CSG support for ZC 19-10 Consolidated PUD Valor Lady Bird project
Category: Transit-Oriented Development
CSG in the News: Guest Commentary: A Tour of West Falls Church & the Railroad Cottages
LOCAL COMMENTARY
Guest Commentary: A Tour of West Falls Church & the Railroad Cottages
September 27, 2019, by FCNP.com, the Falls Church News-Press
By Stewart Schwartz & Sonya Breehey
The best way to understand how to make our communities more sustainable and livable, is to get out and walk. That’s why the Coalition for Smarter Growth led one of our signature walking tours, this time in West Falls Church, from George Mason High School to the Railroad Cottages, along the W&OD Trail, and back along Broad Street (Route 7). We were joined by 40 people for the tour, meeting up at the Capital Bikeshare station next to Haycock Road. A number of our attendees arrived by bike and Metro.
We were welcomed by Mayor David Tarter and Councilmembers Letty Hardi, Phil Duncan and Ross Litkenhous from the City of Falls Church, Councilmember Pasha Majdi from the Town of Vienna, Delegate Marcus Simon, city planning commission and transportation commission members, staff, residents, and volunteer advocates from across Northern Virginia. Mayor Tarter provided an update on plans for the entire West Falls Church Metro area including Falls Church’s new high school and redevelopment area, the Virginia Tech campus, and the Metro station parking lots.
Walkable, mixed-use, mixed-income development next to our Metro stations is essential if we are to grow without making traffic worse and essential for cutting the transportation emissions that are now the leading source of greenhouse gas emissions in our region. Transit-oriented development will also expand the city’s tax base, providing funding for schools and other services.
Councilmember Hardi discussed safety issues facing people crossing Broad Street. Delegate Simon and others talked about safety issues along Shreve Road where a person was tragically killed by a vehicle as she walked on the sidewalk. The region is experiencing a big uptick in pedestrians and cyclists killed or injured by vehicles, and redesigning our streets to be safer for all users is imperative. Fortunately, a project is in the works to make the Route 7/Haycock Road intersection safer, and additional safe crossings are planned as part of the city’s redevelopment project. Meanwhile, Delegate Simon and other officials are pursuing safety improvements for Shreve Road.
We then walked a short distance along the W&OD to the Railroad Cottages — a highlight of the tour. When proposed, these 10 cottage style homes on 1.25 acres were the subject of significant concern from neighbors. The triangular site next to the W&OD trail originally allowed for four building sites. But in view of the significant housing needs in our region, and a desire to create environmentally sustainable homes with a sense of community, the project’s visionary development team proposed 10 cottages and a shared common house. The cottages are arranged along a central pathway, with cars parked away from the homes.
The homes were built to “Earthcraft Gold” energy-efficiency and sustainability standards and use Universal Design to allow for mobility when aging in place. It’s an 18-minute walk from the cottages to the West Falls Church Metro, 14 minutes by bike to the East Falls Church Metro on the W&OD trail, and a five-to-10-minute walk to a range of shopping and services along Broad Street. The stormwater management is cutting edge — controlling stormwater runoff to the same level as a healthy forest.
The residents of the Railroad Cottages graciously opened their doors to us, showing us their homes and describing what it’s like to live in the community. Project visionary Theresa Sullivan Twiford, architect Jack Wilbern of Butz Wilbern Architects, and developer Joe Wetzel of the Young Group, told us about the approval process and its many challenges.
Our planning and zoning rules in the region do not make it easy to build clustered homes, and the time and cost for special approvals adds to the cost of each new home. It is easier to build “by-right” very large, nearly full-lot occupying houses, which on this site would have cost $1.5 million or more, than to build these smaller 1340 to 1380 square foot homes.
Given our region’s housing needs, 10 homes within walking and bicycling distance to Metro are better than four. Still, at about $800,000 apiece, these homes remain out of reach for most families. They point the way, however, to the potential for smaller homes, and especially duplexes, triplexes, and fourplexes, to provide more options with greater affordability.
