Draft Zoning Ordinance Update

>Rockville Central friend Rich Gottfried has passed along some timely and useful news to all who are following the development of the new Draft Zoning Ordinance:

On February 28, 2008, the City of Rockville Planning Commission has made some decisions with regards to their work sessions on the DZO. They decided to hold at a minimum six worksessions on the DZO (Draft Zoning Ordinance). The public record to submit comments will close on March 28, 2008 COB (5:00pm).

The first work session is going to be on March 5, 2008 7:00pm at City Hall (111 Maryland Ave., Rockville, MD) in the Mayor and Council Chambers which is located on the second floor. The topics that they are discussing at this meeting will be home based businesses, mansionization, and other topics.

The second work session is going to be on March 12, 2008 7:00pm at City Hall and the topic that they are going to discuss is Stonestreet and zoning, as well as other topics.

Here are the City of Rockville’s staff’s recommendations to the Planning Commission.

If you have questions, Rich has been following this closely and if you contact him I am sure he can let you know what you need to know — or at least how to find out what you need to know!

Rich says he will be at the meeting on March 5 and looks forward to seeing you there.

Thanks Rich!

Contributor Opinion by Rich Gottfried: Make RORZOR More Friendly To Home-Based Business

This >contributor opinion is (my) edit of the prepared remarks Rockville Central friend Rich Gottfried delivered at last night’s RORZOR public meeting.

The Home Based Business Action Team [HBBAT, pronounced “beebat”] has submitted 13 pages of comments, questions and suggestions to article 9 section 25.09.06 which is 7 pages more than the regulation itself! [Here is a link to all of them - ed.] Here are the highlights from its written comments.

First, this article needs a no impact home based business section exemption regulation where home based businesses do not have to register nor pay any fees nor additional tax revenue to the city of Rockville.

Montgomery County’s no-impact business regulations state that no more than five vehicles visits per week excluding deliveries, no nonresident employees, and no discernible impact on the surroundings. If you are a no impact business, you don’t have to do anything else. No space requirements and no income requirements. . . . Why doesn’t the city of Rockville have a no impact business exemption regulation?

Second, there was no public outreach to the home based businesses. The six pages of regulations should have been mailed to all of the residents of Rockville.

Third, the regulations as written violate the private policy laws: keeping logs . . . counting cars . . . having the chief of planning do inspections at will!…one complaint is a violation? Denial of access is an admission of guilt?

Fourth, that a registry be will made available for public inspection may cause more neighborhood crimes, if the criminals know where the address is of a home based business is and they have large amounts of cash in their house or valuable art work or expensive pianos…they may be subject to more of a target of being robbed!

Fifth, what is the cost to the Rockville taxpayers for implementing this regulation versus the benefit of having one at all for home based businesses? Why are these regulations even necessary? These regulations would be an administrative burden on the planning department as well as on home based businesses.

Sixth, signage. We need some minimal signage for home based businesses. How about one exterior illuminated sign of approximately 144 square inches. That’s about half the size of a political lawn sign.

Let’s decide to support, not erase by fiat, Rockville’s home based businesses. We are the highest level of green business the city can have, whether we call it telecommuting for white collar workers, pedestrian accessible medical care for neighborhood children, affordable incubator space for startup businesses, or a second career for stay-at-home parents, home based businesses cut traffic and other wear and tear on our infrastructure.

In summary, please abolish article 9 section 25.09.06 or let’s work together to implement fair and reasonable regulations so that home based businesses are not unfairly scrutinized and penalized. Let’s keep Rockville’s home-based businesses in Rockville where we need them.

Richard Gottfried
HBBAT

Rockville Central runs occasional, edited opinion pieces by contributors. Their views are not necessarily those of Rockville Central. To submit your opinion for consideration, contact us.

Contributor Opinion: Carl Henn On RORZOR

This >contributor opinion is by Rockville Central friend Carl Henn:

Tomorrow, January 23, 7:30 at City Hall is the Planning Commission’s hearing on the proposed zoning ordinance revisions. Its been thirty years since the last big rewrite. This revision makes a much more understandable document. It also makes substantive changes such as creating mixed use zones in some areas, allowing residential where only commercial is currently allowed for instance. It mostly leaves the residential areas alone, but does address mansionization and would block you from paving your entire front yard.

Study Up For The RORZOR With Rockville Living!

As >Rockville Central readers know, the City is in the midst of rewriting its zoning laws. This is a big deal. The decisions made now will affect how the City looks twenty years into the future and more.

A committee has worked hard to develop a set of ordnances, and a number of information sessions have been held. (The last one was January 10.) Now, it’s time for the City to begin to get public input. The first opportunity to speak up about the RORZOR plan will come on January 23 at 7:00 pm at City Hall in the Mayor and Council chambers (that’s upstairs).

