Final Rockville 2040 listening session March 8 in Rockshire

The last of a preliminary set of listening sessions for citizen input on how the City of Rockville should grow over the next few decades will be held on Tuesday, March 8, 2016. It will begin at 7:30 PM, at the Korean Presbyterian Church at 800 Hurley Avenue in the Rockshire neighborhood.

Parking at the church is limited, but there is additional parking at the adjacent Rockshire Village Center. That center is sure to be a major part of the discussion. The Giant Food store vacated, and new tenants are needed. A developer has interest in replacing the center with townhomes, which seems at odds with the planning principles espoused today regarding having walkable communities, including retail within walking distance. Ironically, Rockshire has had just that since 1978, until things went south at the center in recent years.

A new citizen group has formed to represent resident voices in the debate over the fate of this shopping center. Concerned Citizens for Rockshire Center includes former City Councilmember Bob Wright.

Future of Rockville's David Scull Courts central in Southlawn industrial area discussion

Consultant's plan to improve
sidewalk connectivity in Southlawn
by filling gaps, repairing and
extending existing sidewalks

The future of the David Scull Courts, a 105-unit public housing complex operated by Rockville Housing Enterprises, generated the most detailed discussion at last night's Mayor and Council meeting as a consultant presented final recommendations for the Southlawn Industrial Area Study. If you read my previous article, the recommendations in the final report will sound pretty familiar.

Consultant Paul Moyer of VHB discussed the findings of the months-long study, which gathered input from residents of neighborhoods abutting the industrial area, industrial business owners, and industrial landowners. Combined with analysis by VHB, BAE Urban Economics, and Schnabel Engineering Consultants, the report makes short and long term suggestions for how the City might better improve the industrial area and integrate it better with the nearby residential homes.

Adding new sidewalks (or replacing damaged ones that already exist), placing new restrictions on cut-through traffic on N. Horners Lane, creating a business organization to advocate for the industrial area, improving pedestrian safety, making changes in parking policies (such as disallowing truck parking on 1st Street at David Scull Courts), and facilitating new businesses like gyms or breweries were among the relatively affordable and timely changes proposed.

Proposal to reduce cut-through
truck traffic by severing road
links from Gude Drive to the
residential neighborhood

More challenging and expensive long-term suggestions included cutting off road access between the industrial area and residential streets by disconnecting Dover Road and Southlawn Lane from Horners, allowing some new residential development with a buffer zone to the industrial uses, and rezoning David Scull Courts from industrial to residential.

That last suggestion was among the most-discussed at last night's meeting.

During the Community Forum earlier in the meeting, Melissa McKenna, Vice-President of Advocacy for Maryvale Elementary School's PTA, asked the Mayor and Council to rezone David Scull Courts as residential. Attorney Bob Harris, representing several industrial properties within Southlawn, argued it should remain industrial.

Mayor Bridget Donnell Newton asked everyone to consider an ambitious third option - moving the existing residents of David Scull to a future, new development at an unspecified site closer to the town center. This would give them better access to transit and to the retail, restaurants and events of town center, while opening up the David Scull site for redevelopment. David Scull Courts is currently fully-leased, according to apartment search websites.

Other topics included the aforementioned parking at David Scull Courts. Councilmember Virginia Onley noted that the current truck parking can make the street intimidating for people walking alone at night. She urged the City to discuss making a parking policy change there as soon as feasible. Councilmember Beryl Feinberg asked if lighting there could be improved as well, noting that such improvements can help increase both safety, and the perception of safety.

Councilmember Julie Palakovich Carr asked what type of housing would be appropriate for this area. Moyer said his firm mainly considered townhomes and garden apartments as the best fit for the low-density neighborhood. Her colleague Mark Pierzchala recalled that when he walked every street in the City, he was struck by the idea that Rockville should annex additional land in the Southlawn area to get better control of its future. He noted that basic fixes like cleaning up litter and repairing broken pavement with weeds growing out of it could by themselves make the area more inviting.

