State officials dealt a major setback to a city plan that would aid in more efficiently reviewing developers’ proposals to bring redevelopment here last month, denying a city request to help fund the plan.
The news came on the same day that a State Highway Administration official announced that Route 1 reconstruction would also go unfunded another year, further weakening redevelopment plans College Park City Council members and the mayor have sought to expedite during the past five years.
A slew of developers who have submitted plans to bring commercial development to the area have called an earlier plan approved by city officials that outlined a vision for development here vague and confusing, and council members, too, have expressed frustration over receiving proposals not up to par with city needs.
A panel of experts recommended earlier this year that the city create a “form-based code,” or a set of highly specific guidelines to help steer developers toward projects more in line with “smart growth” standards that could be approved more efficiently by the city council. Council members set aside $75,000 in this year’s budget for the code, but needed additional money to help pay for the more than $100,000 needed to create the plan.
“We don’t have that much money,” city planner Terry Schum said. “We tried to supplement it with a grant that we didn’t get, so we are looking at options to work with what we have.”
Schum added that the city would now need to explore other options to create a similar code, such as creating form-based codes on a subarea-by-subarea basis, rather than doing the entire corridor at one time. But that method would likely be slow and cumbersome, and, as District 1 Councilman David Milligan said, more difficult.
“It will just require a little more coordination and planning on our part,” Milligan said of Schum’s approach. “[The challenge in] doing anything piecemeal is that you have something coherent when you are done.”
Creating form-based codes in each of the city’s 19 subareas would require working with consultants to specify the height, density, appearance and parking for each potential site for development, Schum said.
“Developers aren’t waiting for us to get [the codes] done,” Schum said. “They are going to continue to propose projects and submit detailed site plans. So, since we don’t have this corridor plan done, I’m thinking about utilizing our consultant on a case-by-case basis to assist the projects that are coming in.
“It gets us going back in, looking at the various subareas, looking at what’s already been approved and what that says to us, and then saying more clearly what should happen on the remaining sites,” she added.
But the consultants are emptying the city planner’s pockets faster, Schum said, because “the only pot I have to work from” is the city’s budgeted amount.
One such consultant, Geoffrey Ferrell of Ferrell Madden Associates, who was part of the EPA panel that made recommendations to the city, is under contract to offer professional guidance on establishing a form-based code for the large Starview project along Route 1.
While Schum said “it’s too early to tell” whether the Starview consultation will prove successful, Ferrell has had experience with form-based codes, developing regulations for a 3.5 mile corridor in Arlington County.
The project in Arlington differs from the one in College Park, Ferrell said, in the overall scope of the project. In Arlington, form-based codes were established for the entire corridor at once as opposed to on a case-by-case basis.
“There’s no doubt that the larger scale you can look at … you gain a better perspective,” Ferrell said. “But, on the other hand, at a certain level, College Park has a vision for U.S. 1 with their sector plan.”
Despite this vision, Ferrell said the sector plan needs to be clarified if College Park is going to attract higher-quality development that falls in line with the vision of politicians and citizens alike.
“The current system is hyper-specific about what the uses [of buildings] are, but [unclear] on what the building form is,” Ferrell said of the sector plan. “These regulations reverse that. These focus on the basic form of the building and set parameters for the uses.”
Schum agreed, saying developers are often sent mixed messages on what the projects the council wants to see, citing Northgate condominiums and Jefferson Square as two such conflicting projects. While Northgate required numerous architectural waivers for features such as height and density, the detailed site plan did not take as long to receive approval as the Jefferson Square project did, which was more in line with sector plan’s requirements.
“If you’re a developer, you’re sort of scratching your head, because I don’t think we are sending clear messages,” Schum said.
District 3 Councilman Eric Olson said this confusion causes a laborious approval process that form-based codes should be able to prevent.
“The form-based codes are going to be something that can help developers when they are coming in to understand what the community is looking for,” Olson said, “so they would have to look to try to fit their plans into what the vision is for the corridor.”
Whether codes created using city funding alone become operational won’t be determined until July 2007, when Schum said the Maryland Park and Planning Commission plans to move forward with a “minor plan amendment” to the sector plan. What that means for the city, however, is unclear, Schum said.
“I know it’s in their work program,” she said. “We don’t know what that means exactly, but we hope to inform that effort with what we are able to do with the form-based codes available.”
Other city officials such as District 2 Councilman Jack Perry aren’t as convinced, however, because of what he described as a history of the county ignoring the city’s opinion.
“We’re plowing ahead, we’re stumblin’ through the dark, and we are gonna pay consultants and everything,” Perry said. “It’s exasperating sometimes. We don’t control our destiny, and we don’t seem to be getting the support of Prince George’s County for much of our ideas.”
College Park Mayor Stephen Brayman and council members Bob Catlin and Joseline Peña-Melnyk, all of whom have been highly vocal about redevelopment in College Park, did not return calls for comment on this story. Representatives from Maryland Park and Planning and the state’s Department of Housing and Community Development also did not return calls for comment on this story.
Contact reporter Steven Overly at overlydbk@gmail.com.
