Dear County Council Members:

 

On behalf of the Norbeck Meadows Community the Norbeck Meadows Civic Association (NMCA, representing 500 homes of whom 328 are dues paying members of the association) has unanimously approved by an email poll the following message.

 

We the citizens of Norbeck Meadows, residents of part of the Olney Master Plan area wish to advise you of our unhappiness with certain provisions of the Olney Master Plan which appears more and more to embody the intentions of developers as opposed to the residents of our community.  We value the uncrowded and semi-rural character of our community including the quality of our relatively uncrowded schools and of a so far relatively negotiable road net.  We value the balance of class, ethnicity and race in our Olney communities making for an eclectic community of rich, middle class, and poor, all of whom are valued for their contribution to the welfare of the whole. We live in an area whose environment is still in a healthy although highly challenged situation, and in watersheds of enormous value to the rest of the metropolitan area. We chose this community because of these attributes and want to ensure that those who come to live among us in older or in new developments enjoy the same advantages we have worked so hard to preserve.

 

For the most part the MNCPPC staff, working with our communities has developed a good and well balanced draft Master Plan which seeks to preserve these advantages and allow for a modest increase in development thoughtfully planned, and staged to coincide with an improvement in the quality and quantity of public facilities and services to ensure against an imbalance.

 

We find however in the efforts of certain Council members and staff, an obvious effort to side with developers in upsetting these balances. 
 

Specifically we urge and will hold the Council responsible for the following particular items:

 

We desire that you: 
 

A.  Maintain the satellite town concept with all commercial development in town center to preserve the quiet residential neighborhoods. We therefore reject the effort to rezone the Silo Inn property as commercial.  This would lead to a series of down-zoning along the Georgia Avenue corridor which would ruin the Plan's efforts to preserve the bucolic character of the approach to the Olney Town.

 

B.  Do not rezone the 32-acre county owned property on Bowie Mill Road.  Use it for affordable housing consistent with the R200 zone and compatible with adjacent R200 neighborhoods if it is not needed for educational purposes (a position which we reject given the County's desire to also find more school sites).  This will ensure that the aim of achieving more affordable housing can be matched with the desire to preserve the character of surrounding communities in which we have invested so much to preserve our environment and their stability.

 

C.  Ask that any affordable housing built on the 32-acre property be workforce housing.  Elizabeth Davison, Director of DHCA spoke to GOCA on March 9, 2004 and stated that her vision for the 32 acres is workforce housing.  This is housing for households with incomes at 80% to 100% of the median income for Montgomery County.  Olney Coalition members who are adjacent to the 32 acres support workforce housing if the property is not needed for education purposes.

 

D.   Rezone developable large lot properties RNC at a density not to exceed .33 on sewer.  (This gives the developers approximately twice the density they would get with RE1 and RE2 on septic.  The additional densities developers are seeking is unnecessary and will strain schools, roads, and public services.  NOTE The RNC zone affects future development along Batchellors Forest Road, on some properties north of town center and the Norbeck Country Club property if the Club ever decides to cease current operations and sell the land to a developer.

 

E.  Limit RNC development with sewer to properties that can connect to existing sewer lines.  Do not build new lines or new pumping / grinding stations.  This will help to protect sensitive environmental resources in areas zoned RNC.

 

We also urge that you add to or strengthen the Master Plan draft by:

 

F.   Reducing the density of the Golden Bear Triangle (a group of  properties on the north east corner of the intersection of R28 and Georgia Avenue) from R200/TDR 7 to R200/TDR 4 consistent with the requests of the adjacent neighborhood association (SEROCA), and to tie this development to the ICC, so that if the ICC is not built this land should not be rezoned.

 

G.  Supporting a split classification for Bowie Mill Road between Cashell and Route 108 and for Cashell Road between Hines Road and Emory Lane in order to permit traffic calming measures to reduce speeding on these sections of roadway. Along which we have one school and a proposed Middle School site.
 

H.  Providing specific guidance and incentives to landowners in town center to build a Civic Center to house a new Mid-County Services Office, a Police substation, a new library and a community center including facilities for teens and seniors.
 

I.    Extending the Upper Rock Creek Special Protection Area (SPA) to include the entire North Branch of Upper Rock Creek regardless of whether it is located in the Upper Rock Creek or Olney planning areas.
 

J.   Providing similar protection for the natural resources of the North West Branch of the Anacostia where the Army Corps of Engineers has done so much to restore the watershed downstream.
 

K.  Providing more passive recreational facilities particularly walking and biking trails in Olney that interconnect to the countywide trail system.  (Please note that in August 2002, 74% of the 923 survey respondents in our area asked for more trails).

 

We are counting on you to help us preserve the quality of life in Olney by holding the line on density and preventing overdevelopment; not developing more than our infrastructure can support; and, ensuring that future development in Olney makes sense in terms of size, scale and location.

 

Thank you for your consideration.

 

Arnold B. Gordon, President

Norbeck Meadows Civic Association

P.O. Box 441

Olney, MD 20830

nmcaprexy@aol.com

301-570-0481

www.norbeckmeadowscivicassociation.org