In 1999, the county’s affordable housing fund paid for a crumbling Bonifant Street apartment building. Now that building is slated for demolition to make way for Silver Spring’s new library.
And if the library project’s housing component doesn’t replace the apartments lost to the wrecking ball, then it’ll be payback time, county council members say.
The Bonifant Court apartments, a three-story building on Bonifant Street near Fenton, was a real steal back in the day, said Jerry McCoy, of the Silver Spring Historical Society.
“A one bedroom with living room, kitchen, dinette and bath leased for $30 per month in 1938,” McCoy said. “That would be equivalent to only $443 today.”
The county bought the Bonifant Courts in 1999, with intentions of repairing electrical problems and getting it back on the affordable housing market, Gary Stith, Silver Spring’s regional director, told The Penguin.
About $600,000 of the building’s $700,000 price tag was covered by the housing initiative fund, Stith explained. Generally, the fund is used for preserving affordable housing in the county.
Since the building’s purchase, the county has changed its mind about what to do with it.
“We started the process to find a new library site, and this property was identified and later recommended as part of the site,” Stith said.
That didn’t sit well with the county council’s economic development committee, which met July 30 to discuss the matter. Council members Marilyn Praisner (D-District 4) and Nancy Floreen (D-At large) were surprised to learn that part of the new library site was bought with affordable housing funds.
Both members said the project’s housing component, proposed to sit above the 66,000 square-foot library, must match the 27 apartments lost to the Bonifant Court’s demolition. Otherwise, the county must pay back $600,000 to the housing initiative fund.
“The county is considering incorporating additional affordable housing above the normal requirements in a joint development of the site,” Stith explained. “The affordable housing will be replaced.”
However, during the July 30 meeting, Stith indicated that height restrictions could hamper the project’s total number of residential units.
Floreen was adamant about retaining the project’s affordable housing units. “You’re gonna need that height,” she told Stith.
Editor’s note: The Penguin tried to get comments from Barbara Norland, with the county’s library administration. So far, she hasn’t replied to email. If/when she does, her comments will be added to this article. Holler at The Penguin, Barbara! — JD (Aug 7, 2007, at 10:11 p.m.)
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We need to retain affordable housing, despite any pledge to the library. The true test will be to see how strongly the community opposes the height increase to accomodate the housing. Will the community support a height increase to supply affordable housing?
I agree with Nancy Floreen. I don’t think a building height should determine the availability of affordable housing in Silver Spring. With property rates and rents going through the roof in DTSS, we need to have affordable housing for working families and retirees.
I’m always amazed when people argue for affordable housing in Silver Spring. Has anyone actually checked the rental or realty data (in comparison to other surrounding communities or in comparison to similarly situated suburbs in other East Coast metro areas)?
There’s no comparison. Silver Spring is one of the most affordable (and diverse) places to live in the DC metropolitan area. If rents (and home values) are rising in and around downtown, it’s probably because they were artificially held down for so long by the formerly blighted downtown–and area’s bad reputation. So now, prices and rents are normalizing here. So be it. This can’t stay an undiscovered gem forever.
Take a drive around Silver Spring–ALL of Silver Spring. (Hint: Wheaton, White Oak…) I see nothing but “working families” there. (By the way, is “working families” code for something? It’s used in a lot in political campaign rhetoric, but I’ve always had a hard time the term. Let’s get real. It’s a non-offensive way of saying, ” working-class and lower-middle class”. No one calls people who live in Chevy Chase “working families” even though that’s what most of them are… )
Anyway, this is all part of larger issue that some people have with the development, growth, expansion, revitalization of Silver Spring. Personally, I want local government to focus on its core competency: maintaining roads, running public transportation, providing police protection, and so on. Let the market figure out what sort of housing is needed.
Johnny Blaze,
I hear what you are saying. But gentrification imperils the very diversity that you point out in your post. Ethnic groups and socio-economic groups are EXCLUDED from the benefits of growth in DTSS. A healthy community allows for people of all socio-economic backgrounds and races to enjoy living, shopping, and dining in one general area.
