The Gaithersburg West Master Plan has become a much more potent political issue than most master plans have been in the past. So is it the sleeping giant of 2010?
To see which way public sentiment is headed, look no further than the City Councils of Gaithersburg and Rockville. Both councils recently sent critical resolutions on the plan to the County Council. Few politicians are closer to their constituents than municipal officials, and every one of them in the two municipalities has grave doubts about the master plan. That opposition is the product of hundreds of emails sent by opponents, which have hugely outnumbered emails backing the plan. One elected source claims to have not received a single supportive email and states, “I have been surprised by the lack of emails from supporters.” Another said the email count ran “95 to 5 against.” Yet another said, “Percentage of emails from opponents was virtually 100%.” Putting aside the policy arguments – and both sides have legitimate ones – we give the opponents the political edge based on their numbers, intensity and appetite for combat. If a master plan is passed that contains close to the maximum 20 million square feet of commercial space in the current proposal, we believe the opponents will man the barricades and set loose the dogs of war.
That said, the issue’s potential electoral impact is limited by circumstance. The plan will have no impact on the Council District 3 race since incumbent Phil Andrews – who is the plan’s fiercest opponent – has no challenger. If he does get a rival, we believe he will win easily. Since the plan is not a state issue, it should have little impact on the District 17 or District 39 legislative contests, though some candidates (like Delegate Saqib Ali) will no doubt try to earn brownie points by taking a position. That leaves the County Council at-large race, in which all four incumbents plus three declared challengers are running.
Incumbent Marc Elrich, who is aligned with Andrews against the plan, will be a clear beneficiary of any opposition movement. Supporters regard incumbents Nancy Floreen, George Leventhal and Duchy Trachtenberg as allies. Floreen and Leventhal are two-time winners with good financing and probable access to MCEA’s Apple Ballot. Floreen, one of the county’s more tenacious campaigners, has won twice without the Apple. Trachtenberg has lots of money and no Apple. We believe that no one should take her vote on the master plan for granted. None of the three challengers has taken a public position on Gaithersburg West, but Action Committee for Transit (of which Hans Riemer is Vice-President) is opposed.
Another potential factor in the at-large race is Phil Andrews, who is not inclined to sit idly by and allow the master plan to pass without a fight. Andrews sent us this statement:If the County Council approves a Gaithersburg West Master Plan that would harm my constituents and many other people in the County by allowing unbearable traffic congestion in Gaithersburg, Rockville, and North Potomac, I will do what is necessary to protect my constituents by working to ensure that the next Council is committed to amending the Plan to prevent intolerable traffic congestion.
Read into that what you will, folks.
What impact could Gaithersburg West have on the at-large race? To answer that question, we turn to data on the 2006 at-large Democratic primary. Our goal is to quantify the number of Democratic votes in play near the plan area. We counted actual at-large votes cast in the Life Sciences Center (LSC) precinct itself, within one mile of that precinct and within two miles. Neither the precinct counts nor the total count to which we compare them include absentee votes as the county Board of Elections website does not break out absentee votes by precinct.
In 2006, voters in the LSC precinct cast 456 votes in the at-large primary. Additional voters within one mile cast 12,201 votes. Additional voters within two miles cast 8,028 votes. Those three groups together accounted for 20,685 at-large votes, or seven percent of the county’s precinct total of 293,685.
The raw vote counts in these precincts vastly overstate the reach of the issue for two reasons. First, the majority of voters in these areas will not vote on this issue alone. Second, at least a few voters may support the master plan, thereby washing out an uncertain percentage of the opponent votes. But if the opponents can rally a net five percent of these primary voters to focus on this issue, they will be able to steer at least a thousand votes. If they can muster a greater intensity and geographic reach, they could influence more than that. And if the 2010 primary has lower turnout than 2006 – and it very well may due to the lack of competitive County Executive and Congressional races – the Gaithersburg West issue will be accordingly magnified.
One thousand votes is a potentially significant amount in a County Council at-large primary. On election night in 1998, Steve Silverman edged out Pat Baptiste for the fourth seat by 640 votes. In 2002, George Leventhal won the fourth seat over Blair Ewing by 1,140 votes. In 2006, Nancy Floreen won the fourth seat over Mike Subin by 5,684 votes, but Subin had been badly injured in a bicycle accident and did not campaign hard. Based on this history, no one can rule out that the 2010 at-large election could be decided by a couple thousand votes or less. One large, organized single-interest group could make a difference.
