Two Meetings Scheduled For Victory Housing Project
Jul 15, 2009 16:25 - 5 Comments
Readers of >Rockville Central know that a proposed project by Victory Housing focused on affordable housing and independent living for seniors along Fleet Street has generated some discussion among the community. Editor Cindy Cotte Griffiths recapped the project here, and Alice Liu and Noreen Bryan have written a Contributor Opinion about it here.
While most of the official action surrounding this project is County-based, there is a Rockville role. In order for the project to move forward as proposed, the City would have to abandon its right to a long-planned but never-built road through the parcel of land in question. (I don’t know the details on where it would go, perhaps someone can help me out in the comments section and I could add it to the map below. If there are other details I could also add those to the map.)
View Victory Court Proposed Development in a larger map
A recent Planning Commission meeting ultimately took no action on the issue. Now, two meetings are scheduled to discuss the Victory Housing project:
- On Monday, July 20 at 7:00 pm, in the Cafeteria of the County Council Office Building at 100 Maryland Ave., representatives of the developer are holding a required “Post Application Area Meeting” where all are welcome to come discuss the project.
- On Monday, September 14 at 7:00 pm, the Rockville Mayor and Council will hold a public hearing on the right-of-way abandonment issue in Mayor and Council chambers at City Hall.
The meeting announcement for the upcoming July 20 reads: “The petitioner [Victory Housing] is proposing to develop and operate an affordable housing community for independent elderly residents (to be known as “Victory Court”). In direct response to comments from the community during the pre-application period, the size of the building was reduced from 90 to 86 units. The deleted units were located on the top floor of the building wings, which resulted in lowering the roof line on the portion of the building closest to the Courthouse Walk community. Additional landscape screening and a fence were also added to further screen the view and improve the appearance of the current wooded area to the south of the project. . . . At this meeting the petitioner will make every effort to illustrate how the property will be developed and to answer any questions.”
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When I was on the Rockville Pike Advisory Committee 20-30 years ago, there was a great discussion about extending Jefferson St. from Montrose to, I think, Maryland Av. to 270. The purpose was to alleviate some of the traffic on the Pike. It was seriously discussed, but was dropped when the citizens of the Montrose Subdivision strongly protested.Jefferson was to continue north, across the front of the Country Club (which, at that time I think the club was agreeable to it) behind the IHOP shopping center, in front of the high school, and somehow connect with Maryland.If this is the planned road, or part of it is the planned road, I would think the entire subject of a Jefferson Road extension should be reviewed before giving away the road.
This is not what is being considered. The strip of land extends from Mt. Vernon Place at Monroe, over to Maryland Avenue. It is approximately 60 feet wide and 600 feet in length. It lies along the southern part of the county land and northern part of Courthouse Walk.The Victory Housing project is not contingent on the abandonment but the latter can impact the overall footprint, particularly with respect to parking lots. The original recommendation of city staff was to abandon the land but impose easements on the Courthouse Walk half. This was part of the objections we filed at the Planning Commission meeting, when staff was directed to go back and redo parts of their report.
Thanks for the clarification Joe!
To Joel–who is “we”? Could you please add me to the email list serv for this project to learn more about this? My email address is TDefino@aol.com.Please provide the email list serv address so the rest of the community can stay informed as well.
I was reading the well written opinion by Ken Sandin and went to the link he supplied: http://tinyurl.com/ngnt8 to the staff report. I would say if I lived in those townhouses I would be pretty unhappy about having the road put through (clearly shown on page 6 of doc). As most do, I hope the discourse stays civil on this. I looked at Rockville using google maps earlier, there is NOT that much GREEN space left in downtown Rockville. I hope this building could be LEED certified if built.