The county council on Tuesday gave a $1.4 million shot in the arm to housing, retail space and a new planning department mothership on Georgia Avenue at Spring Street.
The money covers the cost of holding charettes — brainstorming sessions between architects, engineers and neighborhood stakeholders — plus what council member Nancy Floreen (D-At large) described as “very meaningful design documents” on the Silver Place project.
Charettes will begin in May and wrap before July, Floreen said. The planning department then must hit the council for funds to cover construction costs, she added.
“The PHED [planning, housing and economic development] committee asked them to do it this way to keep our supervisory role over this work,” Floreen explained to her colleagues during the full council’s weekly session in Rockville.
The $1.4 million also covers due diligence, which ensures that brainstorming ideas don’t defy laws of physics, engineering or architecture, planning board chairman Royce Hanson explained.
“What we’ve tried to do is make sure we are taking a fundamental from-the-ground-up look at the project,” Hanson told the council.
The approved funding is smaller than the park and planning commission’s original $4.9 million request. Council member Floreen said PHED committee members were reluctant to cough up that kind of cash because it included a $2 million payoff to architects and engineers in case the project fell flat.
But council member George Leventhal (D-At large) warned his colleagues that rejecting the smaller appropriation request would give the project’s opponents “ammunition”. During previous public meetings, some neighbors worried the project’s housing element — and the perceived congestion that comes with it — would steer the design.
But Hanson thinks the council should chill. “It’s a mistake to assume there’s an entire community opposed to the project,” he said.
Photo: The planning department’s current digs on Georgia Avenue at Spring Street are a total dump. Credit: J. Deseo/SSP.
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Replace a nasty old single-use property with a space-wasting surface parking lot (they are killing the parking lot, right?) and urban-misfit low-to-the-ground building with a high density, multi-use (commercial, residential AND retail!) property?… Let’s get going already!
“brainstorming sessions between architects, engineers and neighborhood stakeholders”
Put “neighborhood stakeholders” into the mix and nothing will ever get built in Silver Spring. Ever.
If you let people from outside have too much say in planning, the process takes forever. This is why 7 years later the WTC site is still a hole in the ground.
And, I’d wager, it’s part of the reason why the JC Penney building on Colesville is still empty.
That’s right – it’s a mistake to let residents and stakeholders to weigh in on public works projects that have a direct impact on their community. That would be too democratic.
It’s not a mistake to let them weigh in. It’s a huge mistake to not set a limit to their involvement. A very large majority of the population simply cannot visualize what the finished product will be like, no matter how well designed, illustrated or explained. They can’t put together in their heads all the elements of architecture, landscape architecture, and engineering that must be viewed as a whole to fully understand the project. Many people are just opposed to change so they will never support the project.
Chris,
It’s fine to solicit feedback for a finite period from residents/stake-holders via town-hall meetings, open hearings, etc. But then, the county executives need to render a DECISION using their considered opinion and best judgement. This endless clamoring for everyone to continue to have input will result in ongoing vanilla-flavored mediocrity in SS, while surrounding communities that have leadership with a vision and a spine will flourish.
Editor’s note: This poster’s screen name has been modified. — JD (Mar 22, 2008)
Exactly…just like Rockville Town Center and the Bethesda Row projects. Both nationally cited as best examples of how to do “new urbanism” right. While I love the effect the FP project has had on Silver Spring, perhaps we could have gotten a little less stucco and a little more architectural detailing…the kind that adds character to a space.