So, to answer our own question: is Gaithersburg West a sleeping giant in 2010? It’s too early to say for sure, but it will certainly be a factor.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Is Gaithersburg West a Sleeping Giant? Part Four
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Is Gaithersburg West a Sleeping Giant? Part Three
The problem with the Gaithersburg West Master Plan is not its density or its jobs. Both represent part of Montgomery County’s future whether nervous neighbors want them or not. Rather, the plan’s greatest flaw is its reliance on a set of transportation projects that may never be built.
The plan’s density increases are tied to a series of new transportation projects through a “staging” process. As progress is made on funding, building and completing these projects, the plan will allow more commercial square footage in a series of steps. The most expensive transportation projects called for by the plan include:
1. A realigned Corridor Cities Transitway (CCT) that is one mile longer, looks like an “S” and contains five stations in the Life Sciences Center (LSC). The original alignment contained three stations on a more direct route along the LSC’s northern edge.
2. Seven grade-separated interchange projects:
Sam Eig Highway at Diamondback Drive
Sam Eig Highway at Great Seneca Highway
Great Seneca Highway at Key West Avenue
I-270 at Watkins Mill Road
Key West Avenue at Shady Grove Road
Great Seneca Highway at Muddy Branch Road
Quince Orchard Road at Great Seneca Highway
The first four projects were proposed by the 1990 Shady Grove Study Area Master Plan. Twenty years later, they are still unbuilt. After the draft Gaithersburg West Master Plan was released, the planning staff decided that the Great Seneca/Key West interchange project was unnecessary, leaving six projects still proposed.
It is extremely unlikely that all of these projects will be constructed for the following reasons.
CCT
In a recent analysis, the General Assembly’s Department of Legislative Services (DLS) described the condition of the state’s Transportation Trust Fund (TTF) as so emaciated that the state would have to pick just one of its three proposed transit lines to fund. In 2008, the Governor signaled his rank order of preference among the projects by cutting planning funding by 7% for the Red Line, 19% for the Purple Line and 47% for the CCT. Furthermore, the lead planner for the Maryland Transit Administration was formerly on the payroll of the Greater Baltimore Committee for the explicit purpose of advocating for a light-rail Red Line.
The Red Line serves two important jurisdictions – Baltimore City and Baltimore County. The Purple Line serves two other important jurisdictions – Montgomery and Prince George’s Counties. The CCT serves just Montgomery County in its current form as a link between Clarksburg and Shady Grove. It could conceivably be extended someday to Frederick, but the circuitous route recommended by the Gaithersburg West plan may make it less attractive to Frederick transit riders than a rapid bus route straight down I-270. The greater density contained in the Gaithersburg West plan helps the CCT’s federal cost-effectiveness ratings, but the politics rank it as third in line. That means it could take a long, LONG time to get built.
Transportation Funding
Your author has written again and again and again and again about the utter failure of Annapolis to adequately fund transportation. Now, the General Assembly’s staff openly admits that the state will have trouble affording any new projects. And yet the Gaithersburg West Master Plan relies on six new grade-separated interchanges. Former Secretary of Transportation John Porcari once told your author that each new interchange project costs an average $150 million, meaning that the density staged in the plan will require hundreds of millions of dollars of state road construction money that are not there.
MoCo’s Existing Needs
Let’s put aside the inexcusable indolence of the Lazy Lords of Annapolis for a moment and imagine that they someday raise revenues for transportation. Montgomery County already has tremendous needs above and beyond the improvements in the Gaithersburg West plan that are crying out for funding. First, the county is the recipient of the ICC, a subject of some jealousy by other jurisdictions. Second, the county wants both the Purple Line and the CCT. Third, the county has a long wish-list of other smaller, but worthy improvements that run into the hundreds of millions of dollars. (Just one of them is an interchange in the Gaithersburg West plan.) Fourth, the county wants the state to rebuild Rockville Pike as an “urban boulevard” as part of its White Flint Sector Plan. Fifth, the county wants Beltway widening between the I-270 Spur and Virginia. And sixth, the county is asking for the mother of all widening projects: the $4+ billion I-270 lane additions. Will all of this give way to Gaithersburg West? And will the rest of the state roll over so that only MoCo’s transportation needs are met?
