Author: Andrew Brown

Testimony before the City of Alexandria City Council re: Coordinated Development Districts #21/#22 and Design Standards for Beauregard Small Area Plan

Posted on by Andrew Brown

Good afternoon. I am Stewart Schwartz, Executive Director for the Coalition for Smarter Growth.

The Coalition for Smarter Growth closely tracked the planning for the redevelopment of the Beauregard corridor and testified in support of the new plan. We have studied the staff report for the new Coordinated Development Districts in great detail.

Our review of the staff report, community advisory committee reports and other supporting documentation indicates a very high degree of due diligence and analysis. The city has invested significant resources in ensuring all the pieces fit together in this complex rezoning, including the design standards, the staging related to transportation improvements, and the developer commitments to financing public infrastructure and affordable housing. The city also established community advisory committees to collect ongoing input and provide independent recommendations to the staff, Planning Commission and Council.

Mixed-use, mixed-income development in walkable, transit-oriented development offers the best way for our region to grow while managing traffic, increasing access to jobs for all incomes, and reducing energy use and pollution, including greenhouse gas emissions.

Understandably, the key area of ongoing concern has been affordable housing and we understand the concern of existing residents who depend on affordable rents. Entendemos. The Coalition for Smarter Growth has included affordable housing policy as a core component of our work including support for housing trust funds, inclusionary zoning, use of public land, zoning and other tools.

Market rate affordable housing is under pressure and at risk due to the region’s continued population growth and the traffic that is encouraging residents to live closer to jobs and transit. It is this demand to live close to jobs, transit and the core, that has developers like JBG seeking out larger parcels of land with the potential for significant redevelopment, such as the garden apartments within the Beauregard community.

Most of the garden apartments are found in an area that the city included in CDD #4 a number of years ago, which created an incentive for purchase and redevelopment, but without a set-aside or other affordable housing preservation strategies for the area. Given the current situation, CDD #21/#22 offers the best opportunity to secure long-term committed affordable housing and a range of other community benefits.

We are glad that the city conducted a tenant survey to better understand the needs, and that as a result, the city has made adjustments to the affordable housing plan, tenant transition, and associated financing plan, including increasing the number of units for households with incomes at 40% of Area Median Income and below.

The plan’s housing goal and an effective strategy to create 800 long-term committed affordable units are essential. It includes the largest developer contribution ever made to affordable housing in our region – $66 million, and the city’s substantial commitment using tax increment financing. It appears to now be better tailored to the needs identified in the tenant survey with a focus on people earning $15,000 to $65,000 per year, depending on family size. Over 50% of the 800 units will be at 40% AMI and below.

Redevelopment of the garden apartments will happen over many years, providing time for creative affordable housing deals, especially with non-profit housing developers, and other strategies to offer additional committed affordable housing units. Espero que; creo que la Ciudad va a hacer lo que es necesario para ayudar a la communidad con este cambio.

The city has drafted an Affordable Housing Master Plan, which is much needed. We’ve lost too much because of not doing enough in the past. The plan should also be improved with clear numerical goals, dedicated funding, and the city’s priority attention to adopting the policies and programs necessary to more effectively preserve and expand affordable housing. At the same time, the city also needs the tax base from well-planned, competitive transit-oriented redevelopment to create the taxpayer resources necessary for this affordable housing strategy.

In conclusion and weighing the information before you today, we recommend that you support the rezoning to Coordinated Development Districts 21 and 22. Thank you.

Stewart Schwartz
Executive Director

Testimony before Ms. Françoise Carrier, Chair of the Montgomery County Planning Board re: Long Branch Sector Plan Comments

Posted on by Andrew Brown

Dear Chair Carrier and members of the Board:

Please accept these comments on behalf of the Coalition for Smarter Growth. Our organization is a regional organization focused on ensuring transportation and development decisions are made with genuine community involvement and accommodate growth while revitalizing communities, providing more housing and travel choices, and conserving our natural and historic areas.

We appreciate this planning effort to prepare for the Purple Line stations and ensure that land use and the street network can support a more walkable, transit-oriented community. While we support the plan overall, we have specific concerns related to preservation of the affordable housing in the area, and the retention of small, local businesses.

Affordable Housing

The plan provides a useful analysis of anticipated trends in housing, showing increasing rents of low priced rental housing with or without the Purple Line, but the loss of a substantial number of market affordable units in the redevelopment scenario envisioned by the plan. Under either scenario, greater commitment by Montgomery County government is needed to preserve and expand housing opportunities for low and very low income households in the area. Without this commitment, we will either lose the affordability of low rent market affordable units slowly through rising rents, or more rapidly with the arrival of the Purple Line. We urge the Planning Board to work with the county to create an affordable housing strategy in conjunction with the sector plan. This effort should coordinate with the Department of Housing and Community Affairs to identify resources and properties that could be acquired and redeveloped with additional subsidy to secure and expand affordable housing in the area.

The sector plan relies almost exclusively on MPDUs as the response to the need for maintaining affordable housing in the area, while acknowledging much more needs to be done. We commend the 15% MPDU requirement, however, this standard falls short in a number of ways. The 15% standard for the plan can help address concern that the CR zones are reducing production of MPDUs to the minimum required. The 15 percent requirement, however, needs to be matched with assurance that the 22 percent bonus density is achievable. Where the CR zone standards are a constraint in achieving the 22 percent bonus density, this constraint should be removed. The height limit is often the key constraint to achieving the 22 percent bonus, thus this limit should be modified to allow for the full realization of the MPDU bonus.

Given the challenges with finding resources to preserve and build affordable housing in this area, we urge the Planning Board to leverage its use of MPDUs to create more below-market rate units. We suggest further incentive by creating a new 20% MPDU set aside standard that offers additional FAR and height.

