system to work? More housing around BRT stations.

Only if there is some place to take it. The core is what drives traffic.

There are places to take it. You could ride the C buses and ask people where they're going.

I know all three of the proposed BRT runs very well. Central Wheaton, Silver Spring and White Oak are the key hubs. It will thrive or die based on them not the in-between stops. All efforts to increase density and developmemt should be focused on the hubs if you want it to succeed. The ones that also happen to have metro, beltway access, and transit centers.

Which is not the same as saying "I frequently ride the C buses and the Z buses." How frequently do you take the bus?

I have lived there, I have family that lives there and I have friends that live there. I have driven there, I drive there, I have taken the bus there, I take the bus there, I have walked there and I walk there. Moreover, I also know the overseas bus systems this idea was based on so I know what it is trying to achieve.

The point of this bus line is to connect Rockville. Wheaton, Silver Spring and White Oak. It's a real multi-modal transportation idea that connects the core economic and transit centers of Montgomery County. I care that it works out. You do not seem to.

The problem is the fact that the economic centers are jokes. That’s why bus ridership is well below capacity. If there were more jobs in these places then there would be more people riding.

That's my point. For this effort to work development needs to be lazer focused on those core areas. Core areas that did not need a fake definition because they are what the original legislation was targeting.

But the core areas don’t have enough jobs right now. Building more housing isn’t going to change that.

Density doesn't solve anything but making it easier to redevelop the core area can help.

I cannot think of anything that would hurt Wheaton more than decreasing car access. Intentionally creating these islands cut off from other areas except for limited transit connections is literally what political enclaves are and they well studied and never prosperous. This is a recipe for ghettoization of poverty.
https://www.worldfinance.com/markets/separate-from-the-rest

I agree. Ironically de-islandizing them is theoretically the point of the bus thing.

Buses to nowhere to serve as a predicate for upping for TOD to facilitate developer profits when the actual people that live there need to get to work in Northern Virginia.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went to a meeting of Action Committee for Transit. The discussion was mostly about the need for more housing in Rockville to draw people there to support already existing amenities. It wasn't about the need to house more people, but the need to draw people to downtown Rockville from other areas.

Oh, are you talking about the meeting where the speaker was a planner for the City of Rockville, and the Rockville Town Center master plan was the speaker's topic? I was at that meeting too, and yes, unsurprisingly, the discussion at that meeting was about the Rockville Town Center master plan. I'm not sure how that's relevant to the University Boulevard corridor plan, though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHQ0T8gqH_4
https://www.rockvillemd.gov/2309/Rockville-Town-Center-Master-Plan-Update

Shocking that a planner would focus on housing and not jobs. I don’t know what happened to college planning programs but they seem to churn out nothing but people who think you can grow an economy without jobs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Good. I’m a YIMBY. We need more housing.

We do NOT need more housing. More people can move back to DC they got priced out of

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Definitely listen to recording. And many questions not answered. They chose questions to answer from a Q&A list.

It’s all perfunctory and they plan to do it no matter the feedback.

The questions is, where do we get started in taking back control?