Tuesday, May 30, 2017
Rockville redevelopment project seeking waiver on fire response
A 3-member affirmative vote will be needed to obtain the waiver. The meeting will be held at City Hall this Saturday, June 3, at 9:00 AM.
Tuesday, February 10, 2015
ROCKVILLE CITIZENS BEAT BACK APFO SCHOOL STANDARDS CHANGES
Residents turned the meeting's Community Forum into an impromptu public hearing prior to the decision. Susan Prince presented a petition opposing the changes which had 362 signatures, and she and others read comments from residents who could not attend. "Rockville is a family town, not a megacity," one wrote. Resident Jack Gelin, testifying in person, said such a change "poorly serves our children, and violates the civic compact."
Several Rockville Planning Commissioners testified against the changes, including Chair Don Hadley, and Commissioners Anne Goodman and Jack Leiderman. Citizens from the West End, East Rockville and Twinbrook turned out in force, and via petition. Some developers and development attorneys who would benefit from the changes were present in the chambers during last night's meeting, signaling the urgency behind the proposed weakening of the APFO. Even the county Gazette newspaper editorial board had elbowed its way into the city's debate, endorsing Moore's proposal to adopt County standards.
Mayor Bridget Newton, who had opposed the changes, said it was time to "stop this conversation, and start a new conversation" at the countywide level, as opposed to arbitrary action by the city. Rockville is expected to take part in a March 7 event hosted by Montgomery County Councilmember Roger Berliner, which will bring stakeholders together for a dialogue on infrastructure, including school capacity.
Feinberg and Onley agreed with Newton that is would be best to wait until that new process plays out before the city takes any action on school standards. Moore expressed concern that the possible changes would be tabled permanently, and sought to have the matter placed on a future agenda. First he suggested March 16, and - after colleagues noted jam-packed agendas in the spring - then amended that to the soonest possible time for staff. His motion failed 3-2, supported only by Palakovich Carr.
Moore said the issue could be lost without placing it on an agenda. Onley replied incredulously, "this is absolutely not going to get lost." Newton concurred, recalling that the APFO has been a hot topic during every term she has served as Mayor or councilmember.
Feinberg said she was swayed by residents' testimony, and conversations with former city leaders to oppose the changes. Former Mayor Larry Giammo and former Councilmember John Hall were among those who opposed the effort to adopt the county's 120% over-capacity standard, and its measurement of crowding by cluster rather than individual school. Both were in office when the measure was passed a decade ago.
Team Rockville has not always been the monolith many residents feared when the slate was entirely elected, minus Mark Pierzchala, who was defeated in the mayor's race by Newton. Onley and Feinberg have often broken with their slate and voted with Newton on a variety of issues.
The inevitable question now is, when will the APFO issue be raised once more, forcing residents to mobilize yet again, despite clear public opposition to changing the standards?
Wednesday, February 4, 2015
MORE APFS SCHOOL CAPACITY STANDARDS DEBATE AHEAD OF FEB. 9 VOTE
The current standards, Moore said, have been an "epic fail." "The evidence is in, it was an interesting experiment," he said, but they have not prevented overcrowding, in his view.
Mayor Bridget Newton disagreed. "We would be in a crisis situation as other schools [in the county] are" without the APFS, she argued. Newton remains the one certain vote to oppose the change. "I haven’t yet seen from you all what moving to 120, and cluster averaging, what that is going to solve?" she asked her colleagues. "What is the reason for making that change? What is driving that?"
Councilmember Virginia Onley said she does not favor the approach of having the city change its own standards, but did say she is concerned about lack of growth in the city. Suggesting that Rockville Town Square is underperforming, Onley said Rockville's competitors, Downtown Crown, Pike & Rose, and RIO/Washingtonian Center are a threat. Pike & Rose offers 2 hours of free parking, and the others don't charge anything for parking. Several retailers and restaurants have closed in Rockville Town Square in recent months.
"I don’t think Rockville is moving forward," Onley said. "And if we don’t do something, we’re going to be a ghost town." She added she didn't want Rockville residents to have to get in their cars and drive to other places "where people are enjoying life."
