MoCo’s planning board put the temporary kibosh on one Fenton Village development last Thursday after commercial neighbors said their businesses would suffer from its construction.
“There are at least three property owners being severely impacted, and we don’t see any agreement among the parties to remedy these things,” planning commish John Robinson said of the Studio Plaza project.
Its developer, Bob Hillerson, has asked the county to surrender four Fenton Village alleys so that he can move forward with the mixed-use project. But adjacent shops rely on those alleys off Thayer and Silver Spring Avenues, Mayor Lane and Fenton Street for deliveries and trash removal, neighboring property owners testified.
“We’re going to lose the Thai Market, the Ethiopian coffee house and the Korean salon,” Mike Gerecht, who owns a commercial building on Fenton and Silver Spring, testified. “I’m concerned about my tenants and merchants. We’re struggling in this economy.”
Another landlord, 85-year-old Athena Kalivas, said losing alley access would put an end to things at her property on Thayer near Fenton. The short commercial building has been her family’s enterprise since the 1950s, and it’s where her husband died.
“The big fish eats the little fish, and I’m the little fish. I don’t want Mr Hillerson to take my rights,” Kalivas wailed before the planning board. “Don’t let him take my bread and my medicine! Don’t let him take my life!”
But according to Bob Dalrymple, legal eagle to developer Hillerson, Kalivas agreed on paper to allow Hillerson to retrofit her building. That would give delivery and trash-collection trucks the wiggle room needed to access tenant businesses once the Studio Plaza project was completed, he told the board.
Still, board members found the adjustments wouldn’t do enough for large delivery trucks, and they weren’t in the business of enforcing private agreements, board chairperson Royce Hanson told Dalrymple. In fact, they didn’t even know why Hillerson’s request to abandon the publicly owned alleys had come to them before going to the county council.
That’s when Dalrymple cited Chicken v. Egg, where the request could have gone in any order to the planning board or county council. However, he wanted to be sure that both bodies were cool with surrendering the alleys before his client got any deeper into the process, he explained.
Planning commish Robinson said things would have gone over a lot smoother with the board, and subsequently with the county council, if they had sensed peace and harmony between Hillerson and his neighbors. Instead, the board put off its decision — and recommended that the county council do the same — until the project’s plans undergo deeper scrutiny.
“We’re asking these people to rely on our assurances that they’ll be taken care of. But it’s obvious that the people of Silver Spring are not prepared to rely on the board’s assurances when this issue comes back up at the project plan’s review,” Robinson said.
Photo of Mayor Lane at Silver Spring Avenue by J. Deseo/SSP.
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OK, I was kind of hanging in there, thinking that we were still managing to keep enough of the old and getting at least some good new stuff. But if the Thai market goes, for me, we’ve crossed the line.
I cross one of those alleys several times a week. It is very busy with trash and delivery trucks. Also, lots of parents drop their kids off at the daycare center. I cannot imagine life without that alley — or the others nearby.
Hillerson has some chutzpah asking for alleys. Alleys are public land. Finally, the planning board is standing up to a developer. The board had better keep its newfound spine.
There has got to be a fix to the current plan that accomodates all parties. I’m with you wombat I love Thai Market, but I have to imagine that in the long term if Fenton Village occurs it will bring a lot more people to the businesses in the area.
There was some demo happening on both sides of thayer ave. this morning (900 block – with the safeway). Not sure what’s going on…i assume nothing’s actually being built yet?
Indeed alleys are public land.. and so are roads.. but yet the county seemed to let go of blair mill rd without a whole lot of heartache.
Here’s another local yocal in support of Thai Market and Highland Coffee. I’m hopeful a compromise can be reached where Hillerson can build and we can keep TM, Highland and our alleys. How about maybe scaling back things a bit and not alienating your new neighbors before you even begin building?