Police identify pedestrian killed in 16th St collision

By Jennifer Deseo | Nov 18, 2009
Photo: A card used in the police investigation. Credit: J. Deseo/SSP.

Photo: A card marks some point of interest in the police's investigation of Wednesday's collision. Credit: J. Deseo/SSP.

UPDATE (5) — Montgomery County police have identified the driver and the pedestrian involved in Wednesday evening’s fatal collision on 16th Street.

The pedestrian — William Alexander Guy, a 63-year-old Silver Springer who lived on the 8300 block of 16th Street — was walking westbound across 16th Street near Colesville Road just before 6:00 p.m., according to MCPD Sgt Meredith Dominick and an MCPD press statement released Thursday. Dominick could not say whether Guy was jaywalking, as the police’s collision-reconstruction crew was still studying the scene at press time.

Guy made it across all three lanes of southbound traffic, over a grassy median, then through two lanes of northbound traffic, Dominick described. While passing through the roadway’s right lane — the one closest to the grassy sidewalk outside the Falkland Chase apartments — Guy was struck by a northbound car, she said.

Dominick added that the driver did stop, and that his behavior did not prompt police officers to conduct a field sobriety test. On Thursday, MCPD identified him as 47-year-old Andrew Pace, of the 13500 block of Travilah Road in Gaithersburg. Charges against Pace have not been filed, though the investigation is ongoing, Dominick indicated. It’s not known whether he was in police custody. (more…)

Tagged with: ,
 
31 Comments

County council decides fate of Falkland Chase apartments

By Jennifer Deseo | Apr 1, 2009

Two sections of the Falkland Chase apartment complex will be designated historic structures, while a third likely will be redeveloped, the county council decided Tuesday afternoon in Rockville.

The council’s unanimous vote to preserve the southern and western parcels, and to allow redevelopment to roll on the northern parcel, puts to bed a long-roiling argument between preservationists and smart growthists. The former wanted all three parcels of New Deal-era buildings preserved; the latter wanted more housing around Silver Spring’s Metro station.

“This project represents the nexus of the past and the present,” council member Duchy Trachtenberg (D-At large) told her colleagues. “I recognize the historic significance of the Falkland property, but it’s an opportunity to put into action our vision of the future while respecting the past.”

So now what?

Home Properties, which owns the entire complex, plans to demolish about 185 units on the northern parcel, which sits on the northeast corner of East-West Highway and 16th Street. Up to 1,040 new rental units might be built there, with 266 of them moderately priced, according to council member Nancy Floreen (D-At large).

The redeveloped parcel also could get a Harris Teeter supermarket, if Home Properties can milk 50,000 square feet of retail space out of its redevelopment plans.

As for the western and southern parcels, reps for Home Properties say the company will work to revitalize the park-like setting by improving water flow through a small stream, and by pimping out the landscaping.

Photo by J. Deseo/SSP.

Tagged with: ,
 
38 Comments

Council members lean towards redevelopment at Falkland Chase

By Jennifer Deseo | Mar 24, 2009

Two out of three county council members on the housing committee agreed: Redevelopment plans for the Falkland Chase apartments should be allowed to roll forward, they said Monday afternoon in Rockville.

Committee members Michael Knapp (D-District 2) and Nancy Floreen said during a scheduled meeting that they were cool with redevelopment on the complex’s northern parcel, on the northeast corner of East-West Highway and 16th Street.

“It’s a pretty good deal,” Floreen told her colleagues. The at-large Dem calculated rents on more than 120 of the 1,020 proposed high-rise residential units would be stabilized for 20 years. Currently, 182 garden-style apartments — some of which are rent stabilized — sit on the northern parcel.

Floreen and Knapp also indicated they would back the county planning board’s idea of declaring buildings on the complex’s southern and western parcels historic. If the entire county council goes with that flow, the New Deal-era apartments would be spared the wrecking ball forever and ever (or at least until someone proposes a reversal to the county’s atlas of historic buildings).

So what did that dissenting committee member have to say?

“We’re at risk of decreasing the housing diversity,” council member Marc Elrich told his colleagues. The at-large Dem worried the site’s proximity to a Metro station and construction costs would jack rents through the shiny new roof.