Rockville searching for new City Manager as Matthews departs

A change on the City of Rockville website this morning now describes Public Works Director Craig Simoneau as Acting City Manager. Barbara Matthews is no longer City Manager, and a search for a new one is underway.

This was almost a total surprise, except you may recall the Mayor and Council went into Executive Session last week to discuss issues pertaining to the City Manager position.

Rockville construction update: Finnegan's Wake (Photos)

Can Finnegan's Wake open at Rockville Town Square in time for St. Patrick's Day? The suspense is killing me.

Rockville town center merchants, landowners differ on parking issues

Most people can agree that Rockville's town center is probably not known in the region as the most pleasant, easiest and cheapest place to park. But how to solve that problem - or the perception of it - isn't as as easy to agree upon. A special Mayor and Council worksession last night brought stakeholders together for an open conversation on the topic.

"There is no such thing as free parking," a representative of Rockville Town Square owner Federal Realty said. Lighting, maintenance and ground lease payments are just a few of the expenses involved in providing parking, he explained. He described the current parking policy at RTS as a "very generous first two hour validation program," taken advantage of by 80% of garage patrons. That is "effectively, free parking," he added.

However, many competing lifestyle centers in the County are offering parking that is literally free parking, much to the chagrin of businesses in the town center. And, yes, there is validation, but you usually have to buy something in order to get it, which means it is not "free." 

In contrast, Federal Realty's Pike & Rose development gives you the two hours free without needing a validation. Downtown Bethesda, as unpleasant as parking is there, provides free parking in Montgomery County garages on weekends. Rockville Town Square doesn't. And Rio/Washingtonian Center and Downtown Crown provide the best deal of all: free parking all day, every day.

But becoming more competitive is easy or challenging, depending upon who you ask.

Federal Realty pointed out that fees alone rarely cover the full cost of parking for a property owner. "What we don't collect," the representative said, "is essentially paid for by the leaseholders themselves." Changing parking policies requires a lot of research, and a long-term commitment to that new policy, he warned.

Mellow Mushroom's Danny Trahan offered a simpler solution. Trahan, who lives in Virginia, said the evolution of parking policies at Reston Town Center are very instructive for Rockville's parking dilemma. Reston originally had free parking, he said, until the policy was abused by Metro commuters. When Reston Town Center then instituted paid parking, business declined severely, he recalled.

Reston then changed to charging for parking only between 4:00-10:00 AM. The result? Business was "booming again," Trahan recounted. Taking into account the daytime demand for parking related to local government and the courthouse, Trahan suggested implementing a Reston-type policy, but charging until 4:00 PM on weekdays. After that, and all day on weekends, parking would be free. 

"Heavily market that" on Facebook and in newspaper ads, Trahan advised. In response to Federal Realty's concern about the reality of parking costs, Trahan predicted that under his suggested policy, the firm would recoup "millions of dollars of revenue you guys are losing." 

Trahan also proposed that Federal Realty allow merchants to advertise in the garages, to generate revenue to cover parking costs. He offered to buy a Mellow Mushroom sign and install it in the garage. Another novel idea Trahan threw out at the meeting was to relocate the library, and fill its space with more retail to activate the square at all hours.

"We're at a competitive disadvantage on Saturdays," a Regal Row merchant said. And a former draw at lunchtime on Wednesdays, the farmers market and live music, has been lost to Dawson's Market during the construction of the Duball project across the street. A representative of neighboring CremCafe said that the loss of the surface lot the Duball project was built on has made it harder to hire workers. They can't afford the price of parking, and "not everyone is using the Metro," he said. The owner of Ben & Jerry's said "customer counts plummeted" during the Duball construction, and today are "not nearly as much as they were prior to construction."