Newton disputed Onley's characterization of growth and the town center, noting that projects including the Duball towers and KSI have pushed the number of units past the totals provided for in the 2001 Master Plan. Kettler, JBG and Shelter are currently building retail, restaurant and housing projects north of Rockville Town Square, as well. "We’ve got growth happening in the town center," Newton said. "It is not stagnant, it is not dying, and it is not going to be a wasteland. [But] changing standards, we will no longer have any constraints in place to control that" growth.
One likely outcome of increased development in the city will be more portable classrooms on school sites. In an interesting twist from the widespread complaints about portable classrooms in Montgomery County, Moore and Councilmember Beryl Feinberg had praise for the humble "learning cottages." Portables are not "hell on earth," Moore said, noting that 4 of his 6 children have been in portables. Trailer classrooms are "a way to kind of even [growth] out in the short term, so that you don’t have to construct another school," Feinberg said. "I don’t think we should wholesale condemn them."
Newton was somewhat incredulous at these assertions. She said "learning cottages" was a term designed to avoid the fact that these classrooms are trailers, and that they take children "out of the learning environment," and pose serious safety and security concerns. "Do we want to put children in trailers?" she asked. "Let’s have a countywide discussion with the stakeholders they are talking about bringing forward," she said, referring to a dialogue being set up by County Councilmember Roger Berliner. "Let’s help the county solve our problem."
The Mayor and Council will vote on the proposal this coming Monday, February 9; the meeting begins at 7:00 PM at City Hall.
Friday, January 30, 2015
ROCKVILLE PLANNING COMMISSION SENDS MEMO ON APFS SCHOOL STANDARDS TO MAYOR AND COUNCIL
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
ROCKVILLE MAYOR AND COUNCIL TO HOLD DISCUSSION ON APFS SCHOOL STANDARDS CHANGES FEB. 2
Montgomery County Council Deputy Administrator Glenn Orlin made a surprise appearance at the end of the public hearing, offering to answer questions. Orlin said the city's APFS "has no impact at all on where the money goes," when the County allocates funding for school construction. Newton, former Mayor Larry Giammo, and Planning Commissioner Jack Leiderman, among others, have vigorously disputed that assertion, pointing to two school projects about to commence in the city.
A vote on the changes is expected on February 9, but Mayor Bridget Newton said she was concerned that the council had not yet had a public discussion on the issue. "I think it's incredible that we haven't had a discussion about this," Newton said after citizen testimony was completed. Moore said the matter had been a topic of public discussion for years, public hearings had been held, and that the vote should go ahead. Newton suggested delaying the vote, so that County and Montgomery County Public School officials could be brought in for a discussion of ways the school overcrowding issue could be addressed. Future meeting agendas made it difficult to set up such a delay, and it was eventually concluded that the APFS discussion will take place at the February 2 meeting next Monday. It was unclear if that would permit all of the hoped-for officials to participate on such short notice.
Newton has said it would be more productive for the city to partake in a school standards discussion being planned by County Councilmember Roger Berliner. Orlin disputed that such an event was going to take place. "I've heard it from the horse's mouth," Newton asserted, citing conversations with Berliner, and discussion she had with Gaithersburg Mayor Jud Ashman and County Councilmember Sid Katz earlier Monday, which confirmed the conference was in the works.
As the meeting stretched past midnight, city staffers greeted the council with, "Good morning." Some midnight oil will have to be kept for next week's meeting, which now will have a sure-to-be-contentious APFS discussion added to its already-packed agenda.
Wednesday, January 21, 2015
ROCKVILLE APFS DISCUSSION AT PLANNING COMMISSION FINDS INCREASING SKEPTICISM OF PROPOSAL
"I would actually contend that it’s a violation of your Constitutional rights to equal protection when it comes to public schools," to measure capacity by cluster, Commissioner David Hill argued. Hill found it ironic that many MCPS policies are "based on that specific premise." Adopting the proposed changes would be "incredible. Criminal? Yeah, I suppose, if you violate someone’s Constitutional rights," Hill concluded. The matter is "a question of principle," he said.
