Board of Managers - Regular Meeting

Thank you, everyone. This conference will now be recorded. Yeah. Thank you, everybody, for being here. We're going to hear recommendations from the Ad Hoc Friendship Heights Sector Plan Committee. And I really want to thank you guys, Bill, Jonathan, Allison, for doing so much work on this.

It clearly shows.

Yeah. I was just thanking the committee to start. And I'll throw it to Jonathan because you wanted us to all introduce ourselves and say where our happy places are. And I'll just start by saying that I'm Alyssa Leonard and my happy place is Humphrey Hall.

Twice this week, meetings here.

Always thrilling.

Thanks, Alyssa. So a couple of notes to end with, you said. One is thanks to my fellow community members and thanks to Michelle for adding a lot

Oh yeah, Michelle, incredible.

I was just reiterating thanks to my fellow community members. Michelle, she's added, and a special thanks to Shana, because without you, we really could not have done this. So you've done a tremendous amount to make this possible. Thank you. Much appreciated. A process note. So we're going to go through the recommendations piece by piece. And on the assumption that maybe everybody can get a chance to read all 41 pages, we'll explain certain things as we go along. But the process I'm going to suggest is that we do it in a manner that's very organized. So we'll come to that in a minute. But I do want to go around, as Alyssa said, because we kind of know each other, but we kind of don't. So just take a minute, like 15 seconds. And if you would state your name and then other than the village, what's a place that you really like to be? Because this is all about place, what we're talking about today. So quickly, so that we don't take too much time. So I'll start, since I knew I was going to ask everybody to do this. So I'm going to say Seattle is another place that I really like to be. One, my daughter's there. And two, it's a really combined city, partially Maine, partially San Francisco, and partially New York. Maine.

Maine.

Bill Van Horn, resident of Grove Street.

And I think my happy place besides Grove Street is down in Charlottesville, visiting with family and having a special time down there and enjoy that. So thank you.

I'm Gary Crockett. I'm the treasurer of the board of managers. And I guess I Lately, my happy place would be the Livingston Playground with our almost five-year-old granddaughter.

I'm Nancy Waters. I'm, I think, Assistant Treasurer. And my happy place is Montana. Linda Willard, I'm liaison to the Friendship Heights Sector Plan Committee, also on the board. Happy places out to Utah in ski season.

Hi, my name is Saul Goodman, and I'm pretty darn happy here in the village.

Thanks.

I'll echo that. I'm David Winstead of Grove and Kirkside, and I have four out of seven grandkids who have been at five to ten in a row. Wow.

Well done. There you go.

Michelle Rosenfeld, and my happy place is Charleston, South Carolina, where I've got some family, and it's close to the gorgeous beaches.

Allison DiGiovanni. My happy place, other than the village, is probably New England. I grew up there, and I try to go back as much as I can.