Complete Streets

We appreciate the plan’s goal to create a safe, walkable environment and the intention to designate the area as a Bicycle and Pedestrian Priority Area. We ask that as streets are redesigned, particular attention is given to improving the safety of pedestrian movements at major intersections. State and county street design standards should be reconsidered in light of the goal that public rights of way are places are truly inviting for pedestrians and shared spaces for all users.

Small business retention and assistance

We appreciate the plan seeking to retain small businesses and encourage public private partnerships to support affordable space for businesses providing unique products and services. The specifics of how this will be accomplished, however, need to be better addressed. The ability of the CR zone to support this goal should be carefully assessed. Assistance from county programs should also be better connected to the changes the plan seeks through rezoning.

Overall, all we appreciate the efforts of this plan to anticipate and guide change. We remain concerned however, that this plan and a coordinated response with the county is falling significantly short of addressing the housing needs of low income families in the area. We ask that the Planning Board reconsider the tools it can leverage, as well as better coordinate a response with the county which can provide resources and programs to address housing and small business needs.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Cheryl Cort
Policy Director

The Regional Medical Center belongs at a Metro Station

The Regional Medical Center belongs at a Metro Station

Posted on by Andrew Brown

All Prince George’s County residents have a vested interest in getting the decision right about where to locate and how to design the new county and state-supported $650 million Regional Medical Center with a workforce of more than 2000 employees. To leverage the most competitive healthcare benefits and economic development opportunities, we need state-of-the-art urban design at a Metro station.

Building a new Regional Medical Center at a Metro station means:

  • A regionally transit-connected center of medical excellence that can attract the best in class workforce using a walkable urban design that integrates into the surrounding context;
  • Less traffic, more access for workers, and more convenient access to quality healthcare for everyone, including individuals who must rely on transit;
  • Jumpstarting other quality mixed-use development, delivering a big economic boost for Prince George’s and the surrounding area.

Largo Town Center Metro station is the best option

  • Largo Metro has a vacant 20 acre site (old parcel D) just east of the entrance owned by PNG Schwartz that already has 1 million square feet approved for a federal HHS office building on just half of the site (Commons at Largo). 20 acres is plenty of room for a state-of-the-art hospital and medical office buildings. The 69-acre Boulevard at Capital Centre is on county owned land and could be part of a larger medical complex in the future.
  • Largo Metro station has ample vacant land, multiple roadway connections, rail & bus service, nearby retail, office and residential uses.
  • Combined with a pedestrian-friendly urban design, a hospital center could drive economic development as an anchor for a mixed-use destination and downtown district for Prince George’s.
  • The medical center can be sensitively located in the existing community around the Largo Town Center Metro station to manage traffic and ensure that existing residents will have improved access to the Metro, nearby services, offices, and new jobs.

Why the 2 non-Metro sites would be a major missed opportunity for the county

  • Both the Woodmore Towne Centre and the Landover Mall sites are located a mile and half from the closest Metro station – too far to walk & too far to leverage Metro access for more transit-oriented economic development.
  • Far from Metro, Woodmore Towne Centre is a sprawling 245-acre, automobile-oriented, outside-thebeltway greenfield site that hasn’t been able to attract the investment it promised.
  • Landover Mall needs reinvestment but its distance to a Metro station and lack of connectivity to a mixed-use district makes it a poor candidate for a competitive Regional Medical Center.
  • These sites would generate more traffic since it would be difficult for anyone to access the medical center without a car.

 

Coalition for Smarter Growth: Sign the petition & learn more at smartergrowth.net/PGmedicalcenter

Testimony before the Prince George’s County House Delegation in Support of PG 420-13: School Facilities Surcharge

Posted on by Andrew Brown

Please accept these comments on behalf of the Coalition for Smarter Growth. Our organization works to ensure that transportation and development decisions in the Washington, D.C. region, including the Maryland suburbs, accommodate growth while revitalizing communities, providing more housing and travel choices, and conserving our natural and historic areas.

We urge you to support Bill PG 420-13 – School Facilities Surcharge, in order to take reasonable measures to catalyze transit-oriented development by removing unnecessary barriers to investment near transit stations. The bill lessens the burdens on multifamily housing construction near major transit stations which is exactly what is needed for Prince George’s to compete for the workforce and employers of the future.

Multifamily units, especially studio units, produce a fraction of the school-aged children that single family housing generates, thus the reduction in the school facilities surcharge will not overburden the county. It will, however, strengthen the tax base by attracting more of the largest segments of our population — young professionals and retirees seeking to live in a more urban, transit-accessible environment.

The recent assessment by the Prince George’s Planning Department in “Where and How We Grow Policy Paper,” urges the county to depart from its historic pattern as a spread out bedroom community. Instead, it urges the county to encourage development in Centers and the Developed Tier by reducing fees. It cites regional growth forecasts showing that economic development and workforce housing preferences will demand a major increase in multifamily housing near transit:

“[M]ore than 79 percent of units in the [County’s] pipeline are single-family detached units intended for the Developing Tier; however, to meet future demand, more than 60 percent of new housing units to be built should be multifamily units located in walkable communities at transit-accessible locations.

“Furthermore…between 2000 and 2010 Prince George’s County acquired one of the lowest numbers of new residents in the region. Without a recalibration of county priorities and policies that promote TOD and high-quality, mixed-use development, it is likely that the county will be at a continued disadvantage relative to its neighbors when it comes to attracting residents and employers who value the connectivity and amenities that other such communities provide.”

Again, we ask that you support Bill PG 420-13 – School Facilities Surcharge. Thank you for your consideration.

Cheryl Cort
Policy Director