Commissioner Jack Leiderman noted that the current language exempting senior housing from traffic standards would allow an automobile-dependent mega-retirement community the size of Leisure World to be built in the City of Rockville, and still be exempt from the standards - an oversight Leiderman described as "mind-numbingly stupid." "I think you have a good logical point about that, it makes sense," Hill concurred.
Leiderman went on to demolish the case that proponents of the changes have made on several points.
"It basically eliminates everything that the city had put into place to more accurately count school demand," he said, removing "the protection that it gave city residents." Alluding to the obvious developer support for the proposal, Leiderman suggested passage of the legislation would be "basically a complete deregulation of the development industry in the city."
Language that would allow extension of queue dates for individual developments was too weak to account for the fact that a developer could always claim that lack of school construction funds from the state of Maryland were an issue. Leiderman predicted developers could exploit that "ad infinitum. The way this is constructed, you’ve got all this language in here that looks like we’re doing something, when in fact we’re not doing squat to protect the schools, or the citizens, if this unfortunate piece of legislation were to pass," Leiderman said. "Eloquently put," Commissioner John Tyner seconded.
Use of the MCPS 5-year test and cluster averaging will be "an elaborate shell game” to cover-up the overcrowding of city schools, Leiderman said. It's the "distorting effect of cluster averaging and the 5-year test" that allows MCPS to currently run schools at 180% capacity, even when it claims a 120% cap exists. Faced with development moratoriums, Leiderman said, MCPS will cite "paper schools" where there will be capacity in 5 years. But it’s a "fictitious school" that never actually gets built, while the proposed development does. Under that scenario, "you’re not even adopting a 120 - you’re not even adopting a 180," Leiderman argued.
Citing City Councilmember Tom Moore's recent grilling of his colleagues who oppose the changes, Leiderman found a double standard on the use of data. "The leading proponent of this legislation was sort of torturing his colleagues recently about their positions not being data-driven, and I had to just laugh out loud. Because this is not only not data-driven, but it’s ignoring the data that we have, which says that the schools that operate under this are in horrible condition," Leiderman recalled. Echoing the argument of Mayor Bridget Newton, Leiderman made the case that the current APFS standards have succeeded in not only protecting Rockville students from overcrowding worse than today's, but have actually resulted in new schools getting built. "We in fact have [new schools] coming online…ahead of a lot of the other areas in the county, despite" the APFO. He said that fact suggests "the impetus behind [changing the APFS] is extraordinarily specious, and unsupported by the data. I wish that the people who are behind this would actually tell us the real reason why they want this to happen."
Tyner implored the city to consider the impact on core facilities at schools, not just classrooms. "Beall no longer has playgrounds anywhere, neither does Twinbrook," Tyner noted. Core facilities are "the things that really determine if kids get a good education or not," Tyner said. "We’re only talking about classrooms."
One other interesting point not often brought up is that tying city standards to the County would leave Rockville bound to any future changes MCPS would make to its current standards, for better or for worse. Senior Assistant City Attorney Marcy Waxman confirmed that would be the case, after Commissioner Charles Littlefield questioned why the language couldn't be simpler in noting that link.
The Mayor and Council are currently scheduled to act on the proposal in early February, and residents can speak on the matter at a public hearing this coming Monday.
Tuesday, January 20, 2015
SECOND PUBLIC HEARING ON ROCKVILLE APFS SCHOOL STANDARDS MONDAY, JAN. 26
Tuesday, January 6, 2015
BLACKMAIL! ARE MCPS AND DEVELOPERS HOLDING ROCKVILLE HOSTAGE OVER APFO?
Open Rockville to developers who fund the campaigns of all Montgomery County Councilmembers except Marc Elrich, they argued, and those development firms and Montgomery County Public Schools will release funds they apparently won't put towards Rockville classrooms otherwise. While this is most definitely not the legal mechanism for school funding in the state of Maryland, developers and their allies at the County level made clear they are fed up with the City of Rockville retaining control over its development and quality of life.
Former Rockville Planning Commissioner Steven Johnson put into words what many observers may have been thinking after hearing previous speakers, when he used the phrase, "held hostage," in making his case to lower school standards. What was originally designed as a tool to guide development, Johnson said, is now "a blunt instrument to kill" residential development in Rockville.