Scott Feldman of the legendary Giuseppe's Pizza on Regal Row told the Mayor and Council that some of his longtime customers "don't come in anymore" after finding a "$40 ticket on their windshield." Or, as one of his customers termed it, "that little surprise we had waiting when we got outside." Combine that with competition that can offer free parking, and Rockville town center businesses suffer as a result. "The problem is," Feldman said, local consumers "have too many other choices." Read the pizzeria's Yelp page, and you'll find that when customers aren't raving about the pizza, they're warning that "parking is a ***** during business hours."

Regal Cinemas has been hit as hard as anybody - and not for a lack of trying. The cineplex recently renovated its auditoriums, adding reclining seats. Ordinarily, a representative of the theater said, adding recliners would initially boost sales by 50-60%. In Rockville, the fancy chairs have only generated a 20% increase in business, he said, "something that is concerning." He also said that the theater had to end its free family matinee screenings, because "nobody wants to pay $12 to see a free movie."

But the perception of parking problems may be killing business as much as the practical experience of parking. "I hate to come into downtown Rockville. I can never find a place to park," Rockville Chamber of Commerce board member Brian Barkley said friends often tell him. Barkley said it's actually not that hard to find parking if, like him, you know where it is. He recommended better wayfinding to address that issue.

That still doesn't solve the cost issue, though. "You can't have everybody around you with free parking on the weekends, and you don't have it," Barkley said.

A town center merchant who lives in Potomac said "nobody in my neighborhood comes here," they go to downtown Bethesda instead. And a representative of VisArts said Rockville town center "has a reputation that it's not a friendly place to go. You have to pay for parking."

"If [merchants] want to have free parking, they can have free parking, It's just a matter of paying us," Duball, LLC president and principal Marc Dubick said of his garage in the Upton/Cambria Hotel and Suites building he developed. Echoing Federal Realty's accounting concerns, Dubick noted that "we have lenders, and we have to pay our obligations." He also noted that his garage is only 17% occupied on Friday nights currently. 

That could change when World of Beer opens, though.

World of Beer to open in mid-April in Rockville

World of Beer, the new tavern coming to the Upton apartment building in Rockville town center, is targeting a mid-April opening, Marc Dubick, Principal and President of Duball, LLC, said last night. The business is promising the miracle of offering 500 beers, and operating 50 taps, under the arcane Montgomery County liquor monopoly rules. Can't wait to see them pull this off.

Another opening on the horizon is Panera Bread, which Dubick says could be ready to go in about 45 days. Like World of Beer, it is currently under construction on the Cambria Hotel & Suites side of the building.

Should Rockville's single-family neighborhoods be rezoned for multi-family housing?

Historic map of Rockville
town center

A well-written land use briefing presented to the Rockville Planning Commission last night contained a high level of detail, and fascinating data and graphics related to the City past and present. It is a must-read for any citizen or official engaged in the current update of the citywide master plan. The presentation also brought up a highly-controversial idea that I cannot find in the text of the report, however.

Referring to the large lot sizes in Rockville's older residential neighborhoods, and the rising cost of housing, planner Barry Gore suggested one change the Planning Commission might consider is to allow multi-family zoning (i.e. duplexes) in existing single-family home communities. Importantly, he was not formally recommending such a change, but only floating it as one of many ideas the commission might want to consider in their discussion of the new master plan.

Such a concept caused a meltdown in Seattle last summer, when a Seattle Times columnist brought backroom zoning negotiations to public attention. There, a "citizen" committee was about to recommend doing away entirely with single-family zoning.

“We can still be a city for everyone, but only if we give up our outdated ideal of every family living in their own home on a 5,000 square foot lot,” the Seattle committee's co-chairs wrote. The Seattle committee also detoured into the decidedly-out-of-left-field talking points we're hearing now from the Montgomery County Planning Board under its current membership and leadership - namely, blaming the concept of single-family housing for "racial and class exclusion." Okay. They might want to tour the diverse neighborhoods of Rockville sometime.