It might be a good idea to begin thinking now of what you might want to say. Rockville Central friend Helen Triolo, who runs the excellent resource Rockville Living (a model for local information sources), has developed an interactive map of Rockville that contains all the proposed zoning areas.

She says the map will get new overlays and content as time goes on (Rockville Living is a veritable potpourri of business and event listings which are just ripe for such a mapped approach). But, for now, it’s a zoning map — exactly what we need.

Thank you for this important resource, Helen.

I urge readers to visit the map, and poke around. Look at the way your favorite Rockville spots are zoned, what they are next to, and the like. Bank that up against the draft zoning ordnance. And, on the 23rd, come with comments!

RORZOR Forum Rescheduled

>This just in from the City:

The City of Rockville will hold another public forum meeting on the RORZOR Proposed Draft Zoning Ordinance Revision on Thursday, January 10, 2008 from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. at the Glenview Mansion-Civic Center Park. This meeting replaces the public forum that was canceled on December 5 due to inclement weather.

On January 23, the Planning Commission will hold a public hearing at 7:00 p.m. to gather input on the proposed draft document. The public is encouraged to attend and will be allowed to give public testimony. The meeting will be held at City Hall in the Mayor and Council chambers.

To request a presentation on the Zoning Ordinance during a civic association or group meeting, e-mail Jenny Kimball, Assistant to the City Manager, at jkimball@rockvillemd.gov or contact a neighborhood resources coordinator at 240-314-8340.

RORZOR Forum Canceled Tonight!

>This late-breaking notice from the City:

The City’s Zoning Ordinance public forum scheduled for tonight from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. at the F. Scott Fitzgerald Theatre (Social Hall) has been canceled due to inclement weather.

A rescheduled date for another public forum will be announced shortly.

To request a presentation on the Zoning Ordinance during a civic association or group meeting, e-mail Jenny Kimball, Assistant to the City Manager, at jkimball@rockvillemd.gov or contact a neighborhood resources coordinator at 240-314-8340.

For more information and to see the draft in its entirety, visit www.rockvillemd.gov/zoning or visit the Community Planning and Development Services counter at City Hall (111 Maryland Avenue, second floor).

Chambers Leaving On A High Note

Longtime, active Rockville residents probably know him pretty well. And, when candidates for >mayor and city council uniformly praised “city staff” in the Rockville Central interviews, he is no doubt one of the people they meant.

Arthur D. Chambers, the City’s seven-year director of community planning and development services, says he is going to retire in January.

“The Mayor and Council and City managers I have worked for here have always been extremely supportive in doing good planning,” Chambers is quoted in the City’s dry press release on the subject. “The many projects I have seen and helped complete in Rockville are directly because of their support and encouragement.”

But Warren Parish at the Gazette fleshes out just what Chambers means by “many projects.” It’s an impressive list.

Not only did Chambers plan and oversee the successful and award-winning redevelopment of Town Square, but he has also been the chief staffer driving the RORZOR effort to revise all of the City’s zoning laws and been prominent in shpepherding the King Farm and Fallsgrove developments.

What’s Chambers planning on doing come January? Returning to his wife and two grown children in Kansas. His family stayed behind when he left his job in Olathe, KS to come to Our Fair City. ‘‘When I came here, I thought maybe two or three years to get a flavor and move on,” Chambers says in Parish’s Gazette piece. ‘‘There was just so many more things to do here.”

Two years has become seven, and we wish Arthur Chambers well as he leaves Rockville on a high note.

Twinbrook Plan Hearings Set

The controversial Twinbrook >Neighborhood Plan will be going to the public for two more “input” sessions, slated for October 10 and November 14, according to the City. Both meetings will be at City Hall, both at 7:00 pm.

In February, the Planning Commission considered the Twinbrook Plan and decided they needed to hear more from the affected residents. There were meetings in April and May. In June the Planning Commission chair opined that one of the residents who had been vocal on the issue was “a bit of a whine.” Nevertheless, the Planning Commission plans to steel itself to hear from the people twice more.

According to the City:

The Plan reflects the community’s desire to maintain and enhance the historic residential character of Twinbrook, while also guiding the future of land currently zoned for commercial and industrial uses. The Plan covers Planning Areas 7 (Twinbrook Forest and Northeast Rockville) and 8 (Twinbrook). The two planning areas are located in the southeastern section of the City and are bounded by the CSX and Metro railroad tracks to the southwest, First Street/Norbeck Road to the northwest and the City’s eastern boundary along Rock Creek Park and Twinbrook.

Rockville To Get Luxury Hotel?

The same day Rockville’s new Town Square held its >ribbon-cutting ceremony, news came of plans in the offing for the large pay parking lot between the Regal Cinemas and Town Square.