This is one reason why you wouldn’t catch me dead in places like Bethesda or Chevy Chase. The only kind of diversity there is Mercedes, Lexus, BMW, Audi, Range Rover, and Porsche.
Wheaton is separate from Silver Spring. White Oak is Outer Mongolia in terms of distance to the REAL Silver Spring. The recent real estate bubble not only hit DTSS but all of Silver Spring. Check the Thursday Washington Post and look at the house prices in all districts of Silver Spring. They are ALL at least 50-100 percent higher than they were like 6 years ago. I don’t know about you but I don’t think everyone living in Silver Spring got 100 percent raises in their income since 2001. I wonder how many people bought Silver Spring property using exotic mortgage loans? Lots of ARMS and no-down payment mortgages are out there. There will be a surge of foreclosures in Silver Spring through the end of 2008. Montgomery County will take a hit with reduced property tax collection. And I just might find some suitable property in SS.
I guess there are few ways to see things, IHATE. You seem to be looking at a “half empty glass”–not one that’s half full.
Here’s how I see it:
1) Ethnic diversity is not imperiled in Silver Spring. There are plenty of people of all races here. And that will remain constant. Your claim that a revitalized Silver Spring means fewer “ethnic” people rests on the assumption that most of the non-white residents of Silver Spring will soon be unable to afford to live here. While that’s true for some. I doubt it means a net loss of racial and ethnic diversity. Why? Well, here’s an interesting fact: The towns and counties between Washington and Baltimore represent the largest concentration middle-class blacks in the country. There are plenty of non-whites in this area who can
afford to live here.
2) In spite of the foreclosures (a national trend, by the way–not just a local one), most people didn’t buy their homes using questionable loan schemes. For those people, the 50-100% increase in home values you speak of here in Silver Spring over the last half decade was a big boost. The very same “working family” types you champion–people who bought a reasonable $300,000 home in ‘98 or ‘99–are sitting on a mint now. That’s a good thing for wealth generation, IHATE. Even if prices moderate, they’re still looking at a nice jump in their equity and ability to borrow on that to put kids through college or whatever…
3) The county may lose a bit in property tax revenues, but I suspect it won’t seem like that much on the books. Remember, the increases in property values also mean increases in property taxes… So, Mont. County’s seen a nice rise in their revenues over the last ten years. I’ve only lived here for four years, and my property taxes have jumped quite a bit. I’m not feeling sorry for the county.
Hmmm, your first comment was bizarre and incorrect, johnny blaze. Silver Spring is exactly on par with how expensive it is to live in this entire area. I don’t know what you mean by “working families”, either. Perhaps you meant to say working class from the start because I’ve never heard “working families” used; but there is no real “working class” in the DC area. Even the “lower and lower-middle class” families you are talking about don’t exist in large numbers, and those that do are not concentrated solely in the Silver Spring area–try Rockville, Germantown, and Montgomery Village in MoCo, and especially Seven Corners, among other places in Fairfax.
Silver Spring as a WHOLE has a very SOLID middle and upper-middle class population. I don’t know where you were driving–I’ve lived here my entire life. The various Woodside neighborhoods, Aspen Hill, Forest Glen, and the newer communities in the White Oak, Colesville and Cloverly areas are some of the upper middle class neighborhoods (including my own family and neighborhood in Forest Glen), and even in parts of Wheaton homes are selling for more than $1 million (gasp!! somehow I don’t find this shocking nowadays).
Lack of affordable and workforce housing is a REAL issue, and Silver Spring (let alone the rest of the County) does not have enough of it, and things will only continue to get worse, especially when the real estate market turns around in the next year or two. Of course, you aren’t thinking long-term–”normalized” (whatever that means–I’m going to use it in the way that *normal* people would use equalized) at this time does not mean normalized in the future. Because of Silver Spring’s continued renaissance, its resilience even in this residential real estate market, its location, amenities, growing affluence, and regional destination status, the area will continue to become less and less affordable.