"You need to change your APFO ordinance," former Rockville Mayor Rose Krasnow warned her successor and city councilmembers, or Rockville will be "left in the dust" by Downtown Crown and other urban town centers popping up around the county. Krasnow, now employed by the Montgomery County Planning Department, suggested allowing Rockville schools to get more overcrowded would somehow result in extra MCPS construction money flowing to city schools. Most significantly, Krasnow described Rockville's current relationship with the County as "antagonistic," and that County officials feel that the City is "not willing to work with them."
Aakash Thakkar, Senior Vice President with infill development firm EYA, put the message in somewhat more diplomatic terms. By allowing more residential development, including a Tower Oaks project sought by EYA itself, the city could thereby "show goodwill" to County officials who want more tax revenue. This would lead to a more "cooperative relationship" between the city and county. He said developers would also contribute money for schools, although no such legal requirement exists to enforce such a promise, beyond the basic school fees charged now for development in Montgomery County. Thakkar also argued that "new people" are needed to support the retail businesses in Rockville.
Not so fast, Rockville resident Jack Gelin rebutted in later testimony. The idea that the city should accept more-crowded schools and more development simply so that county officials will "not be angry with us" was not a good argument for changing the APFO standards. As for Thakkar's promise of more tax revenue for schools being generated by new development, Gelin referred to the "old discredited theory that somewhere there's a free lunch. This has never happened, and will not happen."
In fact, Montgomery County has been on a building binge for years, with the exception of during the recent recession, and is locked in a structural deficit as far out as can be forecast. All of that tax revenue has failed to keep up with the costs of new infrastructure and services the new developments required. Even jurisdictions who have created more jobs than Montgomery County, like Fairfax and the District, are facing budget crunches. Where is all of the magic tax revenue? Nowhere to be found.
The idea that allowing more development and more school overcrowding would magically solve Rockville's challenges was among a number of false promises made by advocates of watering down the APFO, former Mayor Larry Giammo said. "Stop promulgating myths," he exhorted councilmembers who favor the changes, whose proposals he said were causing "unnecessary and harmful divisiveness" in the community. Rather than change the APFO, Giammo proposed, a better approach would be to update the city's master plan, and engage the county's Board of Education and and County Council to develop new strategies to address overcrowding.
Mayor Bridget Newton said the latter option is in the works, citing a discussion she had with Councilmember Roger Berliner (D-District 1) earlier regarding a work group he is assembling to look at the county's APFO standards. That group will be seeking input from municipalities, and would be a more productive approach to the problem than arbitrarily changing the city's own standards, she suggested. Newton also disputed claims that Rockville had been passed over for school construction money because of its higher APFO standards, pointing out that at least two significant school projects are currently moving forward in the city.
She and resident Joe Jordan also raised questions about how, and under whose authority, the city's staff produced a redline document on APFO changes. Newton asked staff to produce answers to those questions before a vote is taken on the measure. Jordan said he found it "really disturbing" that the process was being rushed without public discussion by the council, leaving residents unclear about each councilmember's position on the changes. Newton criticized city staff for leaving last night's public hearing off of a television announcement for the meeting, and for publishing a front page piece on Rockville Reports that implied she and all councilmembers were advocating changes to the APFO. She argued the city should wait for the outcome of Berliner's effort, and request an opinion from the state Attorney General on the question of whether she and the council have the legal authority to change the APFO, before voting on the proposed changes. The Mayor has the authority to request such an opinion, Newton said, noting that Councilmember Tom Moore had planned to do the same thing last year.
Some would have to question the wisdom of the new talking point deployed last night by proponents of change. "I've got money, but I won't give it to you until you turn over control of your city to us," sounds like a bad mob movie more than a coherent development policy.