“When all is said and done, this will be a significant loss in affordable housing at this site. I don’t see much value here, except in the 125 proposed MPDUs [moderately priced dwelling units],” he said.

Elrich also said car traffic along East-West Highway, 16th Street and nearby Colesville Road would be disatrous if a proposed Harris Teeter supermarket were to open on the redeveloped site. Even if apartment dwellers in the immediate hood walked to the store, many more would drive, he argued.

“We’re not getting much for what we’re giving away,” Elrich told his colleagues. “I don’t think it’s a good deal.”

The housing committee discusses the Falklands again next week before hitting the full county council with its final recommendation.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user Mr T in DC.

Tagged with: ,
 
20 Comments

Affordable housing is new focal point in Falkland Chase debate

By Jennifer Deseo | Mar 11, 2009

While preservationists and developers have danced forever around the historic value of downtown’s Falkland Chase apartments, a new issue has come into play: What can redevelopment on the northern parcel do (or not do) for Silver Spring’s renters?

At a public hearing before the county council Tuesday night in Rockville, Mary Reardon, with the Silver Spring Historical Society, argued that constructing 1,040 new apartments on the north side of East-West Highway and 16th Street didn’t justify the eviction of 182 existing occupants.

“Is it really good public policy to destroy housing to gain more housing?” Reardon testified. “It should be offensive to affordable-housing advocates.”

Wayne Goldstein, with Montgomery Preservation, went a step further and asked: Does Montgomery County really need more affordable housing? At February’s urban-district advisory committee meeting in downtown Silver Spring, Goldstein told committee members that the county was good with what it had.

“We are meeting the housing goals using sites never considered for housing. The need has been met,” Goldstein said in February, and reiterated (more or less) Monday night to the county council. “You don’t need to meet the housing goals with development at Falkland Chase.”

Au contraire (French for “hellz no”), said Robert Goldman, with the nonprofit Montgomery Housing Partnership. Crib costs in MoCo are still high despite the recession, he testified, and more families are dealing with less income. On top of that, home foreclosures are forcing former bourgeoisie to seek a cheap place to crash among the proletariat.

Ditto, said Richard Pavlin, another affordable-housing advocate.

“What the developer is offering is why I think lower-income families will benefit from redevelopment at Falkland North,” he testified. “Why aren’t we on the side of tenants?”

Aside from the whole affordable-housing argument, others said redevelopment would impact the hood in other ways. Felicia Eberling, a Colespring Plaza resident and former Falkland renter, called the green acreage “an asset to our neighborhood and part of our heritage. It’s a consolation for the rest of us who live in high rises.”

And forget about the automobile traffic, especially at the traffic triangle where Eastern Avenue, 16th Street and Colesville Road collide. That mess would only get messier if more people moved into the area, said Jerome Paige, of the North Portal Estates Civic Association in The District.

“Many of my neighbors view downtown Silver Spring as our downtown,” he told the council. “What happens on East-West Highway and 16th Street affects my neighborhood directly.”

The county council has final say on whether all three Falkland parcels should be preserved, or just the western and southern parcels while the north side is reworked. The council’s housing committee mulls over this one on Mar 23.

Photo: The cuppola on Falkland Chase’s southern parcel. Credit: J. Deseo/SSP.

Tagged with: , , ,
 
24 Comments

Harris Teeter hearts Silver Spring, developer says

By Jennifer Deseo | Feb 23, 2009

Southern supermarket chain Harris Teeter wants in on downtown Silver Spring’s consumer action, but only if it can find a retail space big enough to house one of its stores, one developer claimed.

Don Hague, whose company wants to redevelop the northern end of the Falkland Chase apartment complex, told Silver Spring’s urban-district advisory committee Thursday that Harris Teeter execs are “very committed” to opening a store in downtown Silver Spring.

“They wanted 50,000 square feet [of retail space] and 200 parking spaces,” Hague explained to the committee. Under a previously proposed design, the redeveloped section of Falkland Chase would have accommodated such a store.

The developer — New York-based Home Properties — and big boys at The Teet even had a draft lease, Hague said. But pressure from preservationists, the county planning board, affordable-housing advocates, the economy and anyone else you can name prompted Home Properties to scale down the design, and shrink the retail space in the process.

