Taking cues from 1980s-style office parks, UMD is forging ahead with the next phase of M-Square (see interactive map) – its suburban office complex steps from College Park’s metrorail Green Line station. Not only does the proposed three 150,000 square foot building, 1,114 parking space development ignore its relationship to the Green Line, it fails to acknowledge a planned Purple Line light rail station directly at its front door. The plan misses or puts off indefinitely several opportunities to make critical pedestrian, bicycle, and vehicle connections in the area. The College Park City Council will discuss the plan in Tuesday’s work session and the Prince George’s County Planning Board will hear the application March 8th.

While the proposal conforms to the 1997 College Park-Riverdale Transit District Development Plan (TDDP), it stands in direct contradiction to the University’s sustainability goals. The design is completely legal and within the bounds of current zoning, but it abandon’s UMD’s moral obligation to Prince George’s County, College Park, and Riverdale. UMD should immediately remove this detailed site plan from consideration and wait for the completion of TDDP update (which will begin this summer) and M-NCPPC Purple Line TOD Study. According to M-NCPPC, these studies seek to address several issues confronting this area of town:

• Most of the properties near the station are within the Aviation Policy Area (APA) 6 portion of the College Park Airport, and are subject to certain height and notification requirements.
• Existing and proposed development in the M Square research park is not transit oriented or supportive, and lacks cohesive pedestrian- and transit-friendly design.
• Federal tenants (FDA, NOAA, Center for Advanced Study of Language) require secure compounds detrimental to pedestrian and bicycle connectivity.

See the current M-Square Master Plan HERE.

Rethink College Park will be officially presented with the 2011 Florence Beck Kurdle Award for Community Activism and Achievement by Maryland Secretary of Planning Richard E. Hall this morning. The honor, part of Maryland’s Smart, Green, and Growing Awards Program, is presented annually to a group who demonstrates professional commitment to making Smart Growth a reality in the state. Secretary Hall will make the presentation before a regular meeting of the Region Forward Coalition at College Park City Hall at 10:30 a.m. Clay Gump, a longtime member of the Rethink College Park, will be on hand to receive the award on behalf of the group’s contributors and founders.

What is Rethink College Park?

Rethink College Park (RTCP) was launched in July 2006 as a user-friendly website dedicated to creating a focused and sustained conversation about the future of College Park. Its mission is to “help transform College Park into a great college town…. [through] full access to information, public dialogue, and the power of creative ideas.” Thousands now visit the site each week: reviewing maps, renderings and site plans; posting comments and contributing stories and tips.

RTCP’s simple structure, straightforward style and engaging content have garnered the project nearly universal praise in the community. Part journalism and part smart growth advocacy community group, the project’s impact spans far beyond the Internet. The group is the preeminent area advocate for redevelopment of the Route 1 Corridor in College Park; helping local citizens, politicians and university officials understand current events that affect their mutual interests. Its reporting helps further the goal of a pedestrian-friendly, transit-ready, mixed-use district for the state’s flagship university. The website has dramatically changed the way local citizens and the region view College Park’s smart growth potential.

Rethink College Park sets the debate in local traditional news outlets: helping initiate countless stories in the Washington Post, The Gazette, and the Diamondback (UMD student newspaper). It educates journalists and “breaks” dozens of smart growth-related stories each year. More importantly, the project has succeeded in instigating substantive policy change. The group’s members use the site as a sounding board to communicate smart growth concepts to the public and shape specific projects such as the University of Maryland’s East Campus Redevelopment Initiative (a major mixed-use redevelopment) and the routing of the Purple Line through College Park.

Perhaps best known for its advocacy of student housing construction for University of Maryland students, Rethink College Park has played a significant role in alerting local elected officials to the desperate need for student housing and bringing student leaders to the table to push projects to completion. The group also helped preserve and expand an important impact fee waiver incentive that encourages private student housing projects near the University of Maryland campus. Almost 4,000 beds of student housing, mostly in private, mixed-use projects have been completed since the group’s founding in 2006.

In 2008, the urban planning portal Planetizen named Rethink College Park one of the web’s top 10 planning websites.

Learn more HERE.

At the October 4th City Council worksession (video above), councilmembers, city planning staff, and R & J Company, LLC were at loggerheads over the developer’s proposed 6-story building on the site of the Maryland Book Exchange downtown. Lying just below the surface are community concerns over the fact that the mid-rise building would contain 830 undergraduate beds and approximately 170 beds marketed to graduate students and young professionals across the 341 units. The City’s agenda tonight incudes a motion recommending that the County Planning Board reject the detailed site plan for the project.

Keep in mind that the city (both council and staff) fill an advisory role. The County Planning Board and Council have the final say. Eric Olson on the County Council could definitely delay the project, but ultimately this does not come down to a popular vote no matter how much elected officials at both the city and county level would like it to. The developer is mostly within the intent and bounds of the zoning for the property and could seek relief in the court system. Their hard line approach seems to indicate and intent to do just that. As usual, the press coverage and political pronouncements overlook the legal and regulatory framework underlying the development review process.

The Prince George’s County Planning Board will  hear the case on Thursday, November 3rd in Upper Marlboro. It will be very interesting to watch how the Book Exchange project progresses through the process seeing as this is the first project to be proposed since the adoption of the updated Route 1 Sector Plan in summer 2010. Some of the disagreement stems out of the lack of precedent for these new regulations.

There is definitely a gap between what the Sector Plan says and what the City’s staff wants it to say. Most (but not all) of the items listed in the city’s staff report are of questionable relevance. The developer’s argument that the building doesn’t need to be “stepped-back” from the Old Town neighborhood is pretty specious.

UMD is putting the finishing touched on its 2011-2030 Campus Facilities Master Plan (FMP - informational website). The FMP seeks to “establish a framework to guide the orderly growth and development of the campus over the next decade.” It focuses on the campus landscape and transportation systems, which are two major weaknesses of the current FMP.

The FMP Steering Committee will finalize the plan in the coming weeks and present the document to the University System of Maryland Board of Regents in January. Be sure to read the document and submit your thoughts to the Steering Committee.