The county planning board has given Discovery Communications the green light to turn part of its public garden in downtown Silver Spring into a daycare facility for its employees’ kids.
The 89,000 square-foot garden sits adjacent to Discovery HQ along Wayne Avenue, behind a six-foot-tall gate. Five percent of that garden — or 4,500 square feet — will be converted into a playground for the daycare facility.
In exchange for the public space, the company agreed to drop $148,500 into a pool that would either buy parkland or improve the landscape in Silver Spring’s central business district, according to an agreement between the company and the planning board.
“This is a responsible compromise,” planning commish John Robinson told his colleagues at the Apr 3 public hearing. “The compensation is reasonable.”
According to planning staffers, Discovery was given four options to make up for the loss of public space. The company could have removed the gate that currently surrounds the garden; open a dozen daycare slots to kids whose parents don’t work for Discovery; cough up the cash; or create an open, public space along Wayne Avenue.
Discovery opted for the buyout and agreed to three conditions. First, the company said it will fully open the gates to the public garden. Next, it will post signs at the gates indicating the space to be open to the public. Last, security guards will be retrained to accommodate the garden’s public use.
“The community doesn’t offer a lot of childcare,” Michelle Williams, a single parent and Discovery employee, told the planning board. “It’d be nice for me and my child to enjoy that space.”
Williams also said an on-site daycare center would trim her one-hour commute down Route 29, and would allow her and her child to take public transportation to and from downtown Silver Spring.
However, area resident Susan Andrea worried about the loss of green space in Silver Spring’s urban core. “Every bit that we lose will be extremely difficult to replace,” she told the planning board.
The public space-for-cash trade sets a precedence that could result in a loss of public space by attrition, Andrea said. “It could be death by a thousand cuts,” she testified.
Planning commish Allison Bryant favored the space’s conversion to daycare but also thought the money could be used to create more daycare space elsewhere. “What would make sense is a design for this $148,000 to facilitate childcare for residents who aren’t employees of Discovery,” he told his colleagues.
Royce Hanson, chairman of the board, shared similar sentiments. “I’m increasingly persuaded that childcare is a major amenity,” he said.
However, it wasn’t clear whether the money could be tagged for specific projects, said Glenn Kreger, the guy in charge of community-based planning at the planning department.
Image courtesy of MNCPPC.
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For all intents and purposes, taking away just a small portion of space will make no difference whatsoever. I bet 99% of people think that “park” isn’t open to the public, anyway. (Nor would I find it all that relaxing, as there is a steady stream of buses driving by.)
The county has gotten Discovery to ante up $150K for basically nothing. The worst idea would have been to let non-Discovery employees’ kids use it… imagine how pissed a Discovery worker would be if their kid got waitlisted.
I say we need more of this. These silly pocket parks are useless tokens that provide no REAL open space anyway. Tell the developers to forget em, across the board. And take the cash to acquire land for a REAL park, like in that spot they’re putting a silly civic center instead. Yea, that’d have been a nice location for a park.
Does the County have any system in place to evaluate how public spaces are utilized? Can the County decide that the public space is not being used as intended and do they have any recourse in modifying the public space? It is atrocious that the “public garden” outside Discovery is, in fact, not accessible to the public. Those gates around the public garden are horrible. Those gates are closed most of the time whenever I pass by them. Even when the gates are open, it does not lend itself to be inviting people in. I wish they would tear those gates down.
That park is public space? Why, that fence is just so darn inviting. Yes, I agree that the County got a good deal in this case.
I’m glad that Discovery is part of the community, but I have to admit that I was disappointed when the building was completed that there wasn’t more of an interactive element to it such as down at the National Geographic building. Then again, Nat Geo and Discovery have different missions, although compatible in a way.