The Maryland Department of Transportation (MDOT) became so alarmed by the expense of the Gaithersburg West improvements – which of course will require state financing – that they sent an unusual letter to the county decrying them. MDOT estimated the total cost of the new Gaithersburg West infrastructure at $1.3 billion and the total cost of MoCo’s existing requests at more than $7 billion. MDOT said, “Given the current economic and fiscal climate, we suggest that a financial feasibility analysis be added as part of this document to fully demonstrate the viability of the proposed development program.” Translation: we can’t afford it. Council President Nancy Floreen, who is a former Planning Board Member and is the current Chair of the council’s transportation committee, remarked on Facebook, “This is the first time that I can recall that the State has weighed in at this level on a master plan.”
All of the above makes plain that the plan’s potential depends on transportation projects that may never be built. That means that the jobs desired by supporters and the high-rises detested by opponents may never materialize. But this applies only so long as the plan’s staging requirements are retained and there is the problem. A future County Council could very well be tempted to abandon the staging and proceed with more density anyway. (The current council just did that in Germantown.) That would be a mistake in Gaithersburg West as no one believes that the area’s current transportation capacity is adequate to handle the additional density called for by the new plan. No current council can ever make commitments on behalf of a future council so the possibility cannot be ruled out.
The county is justifiably interested in allowing more job creation throughout its land area outside of the Agricultural Reserve. But rather than planning jobs near hypothetical – if not imaginary – infrastructure, the county should focus dense development in locations with existing infrastructure, publicly-owned land and already-programmed capital projects. White Flint, which has an existing Metro station and is near the impending Rockville Pike-Montrose interchange project, is one example. Downtown Wheaton, which also has a Metro station plus a WMATA lot, a county-owned services center building and a large county-owned parking lot – all of which can be redeveloped – is another. Glenmont, which is near a Metro station, the impending Georgia Avenue-Randolph Road interchange project and a new county-financed parking garage project, is yet another example. All of them have substantial real-life assets to offer in the cause of transit-oriented development.
Gaithersburg West should have more jobs, but only in line with a realistic view of what its transportation capacity is likely to be in the future. Realism about state transportation funding is nowhere to be found in the current plan. The master plan needs a big dose of that prior to County Council approval.
We will conclude with the politics of this issue in Part Four.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Is Gaithersburg West a Sleeping Giant? Part Two
The Gaithersburg West Master Plan has provoked strong views in support and in opposition. Let’s examine both sides.
The supporters’ principal case for the plan can be summarized in one word: jobs. The Life Sciences Center (LSC) is currently allowed to have enough space to hold 38,000 jobs, of which 21,200 already exist and another 9,350 would be created under approved site plans. The new plan would allow enough commercial space to create 60,000 jobs. The county has an undeniable interest in creating jobs, and not just because of the current recession. The hard fact is that without job creation over the long run, the county will not be able to afford good schools and high-quality services. Over time, a county without job growth will turn into a county without a future.
Furthermore, Johns Hopkins has argued in an MPW guest blog that the plan’s diversification of uses will be good for existing and future residents. Hopkins states, “The new Gaithersburg West Master Plan would transform this single-use, commercial area, filled with low-rise office parks and acres of surface parking lots, into a vibrant town center that feels more like a community.” They state that 45% of the Belward Farm lot will be set aside for parks and open space, which they say is an improvement over the current plan’s set-aside of 25%. Finally, they say that building on the science-based community already in the plan area will help the county “remain competitive as a global center for scientific research.”
The opponents fall into two camps. First, some smart growth advocates such as Action Committee for Transit argue that the plan is not transit-oriented development and is in fact equivalent to sprawl. They say that the plan’s failure to explicitly call for a light-rail CCT means that transit options in the area will be little better than bus service. They believe that the plan’s assumptions of carpool and transit use are overly optimistic. Finally, they criticize the plan’s street network as focused on moving cars at high speeds at the expense of pedestrians. The Sierra Club agrees and has announced its intention to score County Council votes on the plan in its endorsement process.
The second group of opponents is far larger: the neighbors. Many nearby civic groups have formed the Gaithersburg-North Potomac-Rockville Coalition, better known as “Scale it Back,” an organization with a simple goal of reducing plan density. They have submitted two guest blogs to MPW saying that the plan calls for “monstrous high rises” and “hopelessly clogged” traffic. The neighbors were able to mobilize hundreds of people to attend a March 9 community meeting with the four at-large County Council Members. Delegate Saqib Ali (D-39), a plan skeptic, took this photo of the meeting.