Thursday, December 11, 2014
ROCKVILLE PLANNING COMMISSION FINDS NO COMPELLING NEED TO CHANGE APFS SCHOOL STANDARDS
Wednesday, December 10, 2014
FORMER ROCKVILLE COUNCILMAN CALLS PROPOSED SCHOOL STANDARDS CHANGES "DEATH BLOW" TO CITY'S APFO
Tuesday, December 9, 2014
ROCKVILLE PLANNING CHAIR TO MAYOR & COUNCIL: YOU DON'T HAVE LEGAL POWER TO CHANGE APFS
Monday, December 8, 2014
ROCKVILLE COUNCILMEMBER HOSTING MEETING ON PROPOSED APFO/APFS CHANGES
Thursday, December 4, 2014
APFO DISCUSSION, SELF-STORAGE ZTA, KING FARM ON ROCKVILLE PLANNING COMMISSION AGENDA
This comes during a major controversy over an EZ-Storage facility that is proposed to be built near Maryvale Elementary School in Rockville.
Two townhome projects that would add a total of 129 housing units to King Farm will also be reviewed. Those project sites are located at 900 and 901 King Farm Boulevard.
The meeting will be held in the Mayor and Council chambers at City Hall, and also broadcast live on Channel 11.
Monday, December 1, 2014
ROCKVILLE CITIZENS, FORMER MAYOR SOUND ALARM ON ATTEMPT TO WEAKEN CITY'S APFO
Friday, December 6, 2013
ROCKVILLE POLITICAL CARTOON
In the best traditions of political cartooning, William Charles is putting pen - and Rockville politics - to paper. And via Rockville Nights, to the internet:
(Click cartoon to enlarge for more detail)
Tuesday, November 5, 2013
FORMER COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD MEMBER ENDORSES NEWTON, HADLEY, WHITAKER IN ROCKVILLE ELECTION
Former Montgomery County School Board member Laura Berthiaume has released a letter strongly endorsing Bridget Newton for mayor, and Don Hadley and Claire Marcuccio Whitaker for city council, in today's Rockville election.
Berthiaume also provides a detailed analysis she says proves that keeping the city's strong Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance (APFO) in place - as the three candidates she endorsed have promised to do - will not prevent schools from being built in the future.
Recent attempts to weaken the APFO have been presented to suggest the ordinance was responsible for Montgomery County Public Schools not adding school facilities in Rockville. Berthiaume's provided evidence demonstrates that the APFO was not to blame in any of those instances. Rather, other issues at the county level interfered, Berthiaume writes.
Instead, Berthiaume argues strongly for keeping the APFO guidelines in place to prevent even more overcrowding in Rockville public schools. She says that Rockville Pike development will add
4-6000 new units alone. By 2016, Julius West Middle School will have more students than many small colleges, she notes.
"Do you want to see our sole middle school handling 1,800 or more students by 2020?," Berthiaume asks fellow voters in her letter. "Please ask yourselves that question as you go in to vote [today]."
"It seems to me that one set of candidates [Team Rockville slate] favors essentially unlimited residential construction along 355, no matter the impact on our schools, while three excellent candidates will protect our Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance (APFO) standards," she writes.
Her letter concludes:
"If you care about our children --or if you are just the sort of person who doesn't want to live in Crystal City - and never did - I ask you to please go out [today] and vote for Bridget Newton for Mayor, and Don Hadley and Claire Whitaker for Council."
Whitaker has also been endorsed by Montgomery County Councilmember Marc Elrich, Senator Jennie Forehand, and Gaithersburg Mayor Sidney Katz.
Monday, November 4, 2013
IN FINAL HOURS OF ROCKVILLE ELECTION, APFO REMAINS HOTTEST ISSUE
Fallout from a recent dust-up over Rockville's Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance (APFO) continues in the final hours of the 2013 Mayor and Council election.
An attempt to weaken the ordinance, which requires sufficient city infrastructure - schools and classroom space, fire and rescue resources, etc. - before development can proceed, drew a crowd of outraged residents to a contentious Public Hearing 35 days before the election. Now the disagreement over the future of the APFO standards has become the central issue in the city election.
As candidates visit homes and meet with voters across Rockville, two members of a committee that considered changes to the APFO in 2011 are urging voters to support the candidates they say will keep the current, higher APFO standards in place.
Tom Gibney, who served on the city's APFO Review Committee, says the award of an APFO waiver to the Silverwood development was a dangerous mistake, and strongly criticizes mayoral candidate Mark Pierzchala for his deciding vote on that matter, in a letter to the Gazette.
