Take Back Bethesda!

The movement for a park at Woodmont East--the plot of land located between Mon Ami Gabi and Thyme Square at the corner Woodmont and Bethesda Aves.--has gone virtual at Take Back Bethesda! This plot of land is the last bit of open green space in what has become the heart of Bethesda.

If JBG and Federal Realty have their way, the County will abandon Reed St. and develop Woodmont East as a combined hotel, condo, and retail complex. The building would be fourteen stories tall in parts. If you want to see the proposed plans for yourself, you can find them on the Planning Board website though you have to go through a bit of a maze to get them:

http://mncppc.org/
Click on planning department under Montgomery (not Prince George's) County on the left side;
Click on development in the reddish "What's going on" box;
A new browser window will open, click on next in that window;
Enter project number of 920070070;
Click on search for related plans and reports;
Click on "select all" and then click on "search";
Click on the document labeled "11pages, Architecturals".

The development includes a plaza as open space as the public amenity which is required to justify the extra-high density of the project and get the Planning Board to approve it. However, opponents of the project argue that the plaza is being built on an existing easement and the developers cannot give to the County what it already has. Nor can the County accept as a public amenity property to which it already claims to have the rights. Additionally, the proposed building would cover much of the plaza starting on the third floor, making it less sunny and appealing.

According to Take Back Bethesda, the Greater Bethesda Chevy Chase, Edgemoor, and East Bethesda Citizens Associations have filed an application to have the area listed as Legacy Open Space so that the County could purchase and protect the area as a park. In any case, unlike many projects, this one will have to be approved by the County Council as well as the Planning Board.

Of course, one nice solution would be if the developers agreed to give a park to the County in the existing open area between Thyme Square and Mon Ami Gabi as the public amenity needed to justify optional method development. The money saved on lawyers and lobbying and and the gains in community goodwill might even make it worth it to project proponents.