OK. Thank you all for doing that, appreciate that. You're not going to spend too much time doing thank yous, but I do also want to recognize Linda and David and recently Alyssa as the board representatives to the committee. Three residents plus additional knowledge and expertise, which has been really helpful. Thank you for that. Okay, so if we could put up the first slide, that would be good. So as we go through each recommendation, And we'll have them up on the screen as well. We'll have them from the condensed versions, just the top lines. I'm going to suggest that to track our process, the board let us know on whatever recommendation we're at. Got it. Don't need to do anything else. Go on. So we don't belabor things that we don't need to belabor. Once where the board wants to discuss it, said, let's tell us and we'll discuss it. If it's a decision that we think is appropriate and can be made tonight, let's do that. And in all cases, identify next steps relative to each recommendation. So how does that sit with everybody in terms of the process? OK, let's get on. Next slide, please. It might be a little hard to read, but you do have it in front of you. And interrupt me. Asked questions. Somebody's going fast, somebody's going slow. I'm viewing this, I know it is technically a board meeting, but it's really a workshop kind of setup so we can talk and interact around the stuff that really requires a lot of discussion. It's pretty complicated. Okay, strategy. There's four points there. The list of negotiables, and I'm not, sorry, let me back up here. One thing I'm not gonna do is review. because you can read best time thought and you also have it in front of you. So I'm not going to read what's up there. I assume everybody, if you want me to stop, I will, but you have it in front of you as well. So the list of negotiables is a suggestion to put together a simple, probably somewhat short, I don't know, maybe have six items, might have 10 on it, that are items that the village has influence over in a significant way. Have those out and have them always in front of us because this is going to go on for a while. Bouncing around is going to be difficult. So I think things like right of way, for example. That's a really place where the village has a lot of oomph. The wall, the parks, things like that. It would be good, I think, for the board to have a listen from them. OK. The second point is really tone more than anything else, but continuing to acknowledge that we're recognizing other shareholders, other stakeholders, and that they have needs too. And they need to do the same to us. The third is, again, tonal but important, which is the idea of expanding the current character and culture of the village, as if we're pushing it west. because that is an advantage, it's a high value quality that we have and would benefit the land company and other folks if that culture were pushed out. Related, obviously, fourth point, we suggest that we all invite John Ziegenheim to come and present to the board. See what he has to say. We have found him to be cordial and to share when he has the particular interest that he has. But that would be good, I think, for the board to hear him talk about it. Questions, comments, thoughts? I'm going to keep rolling forward to the next slide. Thank you. This is a pretty big section. So I'll give you all a chance to read for a moment.

We do have it now on our website. We don't have hard copies, but it was posted to the website this morning. So if you look at it on, if you have a cell phone or digital device, you can definitely take a look at it. Yeah, no worries.

Okay, on this set of recommendations, the second set, and Michelle will help me out here if necessary, but there is a regulatory requirement for public use space as a percent. We're suggesting that the village propose, because it's reasonable, um a percent that's bigger than that so with the minimal regulatory requirement we get about a half an acre of public green space we're suggesting that it makes more sense to have 0.75 added to that so that it's an acre and a quarter if if as is the case i think for all the stakeholders we need to draw people into the space, if we want community retail, if we want the collection to succeed and not have an empty space at SAC and an empty space at where Amazon Fresh was and other problems that we all know about, we can see them there. We need to have people there, which we'll talk about cars in a minute, but people. The second point there is, and it's not, we don't have as much information as we would like to there, but for the time being, stick with the same calculation, which is additional to the 10% and bounce it up so that it's the same, the structure of the recommendation is the same for the north and the south sections. Let me pause for a second. I have learned a certain amount from Michelle, but The north and south sections are really clear to me. I don't know if they are to everybody else, but the divider is basically where Montgomery would be if it comes through. So if you come in off of Wisconsin to your left on the north side, that's the north section. And if you go to the right, that's the south section.

It's where the circle is. The extension of Montgomery would be that circle.

So anything that's

two sacks parking lots and sacks he's calling that north anything south of that circle the core of the collection is he's calling that south okay um can i ask a question of course so this section which is entitled green space and there's not a footnote that explains what green space public options are in this appendix which i didn't have a chance to look at i understand okay because um Does green space mean, as you might interpret it, green? Or could that also be a pedestrian walkway that's paved, that has nice tables and is a place to gather? What are we talking about?

We've had a lot of conversation about that. The green could look like concrete, and that's not the same goal.

Right.

I don't know that there's a specific determination. Is there, Michelle, in terms of how to divide that? But we have made in the, I don't want you to answer, but we have made pretty clear in the recommendations that when we anticipate green to mean at least significant actual green, whether it's planting or play space or playground, but it's not all hard space with chairs and tables.

So open space has a different meaning than green space.

Correct.

Also in public and green or sort of red or yellow.

But so the public use space is defined in the zoning ordinance, and it includes certain elements, and a lot of that is hard escaping.

Can you get a little closer?

Yeah, sure. But when we make recommendations in the sector plan for the additional 0.75 acres, at some point we should come back and talk about what we want that to look like. Green, yes, green as in greens and plantings and trees, but also what kind of activation you want to see. Do you want to see a playground? Do you want to see benches? Do you want to see a pathway or a trail? So those details should go into the sector plan at some point so that it's clear what we want that additional 0.75 acres to look like. Yeah, so just to be clear,

Here's the circle, this is Montgomery Street, so this is what you're calling the north, and this is their very preliminary proposed green, well, they call it open space, not green space, so it could not be green, it's just open. And you're saying, let's ask for more than that. Correct, yeah, correct. Okay.