According to the Examiner, officials told them that:

[T]hey’re in talks with a sister company of the boutique-style W Hotel chain to build the business traveler-centered hotel on the 3-acre space in front of Regal Cinemas on Montgomery Avenue. . . .

Duball LLC is the developer of what is slated to be a project including two mixed-use towers (one hotel+retail+residential; the other just retail+residential). Duball says they hope to have one of the two towers underway by March. The project has not yet had Planning Board approval.

What happens between now and March? City elections, that’s what. There can be little doubt that this project will be near the top of the list for candidates to respond to and take positions on.

What's Worth Saving?

In a quest to visit as many amusement parks as possible, my family spent a day at historic >Knoebels in PA. A highlight of the day was the carousel, because for the first time, I got a chance at the “golden ring”. My entire life I’ve heard of the fabled brass ring. How you would hang off the horse and grab it. As a child, I was always told that it was too dangerous. They just don’t have them anymore. I thought they were all gone. As we went around, the man on the horse in front of me got the golden ring, but if he had missed, it would have been mine. I had a handful of non-golden rings that you throw back at a lion, and never thought it would be such fun.

As I rode all the old & new rides, I spent the day thinking about what is worth saving. Sometimes old things surprise and delight you. Rockville owes a great deal of thanks to Eileen McGuckian, the Executive Director of Peerless Rockville. She recently announced her retirement from the organization she founded more than 30 years ago and she will be missed. Our heritage and history are important and if it wasn’t for her, Rockville would have lost a great deal of character.

So I’ve found myself thinking about the “Pink Bank” where Bank of America is located. They formalized a plan to tear it down and put up a building much like the rest of the new downtown. Don’t get me wrong, I like the new downtown, but does it all have to all be exactly the same from the same era? We lose a sense of place when our downtown is just a development rather than a city that evolved over time. Our pink bank is cool, 60’s cool. The 3D rectangular design is different and breaks with tradition, but it fits with the rest of the architecture as you look up North Washington. It’s just 43 years old and it will be such a waste of resources if it comes down.

KSI is making a choice to demolish but they should recognize how much more impressive this building will be over time. It’s worth having a great example of New Formalism in our downtown. It’s a kind of architecture that people will be pleased to discover and it has very impressive cousins across the country. I’m hoping that the economic downturn will save this building because we might not need the 290 dwelling units. If there’s an opportunity to preserve it, Rockville should take it.

Do you think it’s worth saving or do you want to press the button to bring it down?

6/24/08 Here’s a picture showing North Washington Street with the “Pink Bank” way down at the end of the buildings. I like the way the new buildings mirror its architecture and roofline.

Two New MoCo Planners

Frederick News Post >reports that the council has appointed two new members to the Montgomery County Planning Board — one a shoo-in, the other more controversial.

The county council appointed Jean Cryor, a Republican delegate for 12 years, and Eugene Lynch, a Democrat who worked for former county executive Neal Potter from 1990 to 1994, from among 26 people who applied for seats on the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission’s Montgomery board. . . . They replace Meredith K. Wellington and Wendy Collins Perdue, respectively, whose terms expired this year, after each had served the maximum of two.

Cryor was a unanimous pick. Lynch split the council, though: he is president and CEO of a real estate development firm.

Also on the panel: Royce Hanson (chair), John Robinson, and Allison Bryant. Hanson and Robinson are Democrats and Bryant is a Republican.

Planning Chair Frowns on Whining

The Gazette >tells us that Steven Johnson, Rockville Planning Commission chair, is irked at the “tiresome” complaints about the a-borning Twinbrook Neighborhood Plan lodged by Twinbrook Citizens Association President Christina Ginsberg, Saying of them that they are “a bit of a whine.”

Comments such as that by city officials (even volunteers) about citizens are unfortunate. But there is a larger issue at work here, too.

At issue appears to be a classic staff/citizen rift. The Planning Commisssion, says Ginsberg, does not provide information timely and slants its questionnaires so that they will result in positive assessments of the current draft plans. Meanwhile, the Commission seems to believe, citizens are not giving them enough room and flexibility in which to make plans — demanding answers about zoning that would come out later in the process.

Each side has an understandable interest: planning in a way that is most beneficial to Rockville as a whole (on the one hand); and really knowing what is going to happen in the neighborhood moving forward (on the other).

It’s too bad that the very mechansim that is supposed to minimize such friction — commuity outreach , that is — appears to be the very thing that is causing it.

Who knows how this process will move forward. But, in the future, people who are designing such mechanisms would do well to really ask, as they go about this important work, just what is it we are after? “Input” that we will then do with as we will? Or a real understanding of the concerns and aspirations of the community?

While we all might quickly say it’s the latter we are after, we need to make sure our plans and actions don’t send the message that we really just want the former (and that only grudgingly).

One way to approach this is to ask: What would it really look like if we went about planning in partnership with the community, rather than just seeking “input?”

What do you think?