Montgomery County’s Planning Board presented its proposed development plans for the University Boulevard Corridor on Tuesday morning.
“It looks for the next 20-plus years and delivers recommendations that can improve everyone’s experience along the corridor,” Planning Board Chair Artie Harris told county council members.
The plan covers a 3.5-mile stretch of University Boulevard from Interstate 495 to Amherst Avenue.
According to the draft of the plan submitted to the council, the plan is designed to support lower density “predominantly” residential development between five bus-rapid-transit, or BRT, stations, and higher density mixed-use development near those planned stations.
“The plan’s recommended zoning changes would not lead to change unless a property owner decides to pursue a development,” said Carrie Sanders, east county division chief for the planning department.
Sanders also said that in cases that allow more density, “Generally, the buildings facing the corridor between the transit stations, the five stations, will have a height of up to 50 feet.”
According to planning board staff, a chief focus of the plan includes improving transportation safety. A video played at Tuesday morning’s council meeting pointed out that between 2015 and 2024, there have been 38 severe injury crashes and four fatal crashes along the corridor.
Included in the plan is consolidating, removing or relocating driveways from University Boulevard to side streets and alleys and “limit future driveways.”
The 11-member council had no questions after the presentations.
There has been concern from residents in the areas under the University Boulevard Corridor plan. The public will get a chance to offer comment on the plan.
On Wednesday night, a public hearing will be held at Montgomery Blair High School starting at 7 p.m. A second public hearing is scheduled for Tuesday, Sept. 16, at the Montgomery County Council building in Rockville.
Ahead of Wednesday’s public hearing, a neighborhood group under the name of EPIC of MoCo plans on holding, what it’s calling, a “Funeral for Affordable Homes and Community Stability.”
The draft plan states that part of the goal of the plan is to “preserve existing market rate affordable housing where practicable, striving for no net loss of market rate affordable housing in the event of redevelopment.”
Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich has also objected to the plan. In a Sept. 2 memo to Council President Kate Stewart, Elrich wrote, “It is focused solely on producing as much housing as possible without adequately addressing the other essential elements of a master plan.”
Elrich also criticized the plans laid out regarding BRT, writing, “This plan is based on a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) line that does not exist and is not even in the planning stage.”
The council’s Planning, Housing and Parks Committee is tentatively scheduled to begin its review of the plan on Sept. 29.
Editor’s Note: WTOP has a property within the zone that’s part of the University Boulevard Corridor plan.
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