We need to identify the best places for these homes in terms of access to transit, jobs and services, and make the design, zoning and approval process easier. Otherwise, our grown children and many sectors of our workforce will simply not be able to afford to live in our community. Creating more walkable, transit-oriented communities is how we can grow sustainably, provide the homes we need, and fight climate change. Fortunately, as the tour showed, the City of Falls Church is emerging as a leader in this effort.
Stewart Schwartz is the executive director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth, and Sonya Breehey is their Northern Virginia advocacy manager.
View the guest commentary in the Falls Church News-Press here.
CSG in the News: Editorial: A Falls Church Example Of ‘Smart Growth’
Editorial: An F.C. Example Of ‘Smart Growth’
Stewart Schwartz, executive director of the prestigious Coalition for Smarter Growth, last weekend chose to conduct one of his organization’s famous walking tours in the City of Falls Church, focusing in the recently-completed cottages project developed by City developer Bob Young, chair of the City’s Economic Development Authority, and his team. The cottages were identified by Schwartz’s group as important in the wider conversation about “sustainable growth” because they represent a departure from the prevailing notion of what single detached homes should look like and offer to the demographic trends of tomorrow….
The cottages project, he added, “Point the way to the potential for smaller homes, and especially duplexes, triplexes and fourplexes, to provide more options with greater affordability…Creating more walkable, transit-oriented communities is how we can grow sustainability, provide the homes we need and fight climate change.”
So, clearly, where the City can “lead by example” would be in the area of instituting the kinds of planning and zoning rules changes that will have the effect of incentivizing shifting development priorities in just that direction.
View the full commentary in the Falls Church News-Press here.
CSG in the News: An Amazon warehouse instead of offices. Zoning tool allows changes with little scrutiny
An Amazon warehouse instead of offices. Townhouses in place of an airport. Zoning ‘tool’ allows changes with little scrutiny.
Grassy hills where residents were promised bustling office buildings could now hold a massive warehouse. A small airport could be replaced with more than 500 townhouses. A church property could include housing for the elderly.
Each of the projects is dependent on fast-track changes to existing zoning by the Prince George’s County Council, which relies on bills called “text amendments” to circumvent what lawmakers describe as an outdated and cumbersome zoning process…
“It is important to have consistency and certainty,” said Stewart Schwartz, who heads the D.C.-based Coalition for Smarter Growth, noting that in other jurisdictions, a change as substantial as the proposed warehouse would likely have gone through full zoning review processes.
See full story here.
The DC Comp Plan is back – let’s ensure it allows for a more inclusive city
Together with you, we’ve pressed for over two years for an updated Comprehensive Plan that makes building more affordable housing a priority for the city. But for more than a year, the guiding first chapter or “Framework Element” has been bottled up in the DC Council. Finally, the second and crucial vote on the bill will be September 17.
While the Chairman’s revisions incorporate many of the amendments we supported, it falls short of establishing affordable housing as our top priority, and doesn’t ensure that enough housing can be built across the whole city.
Send a message to the DC Council today and let them know we want a city for all.
Tell the DC Council the Comprehensive Plan must:
- Directly address the city’s need for more housing, especially near transit, so that people across the income spectrum can have more choices about where they can live;
- Make affordable housing the highest priority throughout the document, and in the development review process;
- Commit to preserving existing affordable housing and prevent residents from being displaced;
- Enable new affordable housing to be built across the city, including in Upper Northwest, where for too long some of its residents have blocked significant numbers of new homes from being built;
- Fix the broken development approval process (including Planned Unit Developments), ensuring that affordable housing is given top priority, and that the process is predictable for those who participate in good-faith.
In our meetings with Councilmembers over the past few months we’ve pressed the case and believe there is significant support.
Photo credit: Ted Eytan, https://www.flickr.com/
CSG testimony opposing 19-acre warehouse at Westphalia Town Center
View PDF here: 2019.07.16 CSG testimony opposing Westphaila Ctr DSP changes_FNL
July 16, 2019
The Hon. Elizabeth M. Hewlett, Chairman
Prince George’s County Planning Board,
14741 Governor Oden Bowie Drive
Upper Marlboro, MD 20772
Re: Deny the proposed Item #9. DSP-19008 WESTPHALIA CENTER (SNAPPER), and Item #10. DDS-657 WESTPHALIA CENTER (SNAPPER)
Dear Chair Hewlett and members of the Board:
Please accept these comments on behalf of the Coalition for Smarter Growth. The Coalition for Smarter Growth is the leading organization in the Washington, D.C. region dedicated to making the case for smart growth. Our mission is to promote walkable, inclusive, and transit-oriented communities, and the land use and transportation policies and investments needed to make those communities flourish.