The opponents are carrying the day in the eyes of two important groups of elected officials: the City Councils of Gaithersburg and Rockville. Each wrote a letter to the County Council criticizing many aspects of the master plan, with Gaithersburg’s measured but pointed comments looking moderate compared to Rockville’s naked call for the plan to be shelved.
But that is not all. The two City Councils held an unprecedented joint meeting with the County Council on March 1 that did not go well. In fact, one plan supporter went so far as to call it an “ambush.” One City Council Member after another attacked the plan, feeding on both each other and the masses of opponents in attendance. One attendee described a “tremendous sense of tension in the room” characterized by a “hostility between the cities and the county.” Another attendee described the county’s reaction to municipal concerns as, “Screw the facts, screw the numbers, screw your sorry little traffic problem... talk to staff about it. Left us with a pretty bad taste.” County Council Members Phil Andrews and Marc Elrich condemned the plan on multiple grounds and were not challenged by any of their colleagues who are more receptive to it.
We have our own opinion on the Gaithersburg West Master Plan. We will offer it tomorrow.
Monday, March 15, 2010
Is Gaithersburg West a Sleeping Giant? Part One
The dispute over the Planning Department’s new Master Plan for Gaithersburg West has gone on for nearly a year and may be heading for a resolution. Or maybe not. Whatever the case, it is turning into a potent political issue that may have consequences for the 2010 at-large County Council race.
In the summer of 2009, the Planning Department released its draft Gaithersburg West Master Plan, which is an amendment to several earlier master plans covering a number of unincorporated areas near the Cities of Rockville and Gaithersburg. The focus of most of the discussion on the plan covers the “Life Sciences Center” (LSC), an area sandwiched between the City of Gaithersburg to the north, the City of Rockville to the east and the unincorporated areas of North Potomac to the south and west. The two city governments control land use decisions within their boundaries, but the county government controls land use in all unincorporated areas (and in many incorporated ones as well). Because the LSC area borders both cities’ limits, their residents and officials are understandably interested in what the county is considering there.
The LSC area currently contains a number of science-based and academic employers including Johns Hopkins University, the Universities at Shady Grove, Shady Grove Adventist Hospital, Human Genome Sciences, BioReliance and the J. Craig Venter Institute. This is no accident since the county encouraged these employers to come to this area and excluded residential and retail uses from much of this zone. The Planning Department’s proposed Master Plan intends to take advantage of the Corridor Cities Transitway (CCT), which passes through the LSC, to locate additional density near its stations. The major features of the plan are:
More Commercial Space and Employment
The 1990 Master Plan allows 13 million square feet of commercial space, of which 6.94 million square feet has been built and 3.76 additional square feet has been approved. The new plan would allow 20 million square feet in the LSC. The 1990 Master Plan allows enough space to support 38,000 jobs, of which 21,200 already exist and another 9,350 would be created under approved site plans. The new plan would allow enough commercial space to create 60,000 jobs.
More Dwelling Units
The 1990 Master Plan allows 3,800 dwelling units, of which 3,300 exist and no more have been approved. The new plan would allow 9,000 dwelling units.
More CCT Stations and a Different Alignment
The original CCT alignment called for three CCT stations in or near the LSC. The new plan calls for five CCT stations. Instead of skirting the northern edge of the LSC, the CCT would swoop down through the heart of the LSC in an “S” shape under the new plan. This would lengthen the CCT by about a mile. The additional stations are intended to support additional density and would therefore add ridership. In the graphic below, the original alignment is marked in black and the new alignment is marked in red.
More Grade-Separated Interchanges
The 1990 Master Plan recommends grade-separated interchanges at four intersections: Sam Eig Highway at Diamondback Drive, Sam Eig Highway at Great Seneca Highway, Great Seneca Highway at Key West Avenue and I-270 at Watkins Mill Road. The new plan retains those recommendations and adds three more intersections for grade separation: Key West Avenue at Shady Grove Road, Great Seneca Highway at Muddy Branch Road and Quince Orchard Road at Great Seneca Highway. If all of these improvements were completed, most of the major intersections in and near the LSC would be grade-separated.
Staging
The new plan is structured to allow increases in density only when infrastructure milestones are met. Some of these milestones include full funding, construction and operation of the CCT, full funding and construction of specific grade-separated interchanges and percentage targets for commuters using non-auto modes. Unless the milestones are met, the density increases are not supposed to be allowed.
The proposed Gaithersburg West Master Plan has provoked some debate. We’ll get into that in Part Two.
