Wednesday, October 8, 2008

you are reading just up the pike's 500th post

Renderings of the proposed Fillmore music hall in Downtown Silver Spring.

Better start lining up for tickets now, kids: the Fillmore's doors will be opening on schedule in 2011. Yesterday, the County Council voted 7-2 to approve a controversial proposal that drastically reduces government oversight for a mixed-use project tied in with the planned music hall on Colesville Road in Downtown Silver Spring. In a statement released yesterday afternoon, County Executive Ike Leggett celebrated the approval of the plan he brokered with Lee Development Group, who's building the Fillmore in exchange for the right to develop land behind it.

"This important economic development project will provide music for a variety of tastes, include significant community use, bring more business to downtown Silver Spring, and result in a net public benefit of $1.6 million a year from the very start," says Leggett, who first proposed the changes. "This is a great deal for Montgomery County."

The new zoning changes apply only to certain projects in the County's three Arts and Entertainment Districts in downtowns Wheaton, Bethesda, and Silver Spring. They give a fifteen-year construction deadline to approved projects and remove some of the Planning Board's ability to negotiate with developers over what and how public uses attached to them are built. Planning Board chairman Royce Hanson criticized the zoning amendments as favoring big developers at the expense of the community's needs.

ALSO:

- A two-car collision yesterday at Flannery Lane and Montvale Drive in Colesville resulted in a shooting, says the Post. Both the victim and attacker know each other, according to Montgomery County police, and none of the victim's injuries are life-threatening.

- As always, check out my weekly column in the Diamondback. This week, I'm talking about "studio culture" and how forcing students off-campus has changed the School of Architecture.

2 comments:

retgroclk said...

Congrats on your 500th post. I look forward to the next 500.

Adam Pagnucco said...

Amen. I owe my start in blogging to this site more than two years ago. JUTP was then, and is now, the gold standard of MoCo blogdom.