We are writing to request the Board to deny the proposed Detailed Site Plan (DSP) for Westphalia Center (Snapper). This proposed DSP is clearly not complaint with the Westphalia Sector Plan or the Plan Prince George’s 2035 Approved General Plan. The proposed industrial land use for the site will not fulfill the intent of these plans, which specify that uses should create a mixed-use, walkable town center.
The staff report states that the DSP supports the purposes of the M-X-T zone:
[(2)] To implement recommendations in the approved General Plan, Master Plans, and Sector Plans, by creating compact, mixed-use, walkable communities enhanced by a mix of residential, commercial, recreational, open space, employment, and institutional uses;
Phase I included residential uses only, and this DSP is for a merchandise logistics center, which will add a major employment use that is walkable to the remainder of the town center. As one of the phases of a larger mixed-use development, this DSP will help to create a compact, mixed-use, and walkable neighborhood, including a mix of residential, commercial, recreational, open space, employment, and institutional uses as anticipated in the approved CSP-07004-02.
It strains credulity to assert that a 19-acre monolithic warehouse building, measuring 1,198 feet by 558 feet, surrounded by 1,800 surface parking spaces is contributing to a compact, walkable, mixed-use town center. The staff suggests that the current forested site, adjacent to a residential use could be accessed on foot. However, no pedestrian pathway from the residential development to the proposed building is indicated in the plans. There is no illustration of how a pedestrian would walk across the woodland buffer and the expansive surface parking lot to a door of the large building. In addition, the main truck route to and from the loading docks – with 18-wheel trucks day and night — would cut between the warehouse and existing residential community at Westphalia. This is a mammoth warehouse and distribution center – it is not a component of a mixed-use, walkable, urban community in any way.
The staff report notes that:
On June 18, 2019, the District Council adopted and enacted Prince George’s County Council Bills CB-018-2019 and CB-019-2019; CB-018-2019 for the purpose of adding a definition of a merchandise logistics center and amending the definition of regional urban community in the Zoning Ordinance; and CB-019-2019 for the purpose of amending the regulations of the M-X-T Zone.
This substantial change to the M-X-T zone is contrary to the intent of the M-X-T zone to create mixed-use, walkable, urban communities which would match the success of similar communities in other jurisdictions across the region, and as noted above, is contrary to the intent of both the Westphalia Sector Plan and the county’s 2035 General Plan.
The key to the county’s economic development, particularly in higher paying jobs, is to support and promote walkable, mixed-use, urban centers. Once the county committed to Westphalia as a mixed-use center, a vision promised to the current residents of the first phase, the county must stick with that commitment. Changing the M-X-T zone to allow warehouses and distribution centers will undermine the value of both existing and future mixed-use centers, because no developer, small business, or residential buyer could count on their investment retaining its value. While the County Council may have amended definitions for the M-X-T zone, the DSP must still conform to town center characteristics described and defined in the Westphalia Plan and the General Plan.
We recognize the need for industrial and distribution jobs, but there are other locations available for the proposed distribution center that would have less impact an existing residential and mixed-use community. One such location is the identically-sized, 80-acre old Landover Mall site at the Capital Beltway interchange with MD 202, which we understand is for sale.