Gibney cites his committee's own review of the Silverwood case in his letter. The data that predicts 75-95% of residents will drive south on Route 355 in the morning suggests a dangerous situation for drivers and pedestrians in that area.
He says all of the Silverwood vehicles will have to use the sole means of egress from the apartment complex - a driveway onto 355. The problem, Gibney writes, is that - in order to reach the southbound lanes of 355, drivers will have to first dash across 3 of the highway's northbound lanes. Then, they will have to make a U-turn via a brief signal at Ridgemont Avenue. Gibney warns that this could result in "accidents and fatalities."
If Silverwood is an example of the "smart growth" Pierzchala and the Team Rockville slate are promising, Gibney concludes, "he does not deserve to be Mayor."
Gibney says he is supporting Bridget Newton for mayor, because she opposed the waiver for Silverwood as a councilmember.
A second member of the APFO Review Committee, Sean Hart, is also speaking out. In an email circulating on community listservs, and obtained by Rockville Nights, Hart expresses concern that some Rockville candidates "want to remove key components of the APFO," to permit far more development and growth in the city than is currently allowed. "Rockville is severely over capacity for schools, and as we all know, driving around town can be very slow," notes Hart.
Hart writes that his own analysis of the data while serving on the APFO committee suggests that working closely with the state and county to ensure needed infrastructure gets funded and built would be a better approach than weakening the APFO.
To foster that approach, he urges his fellow citizens to only vote for the 3 candidates who have been outspoken in their support of maintaining the current APFO standards: Newton for mayor, and Don Hadley and Claire Marcuccio Whitaker for city council.
"It is my belief that voting for [those] 3 (and only [those] 3) candidates for Mayor and Council will help us continue to take an appropriate approach to growth in the city," Hart concludes. Voting for only 3 candidates on the ballot, rather than the maximum possible 5 (1 mayoral+4 council seats), is allowed when voting in Rockville.
There are now less than 24 hours before city residents begin voting.
Monday, July 29, 2013
ROCKVILLE PLANNING COMMISSION NOMINEES SKEPTICAL OF ROCKVILLE PIKE PLAN
A very significant item on the agenda of tonight's Rockville Mayor and Council meeting (7:00 PM at City Hall) is the appointment of two citizens to vacant seats on the Rockville Planning Commission. Those who fill the seats could well determine the outcome of the Rockville Pike Plan, and the future of the city's APFO.
Mayor Phyllis Marcuccio, who has been critical of plans to promote urban density in suburban Rockville, has had mixed success with her previous appointments. While Marcuccio has had the opportunity to completely shift what has, in recent decades, been a pro-development body, there is still not a solid majority in opposition to the Pike Plan.
If one were to place bets on the 5 sitting members' potential Pike Plan votes, well, that would be difficult.
Only Jack Leiderman is a likely NO vote. David Hill and John Tyner II are likely YES votes, if the changes they've suggested are approved.
But Dion Trahan and Don Hadley have yet to reveal their hand. Both have been skeptical of the urbanization concept the plan represents.
2 YES, 1 NO, 2 UNKNOWNS.
Enter 2 new members:
Mayor Marcuccio has nominated Charles Littlefield and Anne Goodman. Both are skeptics of the Pike Plan. Littlefield served on the Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance committee in 2011, and issued his own Minority Report that dissented against attempts to weaken the ordinance.
In his report, Littlefield made clear that he feels a strong APFO is essential to protect residents from out-of-control growth:
"As a member of this Committee I witnessed an aggressiveness on the part of certain developers, elected officials and public planners to push through large-scale residential development regardless of public opinion. The impression they made on me left me firmly convinced that Rockville's APFO/ APFS should not be weakened. From the perspective of a Rockville resident/ homeowner, the APFO 'evens the playing field' between everyday citizens and organized, connected and financially powerful developers. Without this tool, it would be virtually impossible for citizens to stop an undesirable development project from occurring and negatively impacting our quality of life."
Goodman also expressed concern "about the potential for weakening the APFO to allow more development" in her Pike Plan testimony.
While Marcuccio and Councilmember Bridget Newton owe much of their political support to voters who favor limiting growth and building heights, councilmembers Tom Moore and Mark Pierzchala are running (for council and mayor, respectively) on a more aggressive development platform.