Does this mean it will become less ethnically diverse? To a point, yes, but only slightly. The people that live in Silver Spring now will continue to gain in affluence, if only by the nature of working their way up the occupational ladder, and those that move in from elsewhere will be of the type of affluence that was moving into the area until the early 1990s (the “Bethesda” type).
Silver Spring can retain its ethnic diversity, of course…it’s the socioeconomic diversity (not of those that are here already, but of those that may move here in the future) that may be in peril if more affordable housing is not built. When a family of four making between $80,000 and $120,000 a year cannot afford to move into a home in Silver Spring, you know there’s a problem.
“Wheaton is separate from Silver Spring. White Oak is Outer Mongolia in terms of distance to the REAL Silver Spring.”
Excuse me?
There are over 200,000 people with Silver Spring addresses, and maybe a quarter of them live inside the Beltway – what you call “REAL Silver Spring.” And with a growing number of immigrants completely bypassing the downtown and heading out to places like Wheaton, White Oak and Briggs Chaney, Downtown Silver Spring doesn’t have the lockdown on diversity, either.
“When a family of four making between $80,000 and $120,000 a year cannot afford to move into a home in Silver Spring, you know there’s a problem.”
My family of _two_ can’t even do it, and we make a fairly good living, to put it more modestly. We have certain constraints (like needing to be within a mile or so of the corner of Georgia and Noyes), but the housing we’re seeing is all in the $500k+ range these days, and that’s a huge mortgage to carry around for that income level. We’re tempted to move to Rockville, honestly – it’s not that much better, but it’s a lot closer to our price range.
Let me say it again, the affordable housing in the Bonifant apartments will be replaced in any residential housing built on the library site. My comment about height is because so much of the site will be taken up by the Purple Line station that much of the residential development allowed by the zoning will be difficult to build unless there is more height allowed.
Editor’s note: Gary Stith is director of the Silver Spring Regional Center.
Bookworm asked whether the surrounding community would be willing to support a height increase on the proposed library site in order to supply affordable housing.
The emails I’ve read from the East Silver Spring Community Association (ESSCA) on past matters of height and density in Fenton Village leave me skeptical that my neighborhood association will be open to increasing building heights beyond that which is stated in the County’s land use plan for the area.
ESSCA has come out in opposition to a development plan generated bu the Baptist Church at Fenton and Wayne that would develop their property to include a new church and affordable housing units but which would have required an exemption from the height limit for buildings on the east side of Fenton Street (which is lower than the allowable height for buildings on the west side of the street) and there has been a lot of opposition expressed to the original Studio Plaza development, which would add residential and office space to the area, on the basis of increased traffic congestion.
I think a number of ESSCA members would like to see a Fenton Village that is comperable, in terms of density, building height, and land uses, to the devlopment that lines Carroll Avenue in Takoma Park DC/Maryland. Some of that type of development, such as the Lofts 24 project on the corner of Bonifant and Fenton, and the recently opened Highland Origin Coffee store, has come to pass.
I, on the other hand, am hoping that Fenton Village will add more dense residential and office space, in keeping with the overall urban (as opposed to small town) qualities of the Central Business District and because I believe that added density will promote affordable housing which is espcially desirable so close to a metro station and within walking distance to jobs and employment-related activites, like child care. I remain hopefull that this can be accomplished without sacrificing good design and the area’s existing diverse mix of locally-owned indepedent businesses.
The Bonifant affordable housing that we are discussing here has been sitting empty and unused for what – at least 5-10 years now. From what I can tell by the boarded up facade – no one has been in that building (legally) and no one is being DISPLACED by this project.
The height increase is a concern for those of us in ESSCA who see the domino-effect of building heights creeping into the residential side of Fenton. Block sunlight and creating a concrete-corridor effect is not the vision is Fenton Street Village in the SS CBD master plan nor is it was the majority of neighboring residents desire.
Gary – please expand on your comment on the “Purple line station” being there – my understanding is that the IPL station is eventually part of the SS Transportation hub with the metro/buses. Marc train and Greyhound – not anywhere near this corner.
