The Silver Spring Penguin

The county planning board and developers shook hands Thursday on a deal that would plant housing, retail and a new planning HQ on Georgia Avenue at Spring Street. The nonbinding agreement also requires the board to hit up the county council for nearly $5 million to fund the project.

The money would be a first wave of funding for the Silver Place project, according to project manager Dan Hertz. The cash would go towards schematic designs, as well as workshops — or charettes — that would allow architects to brainstorm with experts, area residents and planning staff.

“We’re attempting to change some of the culture of development in the county,” board boss Royce Hanson said during Thursday’s public session. Projects like Silver Place, he said, would create a better understanding of design, its setting, and the human element.

The project received kudos from the Affordable Housing Conference of Montgomery County, the Coalition for Smarter Growth, and Action in Montgomery, all of which dug the project’s emphasis on affordable housing and transit-oriented development.

While the exact number of housing units is still up in the air, Hertz said at least 30 percent of them would be tagged as affordable. Whether those units would be rentals or condos was not discussed at the meeting.

Joe Anderson, of Woodland Drive, also liked the amount of workforce housing. However, he felt the planning department snubbed Woodside Park residents by not gathering their input before February.

“This is a real opportunity to provide a gateway between the central business district and a stable residential community that extends immediately north of here,” Anderson testified. “The design we saw incorporated none of that sensitivity.”

Anderson also suggested third-party oversight of the project, to prevent a conflict of interest between the planning board and the housing component’s developer. Silver Place’s housing element is considered a private development project.

“This is nothing special relative to the way other governments operate,” board commish Gene Lynch responded. Public input, hearings in front of the county council, and the county exec would keep everything in check, he argued.

Board boss Hanson agreed. “We’re dealing with something that is very prominent, and we’ll be dealing with it in a process that is very open,” he said.

Charettes could start sometime in January, project manager Hertz estimated. As far as design goes, the project starts from scratch, though its mixed-use objectives remain the same, Hanson said.

Construction on the project’s public and private components will run simultaneously, starting in 2010. The entire project could be in move-in condition by 2012.