The Silver Spring Penguin

The county planning board voted to spare one Ripley District residential project a trip back to the drawing board.

Early designs for the Ripley Street project — dubbed Midtown Silver Spring — could have been flushed away because the proposed building’s southeast corner wasn’t truncated, or sliced away, according to planning staffers.

Truncation is required at the intersection of two public streets — a new Dixon Avenue extension and Ripley Street, in this case — to create a better line of sight for drivers. Slicing away a corner of the building also would have sent engineers and architects back to square one, Ann Martin testified on behalf of the Kettler Co., the project’s developer, at Thursday’s planning board meeting.

However, planning commissioners gave Kettler a pass on truncation, pending a thumbs up from the county’s department of public works and transportation. Sight distances, one road designer testified, would be clear without truncating the building’s corner, and as long as there were no obstructions along the adjacent sidewalk or curb.

Planning commish Gene Lynch also questioned whether traffic volumes in the Ripley District would warrant an overhaul of Midtown Silver Spring’s design. The only traffic traveling past the proposed building on Ripley Street would be headed to and from the future Silver Spring Transit Center’s new Kiss and Ride drop-off area, he argued.

“Truthfully, it’s a rare critter that’s going to use this road,” Lynch told his colleagues. “I think we’re putting down a little more asphalt for no particular benefit.”

The Midtown Silver Spring project would put 317 apartments and 6,000 square feet of ground-floor retail in the Ripley District. Entrance to the building’s underground garage would be via the Dixon Avenue extension, which Kettler has agreed to develop as a public road.

The planning board previously approved project plans without considering the need for truncation. Planning commissioners said they would revisit the issue once the department of public works has completed its assessment of sight distances and traffic flow. No date for a second review has been announced.

Updated Dec 10, 2007, at 5:15 p.m.