Kathy: Allow me to direct you to an article on how the Purple Line could clip the new library site. — JD (Aug 9, 2007)
My original comment stands: residents of East Silver Spring seem unlikely to approve a height increase even if it goes toward affordable housing. For the good of affordable housing and smarter growth, that is a shame.
Amazing. You’re complaining that you can’t afford Silver Spring. Then you say your “constraints” prevent you from living anywhere but one of the town’s most high-dollar zip codes. And the alternative you present is to move to Rockville. Incredible.
My problem with this entire discussion (the claims that Silver Spring is too expensive in comparison with other comparable suburbs surrounding other major cities) is that it’s an argument being waged with *anecdotal* information. Until we introduce some real economic, racial diversity, and home value data into this conversation it’s pointless.
Yes, home values have increased here over the last half-decade, but a home in Silver Spring is not out of reach for people with modest incomes–that is if you broaden your view of what constitutes “the real Silver Spring”. There’s plenty of great housing in White Oak, etc. Sorry, you’re not going to find a home in Woodside for less than $500,000.
This isn’t my final post on this matter. I’m searching for some of the data we’ve all been grasping for here…
How about affordable housing units being built at the site that the library will be vacating?
Tom, why not allow the inclusion of affordable housing at the new library site, where the county has planned for it. By suggesting it move somewhere else provides further evidence of your NIMBYism and not wanting any new development to help lower income folk close to your home.
Editor’s note: Play nice, people!
Quoting from johnny blaze:
“Amazing. You’re complaining that you can’t afford Silver Spring. Then you say your “constraints” prevent you from living anywhere but one of the town’s most high-dollar zip codes. And the alternative you present is to move to Rockville. Incredible.”
Actually, that’s not so incredible if you know that there is an orthodox synagogue at the corner of Noyes and Georgia. Presumably Mr. Zakar has to be able to walk to the synagogue from his home. Also presumably he could walk to a another synagogue if he found a home near one in Rockville, but his options are, indeed, limited.
Worm… I didn’t make any reference to new site *not* getting affordable housing. Gary Stith already posted on this thread that the new site *is* getting it. I was suggesting it at the “old” site. FYI… “old” site is about a five minute walk from the “new” site.
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The proposed library site is located within the Fenton Village Overlay Zone. The Overlay Zone limits building heights to 1) create a neighborhood with a scale that is less than the scale in the Core; 2) encourage compatibility with existing buildings in Fenton Village; and 3) ensure a transition between the intense uses in the Core and the neighborhoods surrounding the downtown. Although the zone provides height incentives to encourage new housing, the need to ensure a transition in building heights was considered important even if individual properties cannot maximize the density that would otherwise be possible under the base zone.
With regard to the proposed library site, the site’s base zone (CBD-1)could accommodate a building up to 90′ tall if the Planning Board determines that height in excess of 60′ would not adversely affect surrounding properties. Since the standards in the Fenton Village Overlay Zone supercede the standards in the base zone, a new building on the proposed library site is currently limited to 60′ in height along Fenton Street; however, the height may increase to 90′ if the project is at least one-third residential and the building is stepped back from Fenton Street. (Note: Such a stepping back in building height was approved for The Adele project a block to the south on Fenton Street.) The result would be a gradual transition in building height: 143′ at the Crescent on Wayne Avenue; then 90′ at the proposed library site; then 60′ for buildings along Fenton Street. The possible inclusion of a Purple Line station at the proposed library site does not presently affect the maximum height limits specified in the Zoning Ordinance.
Glenn Kreger, Silver Spring/Takoma Park Team Leader
M-NCPPPC
Isn’t it astonishing the amount of anaylysis and wrenching that our tax dollars pay for with the planning department? All this over THREE stories (30′) in a proposed building in the middle of a very urban area. Puh-leez.
I appreciate the explanation given by Mr. Kreger. I understand the logic behind his statements. Look at the new Rockville Town Center. Although I like the way they use a mix of retail and residential establishments in the new Town Center, when you pass the Town Center on Rockville Pike, it looks like a fortress because of the high buildings. The buildings located on the periphery of the new Town Center should have been smaller.