It could be a contentious meeting tonight, as a result.
If approved by the council, could strong arguments by Littlefield and Goodman lead to a 5-2 or 4-3 defeat for the Pike Plan? Can they get majority support tonight, with outgoing councilmember John Hall as the potential deciding vote?
Intrigue! Suspense! Stay tuned!
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
ROCKVILLE MAYOR AND COUNCIL BEGIN DISCUSSION ON CONTROVERSIAL APFO CHANGES
The Rockville Mayor and Council initiated what could be a long and contentious discussion on what revisions - if any - should be made to the city's Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance (APFO) last night.
So far, the legislators were diplomatic in tone, despite taking opposing positions. For engaged citizens, the most intriguing councilmember to watch in this controversy will be John Hall. Given that Hall owes much of his electoral success to his work on the APFO and citizens who support it, most assumed he would be part of a 3-vote bloc (along with Mayor Phyllis Marcuccio and Councilmember Bridget Newton) to rebuff any watering down of the regulations.
But some votes Hall has cast on housing and development during his latest term have puzzled his supporters. One resident who supports the APFO expressed concerns that Hall has gone "wobbly" on the responsible-development approach that won him the seat. And some suspect Hall may attempt a Grand Compromise on the APFO before the summer is over.
If that is Hall's intention, he was not laying his cards on the table Monday evening.
Hall's primary concession, as councilmembers laid out their individual priorities on the APFO, was to allow that the city probably cannot control its destiny regarding school overcrowding. He suggested the council "move beyond that particular revision." Hall argued that the revisions should "ensure the APFS is entirely consistent with the APFO" to avoid legal action against the city.
He also suggested that "annexation development is no different from other development in the context of the APFO." If Hall has any compromises in store, he was playing them close to the vest last night.
Mayoral candidate and councilmember Mark Pierzchala took a different tack. "I would just dump the APFO," he began frankly.
Favoring a more muscular approach to development, Pierzchala called the regulations "problematic," citing the recent
"traumatic experience" of the state attempting to reduce the city's role in planning decisions.
The city should at least make its APFO in line with the county's, Pierzchala argued. Supporters of the APFO have said they feel the city's APFO offers greater protection to residents than the county's.
But in Pierzchala's view, the ultimate problem with the APFO is that "we're trying to solve a political problem with a policy solution."
Current Mayor Phyllis Marcuccio cited the high stakes and substantial work ahead on an issue that will shape the city no matter which side prevails. "We have a big, big meal to feast on here tonight, she said. Rockville is buffeted by "incredible pressure [for] development and redevelopment," and declared there "has to be some plan of action."
If Rockville doesn't "ensure the infrastructure can support" future growth, the "survival of the city as a good place to live" will be in question, she argued.
Marcuccio warned that, without an adequate APFO, property owners will "build it to the max. That changes the quality of the city." The city cannot "let them do whatever they please" and remain the attractive community with superior amenities it is today.
"If the goal is only to allow for more development, then we have lost our way...driven by dollars," the Mayor said.
She later added that traffic and transportation are the "dominating" issues facing Rockville, particularly with the growth in Science City.
Councilmember Newton concurred with Marcuccio's sentiments. While the city must take the county's positions into account, "good for us is not always good for the county," Newton said.
Citing calls for more bars and liquor at the county level, Newton argued "we have nightlife" already in Rockville.
Newton listed her goals as adding "additional tools" to facilitate "development we want to see,"
establishment of a "Village Green" similar to Gaithersburg, "get a better handle" on Montgomery County Public Schools' notoriously off-target enrollment projection methods, and, above all, to
"leave Rockville better than when we started."
Newton and Marcuccio strongly disputed claims that children won't live in the many apartment buildings projected to be built in the city over the next decade.
Councilmember Tom Moore expressed concern that, under the current APFO, "we do not have the power to do a waiver" for school requirements even if the city feels it is an exceptionally good project.
Rather than focus on goals for the APFO, Moore suggested the council ask itself, "What goals do we have for the city?"
The council will likely take up the matter in greater depth at its July 1 meeting. A public hearing would follow. However, any APFO changes must go to the city's planning commission first.