We urge the Board to reject the current proposal. We ask the Board to encourage such uses in more appropriate locations to utilize existing transportation infrastructure and to promote uses more in line with the County’s long-term development goals. Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Cheryl Cort
Policy Director
CSG support for Prince George’s Countywide Sectional Map Amendment
CSG Support of Prince George’s County Council advancing SMA
July 2, 2019
The Honorable Todd Turner, Chairman
Committee of the Whole
Prince George’s County Council
RE: Support for:
CB-011-2019, An Ordinance Concerning the Countywide Sectional Map Amendment;
CR-026-2019, A Resolution Concerning the Countywide Sectional Map Amendment;
CR-027-2019, A Resolution Concerning Preparation of a Countywide Sectional Map Amendment and Approval of Goals, Concepts, and Guidelines; and Public Participation Program
Dear Chair Turner and members of the committee:
Please accept these comments on behalf of the Coalition for Smarter Growth. The Coalition for Smarter Growth is the leading organization working locally in the Washington, DC metropolitan region dedicated to making the case for smart growth. Our mission is to promote walkable, inclusive, and transit-oriented communities, and the land use and transportation policies and investments needed to make those communities flourish.
We wish to express our support for initiating the countywide sectional map amendment to advance the implementation of the zoning rewrite enacted by this Council in the fall of 2018. This zoning rewrite is a significant advance for the county. We appreciate that this is an important change for the county, and we commend the level of public engagement required to implement the countywide sectional map amendment.
This change is worth the effort because it replaces the county’s current obsolete and cumbersome zoning regulations which are holding back the county. Here are some of the ways the zoning and subdivision process will improve:
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Design and building form standards: the document establishes transit-oriented zones at the local and regional scales to support the goals of walkable urbanism, creating walkable, and bikable areas that are well-connected to transit;
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Parking standards for urban and transit-oriented areas: the zoning rewrite reduces excessive minimum parking requirements in transit-oriented centers in order to support more multimodal designs and uses.
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Street designs: the revisions require interconnected streets, shorter blocks, and pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure. It implements newly adopted urban street design standards that support walk and bike friendly streets.
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Transportation demand management: the regulations also establish progressive traffic reduction measures that emphasize encouraging more people to ride transit if available, bicycle, share rides and walk.
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Ease of use: The zoning and subdivision regulations are presented in a more readable format providing tables and graphic illustrations to better understand and visualize the standards.
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Ending perpetual approvals: The proposed rules establish limits on approvals after a number of years. Today, approvals are allowed to live on forever, despite significant changes that may occur after initially projected conditions. While some of the provisions seem overly generous, setting the proposed limits would be a big step forward for the county.
Adopt this critical reform
We believe implementation of the zoning and subdivision rewrite is a tremendous improvement for the county and the community. It is a once in a generation opportunity. We urge the Council to vote to initiate the countywide sectional map amendment process in order to keep the zoning rewrite timeline on track. The countywide sectional map amendment is the next essential step to ensuring the timely implementation of the county’s modernized zoning and subdivision regulations.
Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Cheryl Cort
Policy Director
CSG Support of PGC advancing SMA
CSG in the News: ADUs gaining in popularity across the country
Cities’ interest in granny flats at ‘fever pitch’ amid U.S. housing crisis
by Carey L. Biron, MAY 20, 2019, Reuters
WASHINGTON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – The U.S. capital is one of the most expensive cities in the country, but Derek Wright hopes to cover his housing costs with a novel strategy that local officials are keen to foster: He is becoming a small-scale landlord.
Very small-scale, that is. Wright is applying for a permit to turn his townhouse’s basement into a separate home, the rent from which he expects will cover more than half of his mortgage.
These types of projects are technically known as accessory dwelling units (ADUs), but are also called “granny flats”, “mother-in-law suites” or “English basements”….
And they are gaining popularity around the country, said Cheryl Cort, policy director for the non-profit Coalition for Smarter Growth, as policymakers in expensive cities look to them as a way to boost affordable housing.
Granny flats offer a low-cost housing solution because the land is already paid for, she said, and they are often built in more central parts of the city.
They have long been allowed in Washington, but in 2016 city officials tweaked the application rules with the aim of making the process easier, said Cort.
The city struck down various prohibitions and made it so “a homeowner can build one as a matter of right, for the most part,” she added.
Ileana Schinder, the architect who worked with Fazio and Wright on the designs and city approvals for their projects, said she has overseen the construction of about 20 granny flats in Washington over the past few years — and interest is climbing.
Many of Schinder’s prospective clients have been young families looking for additional income so they can stay in the city, as well as older people who need the financial boost to continue living in their homes….
View full story here.