The county exec’s office wants to increase building heights in Fenton Village, but some say not so fast — er, tall.
The proposed change, which is still in the works on the county exec’s end, could jack up building heights between Fenton Street and Georgia Avenue to 143 feet, Gary Stith, director of the Silver Spring regional center, explained last week.
Developers would get the boost, Stith said, only to make room for workforce housing, which serves middle-class households too rich to qualify for affordable housing and too poor to buy that brand new condo.
“The Fenton Village overlay zone and revitalization district are the only places where you can add housing in Silver Spring at this point,” Stith told the area’s economic development committee Wednesday night.
The proposal, which Stith said would be introduced to the county council in early June, maintains a 45-foot height cap on Fenton Street’s east side, closest to surrounding single-family homes. On Fenton’s west side, heights would max out at 60 feet, in line with current zoning rules. Building heights along both sides of Georgia Avenue would top off at 90 feet.
But questions remain as to where the proposed 143-foot limit would cut off before reaching the 90-foot cap on Georgia Avenue, or the 60-foot cap on Fenton Street. Jon Lourie, an architect and member of Silver Spring’s urban-district advisory committee, said zoning laws in Fenton Village were too fuzzy for his taste.
“The planning board has wide latitude,” Lourie told his colleagues at their meeting Thursday afternoon. “One hundred forty-three feet versus ninety feet … that’s a whole different animal.”
Others worried the proposed change would create concrete canyons and damage the area’s role as a buffer between urban and suburban Silver Spring.
“This ruins the whole idea of Fenton as a village,” Karen Roper, of East Silver Spring, said during Wednesday’s economic development meeting. “It’s meant to be a village serving the surrounding community.”
Still, some members of the urban-district advisory committee said change might be necessary. “If you want affordable housing, you’ve got to make difficult choices,” committee member Carmen Camacho said.
“We’re being sensitive to the need for a balance,” committee chairperson Barbara Henry added. “We’ve all drawn lines in the sand, … but we’ve got to find a way to make it work for everyone.”
Lead photo: Mayor Lane in Fenton Village. Credit: J. Deseo/SSP.
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I rencetly posted my support for higher building heights in Fenton Village in response to a similar story recently published in The Silver Spring Scene, so I won’t repeat my comments here except to say that I’m not on board with “Fenton Village” remaining a “village” in the sense that the land uses would be mostly 1-2 story buildings. The area is in the heart of an urban district and should become more dense to accomodate the county’s growing population and provide workforce housing. It’s possible to do this while accomodating useful green space (see the MNCPPC’s concept of a green space plan for the central business district) and by stepping down heights to the East. I also think care should be taken to support local business and to encourage small-scale ground floor retail in Fenton Village and this too should be compatable with greater density.
I’m with David. Where else are we going to put density to support the growing businesses in the CBD? Faulkland Chase is out. The Paul Sarbanes Transit Center is going to eat up real estate. Where do we go? I think the only answer is up. Maybe not to 143 feet, but I think the 60-foot barrier for everything else in the “Village” is unrealistic, and saying that this could “ruin the whole idea of Fenton as a Village” is shortsighted.
What defines a village? I would say the people define the village, and if we can maintain the focus on affordable housing while balancing with smart growth, why not build to 143′ in some places? Sure, we’ll need to have the infrastructure – especially where transportation is concerned – to support it, but don’t we have the time to plan for that? Shouldn’t that be a focus instead of drawing a line in the sand on building height?
I understand the lower cap near the residential neighborhoods on the other side of fenton… but why’s there a lower cap along georgia?? It’s a wide street with no single family homes in sight… that part makes no sense to me….
The lower cap on GA is probably because of the “historic” storefronts of 1-2 stories that most certainly have to be preserved. I don’t know this for sure but am guessing. I agree that they should be, too, but there’s nothing wrong with a very fast rise in stories behind these storefronts.
Quite a few people opposing higher buildings in ESS are doing so because they are worried that a tall building will block the sun on their home. Being that I live in the shadow of Silver Spring Towers, I can see that arguement, but considering you live in an Urban district, thems the breaks.
There is also a significant area available for high rise development in the Ripley District just south of the transit center, between the railroad tracks and Georgia Avenue. So far, only two projects have been approved in the Ripley District; neither has been constructed yet.
Editor’s note: Glenn Kreger is acting chief of community-based planning with the county’s planning department. — JD (Apr 23, 2008)