Despite that, Teet execs still want in on downtown Silver Spring, Hague said. The crappy housing market has steered Harris Teeter away from vacant suburban developments, and pointed them directly at populated urban areas, he explained.

“If we can still get them 50,000 square feet, Harris Teeter will come,” Hague said.

Of course, that’s if Home Properties can move forward with its redevelopment plans. Area preservationists have long argued that the Falkland Chase apartment complex, which straddles the intersection of 16th Street and East-West Highway, should be spared the wrecking ball as an example of New-Deal garden-style apartments.

There’s also the matter of booting 182 households currently occupying apartments on the northern parcel.

“Do you really think it’s good public policy to displace middle-income households to get more affordable housing?” Mary Reardon, with the Silver Spring Historical Society, told the advisory committee. “For more affordable units, we’re giving up an historic building.”

Ernest Bland, an East Silver Spring architect and member of the advisory committee, agreed. “We’re losing more and more nice things about Silver Spring, and I put Falkland Chase in there,” he told his colleagues.

Bland also sweated how the increased human density would strain infrastructure and traffic flow along East-West Highway. The proposed redevelopment jacks the number of apartments on Falkland Chase’s north parcel from 182 to more than 1,000 units, Hague said.

Ain’t nobody building nothing on the northern parcel until the county council settles the preservation issue. They could declare all, some or none of Falkland Chase’s three sections eligible for historic preservation.

The county council looks that salty dog in the eye in mid March.

Photos courtesy of the Harris Teeter Co.

Tagged with: , ,
 
13 Comments

So you’ve got a wrecking ball aimed at the Falklands. Now what?

By Jennifer Deseo | Sep 8, 2008

The planning board’s decision to nix Falkland Chase’s northern parcel may not have been the final nail in its coffin, but it was certainly the shrill creak of that lid closing. On Thursday, the board said redevelopment on the apartment complex’s north side wouldn’t ruin the historic character of its southern and western parcels, which would be preserved in perpetuity. The final decision belongs to the county council.

But commissioner Joe Alfandre, new guy on the planning board and Kentlands developer, said he wanted to see redevelopment on that site move as one piece. That would give the planning board muscle over what any new plan would look like, and “to ensure that we see the whole thing in the proper context” of garden-style apartments, he said.

So now what? While the blogosphere dreams of dashing through a wide-aisled Harris Teeter, and preservationists plot to chain themselves to Falkland’s front doors, the property’s owners have cooked up plans of their own.

Gone is the original concept racking high-rise towers around a large green space (below). According to representatives of Home Properties, which owns the property, that idea was “too literal an interpretation” of public-space requirements.

Instead, Home Properties has come up with a tentative plan B. That concept drops 60,000 square feet of street-level retail space along East-West Highway. (Earlier concepts set most of the retail away from the street.) Building heights will step down as the project moves south, away from the CSX tracks, keeping in line with the southern parcel’s historic buildings (below).

According to documents submitted to the planning board, about 1,060 new apartments could be constructed, with 133 pegged as moderately priced dwelling units and 100 set aside as work-force housing. The new buildings would contain a smattering of studio apartments plus one-, two- and three-bedroom digs, which Home Properties claimed would improve the neighborhood’s diversity.

None of these ideas are carved in granite. The planning board still must put them through the wringer, even if the county council okays demolition of the north parcel’s existing structures.

As for the southern and western parcels, planning staffers on Thursday said they would hold Home Properties to a covenant for improvements to those buildings. That rings up to $13,000 of insulation, plumbing, wiring and exterior improvements for each existing apartment, Home Properties’ Don Hague told the board. However, board commissioner Alfandre worried that amount wouldn’t cut it.

And what about current tenants of the north parcel’s 182 existing apartments? Residents told the board that Home Properties would relocate them to other apartments on the property, though some worried the space wouldn’t be there.

“When I checked on apartment availability on the complex’s own website, … there were only ten vacant units in the entire three parcels,” testified Jane Bergwin-Rand, who has lived at the Falklands on and off for more than 30 years. “Current residents should not be forced to move for the sake of phantom future renters.”

Images courtesy of MNCPPC.

Tagged with: ,
 
9 Comments
Go To Top »
Site Meter