montgomery county loses out by losing rollin stanley (updated)

UPDATE: The Post reports that Stanley will be heading to Calgary to run their planning department.

Yesterday, Maryland Juice reported that Montgomery County planning director Rollin Stanley has resigned and will take a "much bigger job" in another city. While he was an outspoken and controversial public figure, he had great ideas for the county. And despite claims to the contrary, he created a more open and transparent Planning Department.

Stanley was appointed planning director in 2008, three years after the seat was vacated and the once-vaunted planning department became embroiled in controversy. Having gained a national reputation for his work in Toronto and St. Louis, Stanley was quick to shake things up here. One of his earliest public appearances as planning director was at a breakfast for the Greater Bethesda-Chevy Chase Chamber of Commerce, where he referred to big suburban houses as "the next slums."

In an interview with Bethesda Magazine, Stanley said he'd "never planned on doing suburbs" before coming here. But he took the county's history of progressive planning, going back to the On Wedges & Corridors plan in 1964, and crafted a vision to use its transit corridors and aging commercial centers to accommodate projected population growth.


Stanley celebrated downtown Silver Spring in a way few other public officials in Montgomery County have.

Allow denser development in the right places, he argued, and raise tax revenues that can pay for public amenities while preserving the suburban neighborhoods so many people like. It's an approach that suburbs around the country are taking, from Overland Park, Kansas to Bellevue, Washington, and even right in our own backyard, in Arlington and Tysons Corner.

Over the past four years, I've watched Stanley speak to groups ranging from developers to senior citizens; participated in a blogger panel he organized; and reached out to him personally for advice. His ability to make good planning and design relevant to ordinary, politically uninvolved people is why I want to become a planner myself.

Stanley not only talks about the tax benefits of new development, but the potential to create cool places like downtown Silver Spring, where he and his wife lived. Silver Spring's food carts or the street life on Ellsworth Drive were frequently mentioned on his blog, which along with another blog run by planning staff gave residents an inside look at how the Planning Department worked.

The Planning Department also became more active in the community under Stanley's leadership. His "walkabouts" in various neighborhood allowed him meet with residents in an informal setting. In 2010, the agency held a speaker series where community leaders talked about issues affecting the county. A series of open houses are being held this month to educate residents about a rewrite of the zoning code that'll make it easier for anyone to understand.


Under Stanley's leadership, White Flint became a nationally-recognized model for suburban redevelopment.

It's this inclusive approach that has earned Stanley support for his initiatives, namely a plan for the redevelopment of White Flint, where the tallest building in Montgomery County recently opened. People who don't normally write their elected officials or place lawn signs in their yard were receptive to his vision of a dense, walkable town center, and with the help of a solid organizing campaign by the White Flint Partnership, they came out in support for it.

While working for Montgomery County Councilmember George Leventhal, I was responsible for answering correspondence about the White Flint plan. Of the roughly 700 e-mails we received, two-thirds were in support, while at the County Council's public hearings for the plan, supporters outnumbered opponents.

Stanley was a polarizing figure, earning the ire of civic associations and even people within his agency who didn't agree with him. Plans for additional development in the Great Seneca Science Corridor and Kensington were met with significant community opposition before eventually being approved. Detractors claimed that he was "dismissive" of residents' concerns and didn't "value opposing opinions." And he occasionally made inappropriate comments, such as referring to an organization that disagreed with him as "rich, white women" that led to calls for him to resign.

Those who demanded Stanley's ouster may be satisfied to see him go, but the ship has already turned. Montgomery County was well on its way to becoming a taller, denser, more diverse place before he came and will continue to do so after he leaves. The question is whether we can find another planning director with the same passion and vision who can keep us moving forward.

national labor college move presents development opportunity for hillandale

Are you looking to buy a college? After four decades in Hillandale, the National Labor College announced that they will sell its campus this summer, reports the Gazette.

The college, located at New Hampshire Avenue and the Beltway, was previously a Catholic school before the AFL-CIO bought the property in 1974, seeking a permanent place to educate union workers. With just 1,300 students, all of whom can now study online, the college no longer needs a large campus and plans to relocate to an office building somewhere in the area.

The National Labor College leaves behind a 47 acre campus with four residence halls, two classroom buildings, a library, an auditorium and the recently-built Lane Kirkland Conference Center, all of which surround a small quad. There's also what appears to be a basketball court and baseball diamond. (In case you're as unfamiliar with the site as I was, the campus does not include Holly Hall, a retirement community whose red-brick buildings make it look like part of the college.)

What can be done with a former college? Naturally, the campus would lend itself to another school, but we shouldn't be limited by that. The campus might be a nice place for a security-minded government tenant to locate, but judging from the stalled progress at St. Elizabeth's in the District, it's unlikely that any federal agencies will be poking around here.

Besides, we probably don't want that anyway. When the Food and Drug Administration relocated their headquarters to the former Naval Ordnance Laboratory further up New Hampshire Avenue, there was an opportunity to use its 710-acre property for a mix of uses, including retail, housing or parkland. But neighbors in Hillandale "[were] going to have none of that," as one resident told the Washington Post. Instead, we got an isolated office campus whose 7,000 workers barely venture out for lunch, much to the chagrin of local restaurants.

The National Labor College land is far too valuable to make that mistake again. It's next to the Beltway and just one exit away from I-95. It's also part of the White Oak Science Gateway, which is what county planners call the research and development center they'd like to create in the area. There are a lot of possibilities here, and we shouldn't be so quick to shut them off.