The Seattle committee also endorsed the idea that existing residential neighborhoods should be transformed into multi-family zones "that would allow duplexes, triplexes, rooming houses and more backyard cottages and mother-in-law units in areas now dominated by single houses on lots with yards."

Of course, such concepts were not coming from "citizens," but rather, developers and the politicians they fund behind the scenes. In fact, a former staff member of Montgomery County Councilmember George Leventhal advocated the radical idea of turning large homes in the County into group homes and boarding houses. Since such an outcome would likely require a Mao-like relocation of elites in Potomac and Burning Tree, one wonders how this would be possible. I'm assuming this wasn't an April Fool's post. But it gives you a sense of what these type of politicians have in mind for the quality of life and preservation of existing neighborhoods. Remember, in July 2013, Leventhal declared suburbs were "a mistake."

I bring this idea of re-subdividing and re-zoning single-family home neighborhoods to your attention because not only is difficult for people to attend or watch every meeting, but also this idea is not prominent in the report. Residents should be aware that this is something being put on the table with many other ideas.

It should be noted that only 34% of land in Rockville is occupied by single-family homes, compared to Seattle's 65%. So Rockville is hardly in need of a suburban diet.

One factor cited by both the Rockville report and Seattle's effort is the false argument that massive numbers of new residents are on their way to town, and we are obligated to house them. And citizens must be willing to "change" or "modify" their behavior for this greater human good, such as "getting out of their cars."

The "they're coming" argument, advanced by people like infamous former County Planning Director Rollin Stanley, just isn't true. People can come all they want, but they'll only stay if you provide housing for them. Don't build the new housing, and your population and cost of government services the new housing generates won't increase.

Unfortunately, the report also cites Maryland documents that were essentially authored by developers who made big campaign contributions during the O'Malley administration (in fact, Martin O'Malley appointed an executive from a developer moving into Rockville in a big way - EYA - to his "Smart Growth" commission). Whether on enviromental concerns, or land use, these reports mysteriously all find a single solution to all of our problems - urban-style development. I am shocked. Shocked.

Dubious Maryland scientific statement
cited in Rockville land use report

Put aside your knowledge of advances society either currently enjoys or is on the verge of - autonomous and zero-emission vehicles, Uber, alternative fuels, smart highways, active traffic management, high-mileage vehicles, etc. - and now prepare for a science lecture from politicians in Annapolis.

"The only method to ensure a reduction in overall transportation emissions over time is to sharply reduce the rate of growth in [vehicle miles traveled], which will require a significant adjustment of land use patterns away from automobile-oriented development," one Maryland report states with authority. The problem is, that's simply not true. Reducing VMT is not the only way to reduce emissions, as any Tesla or Prius driver can tell you. The high-density housing they recommend actually will increase emissions, as they bring large numbers of additional vehicles with them.

In order to make solid land use decisions, the data and information cited should be accurate; this environmental statement is not.

Another questionable citation in the report, is that of the highly-biased office space assessment that Montgomery County politicians hired a consultant team to generate. Much like those state reports, the office report starts with a conclusion that we need to turn office space into housing, and builds an analysis backwards around it. Some of the data was just plain wrong, and it completely left out the fact that Montgomery County's current policies are so anti-business that we haven't attracted a single major corporate headquarters in over a decade. So how do you decide the fate of your job centers without studying the policy side of the equation? Guess what: ceding more jobs to Virginia and D.C. increases auto emissions.

Is your property green, yellow or
 red on this map? (click to enlarge)

On the positive side, among the many interesting graphics in the Rockville land use report is one showing the relation of land value to the value of the structure(s) it is currently improved with. There's a lot of yellow and red on this map, indicating quite a bit of land that's either just slightly less valuable than the home on it, or far more valuable than the house on it.

That fact underlines the importance of any transformational zoning discussions to be held during this process, and all the more reason for residents to get involved in the process either at the Planning Commission hearings, or through the ongoing Rockville 2040 events being sponsored by the City planning department.

Images courtesy City of Rockvile