Tonight’s ESSCA Meeting: First Baptist Church
Wikipedia defines “smart growth” thusly:
Smart growth is an urban planning and transportation theory that concentrates growth in the center of a city to avoid urban sprawl; and advocates compact, transit-oriented, walkable, bicycle-friendly land use, including neighborhood schools, complete streets, and mixed-use development with a range of housing choices.
I’ll emphasize the terms “center of a city” and “transit-oriented” for our purposes tonight as the East Silver Spring Civic Association discusses the impact of a proposed redevelopment of the First Baptist Church lot on the east side of Fenton between Wayne and Bonifant. Plans would include tearing down the church and adjacent buildings (but watch out! there may be HISTORY there!), building a multi-level (5 or 6 stories?) residential development with ground-floor retail. The church would then presumably build a smaller facility on the east side of the parcel.
As per my earlier emphasis, this would put density in the — wait for it — center of the city with good transit options available. No doubt, plenty of people will be opposed. I, for one, am not. Sure there are traffic issues to be worked out, but when talking about density in the Central Business District (CBD), this is *exactly* the kind of development smart growth reflects.
It’s very nice of them to get community input and reaction, but as the church owns the property, my guess is they can do whatever the hell they want to, as long as the County issues the proper permits.
The ESSCA meeting begins tonight at 7:30 at the Sligo Recreation Center at the corner of Sligo & Piney Branch. Be there, or follow the live tweets courtesy of @essca on Twitter.
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Will follow via Twitter.
I’ll be there live too – I may tweet via @WDCgardener, but usually I forget to tweet until afterwards.
Thanks for the tweet feed. Classic.
I saw the architect & developer present this project a few weeks ago at the SOECA meeting. It’s very well designed to not overwhelm the surrounding streets or neighbors. With any luck, they will break ground in about 2.5 years. You are right…it is exactly the type of project we need in DTSS.
Yup. I get the feeling this will be built – or some semblance of it – much to the chagrin of a select few. It’s really well done.
I felt sorry for the presenting architect having to take shit from some boneheaded people in the room. He said it was the toughest group he’s presented to yet (not surprised at all), but he did great.
Wait… I thought smart growth meant lots to do downtown and efficient transit for the sole benefit of a few lucky people who happened to own the handful of single family homes in the area (whose home prices have quadrupled thanx to said development) and now don’t want anything else built…… sorry… now that the penguin is shuttered I guess I need somewhere new to vent my nimby-cynical commentary
Bring on the cynical commentary!
I’m right with you guys here. This is a perfect corner for this kind of development.
Maybe we could get Liz Brent to “stage” all the empty lots in DTSS. If she did for them the way she stages her houses for sale, they’d be selling for top dollar to tons of developers
I really like his presentation – most of the carping seemed to center on the potential traffic it would bring and parking woes – so glad I’m car-free
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I understand the traffic issues. Fenton backs up a-plenty as it is. But I think we can figure out the traffic bit and still endorse what appears to be a solid project if the implementation is sound.
I glad Pastor McIntosh and First Baptist Church found a developer. (It’s been in the works for sometime now) We live in Downtown not in Poolesville. Do you really think the traffic will go away if FBC builds nothing?
There’s a right way and a wrong way to bring development to the east side of Fenton Street. It sounds like the plans for the First Baptist church site are the right way. The Silver Spring towers was the wrong way–that building looms over everything to the east of it and is completely out of character with the neighborhood. That said, the Towers offers relatively affordable rents and they shovel and salt their sidewalks, which is much appreciated.
Given the plans to build the library and purple line stop across the street and the existing development across Wayne Avenue, it makes a lot of sense to bring additional residential and retail to the corner of Fenton and Wayne, and if they step down the building heights to the east, it may help blend into the surrounding neighborhood.
I wonder if this development would help the prospects of the homeonwers on Easley Street and Bonifant street that want to assemble their land for a package deal?
Hah! Thank you Woodsider.