It's not every day that 47 acres suddenly appears in the middle of an established community. This is a great opportunity and we'd do well to seize it.

wheaton's limit may be its strength (four uncomfortable truths about east county)

On Tuesday, the Montgomery County Council unanimously turned down a plan by County Executive Ike Leggett to rebuild a portion of downtown Wheaton, favoring an alternate plan instead. Residents who supported Leggett's plan are frustrated at the defeat, but this wasn't the best path for redevelopment in Wheaton.


The County Council voted to turn Lot 13 into a new town square and county offices.

In recent months, Leggett and the council have disagreed on how to begin the redevelopment. Leggett proposed spending $42 million to build a new town square and a platform over the Wheaton Metro station for future development, while the County Council proposed spending $55 million to build the town square and offices for county agencies.

The council ended up voting for a a combination of both proposals, providing funds for a county office building and town square now and to study building the platform later.

The decision ends a long and often acrimonious debate over how to spark the redevelopment of downtown Wheaton. In February, Leggett's administration claimed that there wasn't enough money to pay for a revitalization scheme in Wheaton and a new Metro station entrance in Bethesda, pitting supporters of both projects against each other.

When the council found funding for both projects, the conversation turned to the merits of Leggett's proposal. While County Council analyst Jacob Sesker wasn't opposed to building atop the Metro, he created the alternative proposals because he felt it wasn't feasible in the immediate future. Meanwhile, the Coalition for a Fair Redevelopment of Wheaton has expressed concerns about local businesses, calling for a more substantial town square or a community benefits agreement.


A platform may be built atop the Wheaton Metro station, but not for a while.

These questions led to accusations that the council was being meddlesome and was opposed to making Wheaton better. After the vote on Tuesday, resident Henriot St. Gerard wrote a scathing blog post on Wheaton Patch calling it a "show of disrespect" to the community.

I understand that people in Wheaton are impatient for change. I grew up in East County and started blogging six years ago because I wanted to see the kind of amenities that residents of Rockville or Bethesda enjoy right in my own backyard. But I too have had to grapple with a few uncomfortable truths:

Jobs are concentrated on the west side of the county and will remain there for a long time.

In 2010, there were 506,000 jobs in Montgomery County, 70% of which are located along the I-270 corridor. Bethesda alone has 87,000 jobs, more than Silver Spring, White Oak and Wheaton combined. Plans for additional employment growth in White Flint, the Great Seneca Science Corridor, and Germantown ensures that the west side will continue to remain the county's job center.

Companies located in East County aren't sticking around.

Last year, defense contractor BAE Systems moved a branch office from Aspen Hill to Rockville. The empty building added to an already high vacancy rate in the Kensington-Wheaton area, where nearly a quarter of all office space is empty, compared to just 11 percent countywide. Lee Development Group, which owns the building, will replace it with a Walmart because they concluded that the area was "a retail destination, not an office center."

Companies already located on the west side aren't interested in going east.

The county is planning to create a research and development center in East County called the White Oak Science Gateway around the Food and Drug Administration's new campus. Though the area enjoys the lowest office vacancy rate in the county, with just 6 percent of offices sitting empty, it's unclear who will fill them.

A recent report from planning consultants surveyed research and development firms located at the county's existing Life Sciences Center in Gaithersburg and found that wouldn't move to White Oak because they appreciate the proximity to other R&D firms along the I-270 corridor.

Officials are more concerned about keeping jobs in the county than where they specifically end up.

In addition to planning for future job growth on the west side, the county also gave subsidies to one company in exchange for moving there. Next year, Choice Hotels will move their headquarters from Silver Spring to Rockville with $4.3 million in loans and grants from the county, state and City of Rockville and additional tax credits.

Choice Hotels wanted to be closer to a Metro station, so having them move to Wheaton would've met both their needs and Leggett's goals. But after seeing firms like Hilton Hotels and Northrup Grumman pass up Montgomery County for Northern Virginia, county leaders were surely relieved that they decided to stay here at all.


Concept rendering of downtown Wheaton from a 2004 charrette.

Wheaton has many strengths: stable neighborhoods, diverse population, and a compact downtown well-served by both transit and major roads. But as a potential job center, it competes with larger and more established places like downtown Bethesda, the I-270 corridor, and others throughout Greater Washington. And that's why earlier recommendations for redeveloping Wheaton, both from the public and planning experts focused on housing, retail and entertainment in the short term, with offices coming later if demand warrants it.

Residents are both eager and worried that redevelopment will turn Wheaton into a place like Silver Spring or Bethesda, but we shouldn't be limited to those examples. Skeptics of Leggett's proposal don't lack faith in Wheaton's potential. They recognize that Wheaton's constraints and strengths, if properly harnessed, will let it grow into something else entirely.

teenage photog completes timelapse of downtown silver spring

Downtown Silver Spring in Motion from Tolu Omokehinde on Vimeo.

Have you ever wondered what the line at Chipotle looks like when sped up? Tolu Omokehinde has the answer for you. Over the past several months, the Blair High School student and his classmate Nick Grossman have spent 80 hours bringing a camera around Silver Spring, taking over 7,000 photos and compiling them into this awesome timelapse video. You can watch it right here, but I encourage to click on the "full-screen" button (bottom right) to get the full experience.

In addition to Chipotle, there are scenes of the ice rink in Veterans Plaza, traffic on Georgia Avenue, and even a scene from inside a car driving down Colesville Road. (It appears that the photographer is not behind the wheel, thankfully.) There's also a preview of another project Omokehinde's working on of Blair High School, which he previously told us include some 23,000 photos.

The transformation of Silver Spring into an urban area is a frequent topic on this blog, but the real proof is in pictures like this.

To see more of Tolu's work, check out his Flickr and Vimeo pages. Following in the footsteps of mentor/friend of JUTP Chip Py, Tolu also photographs Blair High School athletic events, which you can see on his Facebook page.