November 12, 2004

President Steve Silverman
Montgomery County Council
100 Maryland Avenue
Rockville, MD 20850

Dear Mr. Silverman,

My family and I moved to Olney two years ago from Germantown.  We specifically chose Olney to avoid school overcrowding, over development and a lack of affordable housing.  We were fortunate to find a neighborhood that is truly a community.

The County Council and Executive are rightly exploring options for increasing access to affordable housing including the use of the 32 acre Bowie Mill site.

I am assuming that reports of mixed commercial/residential development plans being contemplated for the 32 acre site are part of an academic exercise to challenge students with a difficult assignment.  Such a mixed use plan would ignore the realities of the site including the environmental constraints of the land parcel (e.g. the watershed and drainage), the residential neighborhood surrounding the site, the capacity of the road infrastructure, the school capacity, the current zoning and the very concept of Olney as a satellite town with a central commercial district with reduced residential density spreading outward for the center.

I would like to suggest a development plan for the 32 acre site that respects the need for affordable housing, the current appropriate zoning, equitable treatment of communities in different parts of the county and a strong desire to enhance the Olney environment.  MPDUs are a well codified affordable housing option (which will become an even better housing option with adoption of Bill 25-04 by the council!).  The R200 zoning on the 32 acre site would yield approximately 14 MPDUs (64 lots x 0.22 MPDU density bonus).  I propose that the county commit to building the 14 MPDUs in a townhouse format and reserve the remainder of the site as green space.  This would achieve the necessary goal of increasing the affordable housing resources to a degree commensurate with current MPDU programs.  Just as importantly, the precedent established in Potomac (whereby MCPS surplused land was reserved as green space) would be justly applied in the Olney community.

I urge you to consider development options that do not include drastically increasing the density of residents and the demands they place on roads, schools and community.  There is a great need to protect the quality of life for current and future Olney residents in particular and county citizens in general.


Sincerely,

Patrick Dunn