And just to be clear, so we know what these diagrams are, that's not us, the committee, proposing that that's Montgomery County.

No, yeah. That is ground replanting. That's what they're saying and we're saying, you're saying, please ask for more.

Got it. Okay. Just to put a finer point on the definition too, like typically green space is not included in the building site. So it's been designated as to be used for something other than what's going on on the building site. So the green and the permeable is a big point too, but it also should be outside of the footprint of the building. Even if there's some green for that building, this green space that we're recommending is green space that's purposed for the site. for the people using it outside of the residence and including residents. Right.

And from the perspective of the village, it'd be nice for it to be more green there because that's the edge of the village.

We'll come later, but now the idea of a greenway and a connected green path that connects what we're also suggesting, which is having the green space, not necessarily in the big clusters, but more distributed. So there's green throughout.

I think this was your answer to Alyssa's question, but this diagram, which comes from planning folks, it is documenting about 0.5 acres. It is reflecting the required minimum. It doesn't reflect the additional amount. It does not reflect our suggestion.

Yeah, and we don't have any representation that that is to scale as in that's actually 0.5 acres. They were just trying to be illustrative of where they thought some of this space might go. I would not look at that as representative of that 0.5.

Right. But also, I mean, what the SACS and SACS parking lot are in the village, the collection is not in the village. So are we talking about additional just in the village, just here?

Or are we also talking south, the part that's not in the village, the collection?

We're talking about both because the success of the one depends on the success of the other.

And you had that 10% for both.

Yeah. They may want to think about it in terms of it being for the north and it being for the south. We've talked with the planning folks about it is one set of spaces, and how they work together is really important.

Yeah. All right. And then I have one more question. Right now, Saks is in the village. But after this new plan, is it likely that it will be removed from the village? It'll be its own part of Friendship Heights?

So that will be ultimately a decision for the board. As of right now, that is property that is within the village's municipal boundaries. It would be a decision of the board should you choose to de-annex that property out of the village if you felt that the uses or what it will be there. That we don't have the expertise in doing apartment buildings. Yeah, it's inconsistent with what we want to do.

In fact, I'll wait until we get to that recommendation, but that does tie into a question I have.

Yeah, okay.

So, sorry, go ahead.

I should say, chance to correct it, I mean, long-term with Saxon and the bankruptcy, CCLC ultimately is deciding next tenant, et cetera, in terms of landlord and property.

Yeah, so just to touch on this for 30 seconds. As of right now, CCLC, formerly referred to as the Chevy Chase Land Company, owns the entire parcel that is the Sachs building and the parking lots that surround it down to what is actually Montgomery Street to the west of the buffer area. There is a long-term lease with Sachs Global, which has recently filed for bankruptcy. Their parent company is Hudson's Bay. As of right now, Hudson's Bay has full control over what happens to that lease. They are continuing to pay CCLC for the lease and will continue to do so once SACS closes shop, I think next week, maybe. And CCLC has communicated to us that they have not yet received any information or indication from SACS Global slash Hudson's Bay about the future use of the property. In other places, and Allison can speak to this in greater detail if there are questions, in other places where Hudson's Bay has closed SAC stores or other stores that are under their oversight, they have released the buildings to other leaseholders for other uses. We have communicated directly with CCLC that we would like to be a part of those conversations and that we hope that should another leaseholder come into the space, that it is consistent with the community and the types of retail that the community would like to see utilized there. Of course, because it is in the Village, as was noted by Ms. Leonard, We also have a policing responsibility as it relates to that property. So of course, we're keenly concerned about what may go in there. But as of right now, we have no indication of what may be going into that space in this short term.

But better to have something than have an abandoned building while we're waiting for the new sector plan.

Yep, absolutely. Both the north and the south end.

Right, yeah.

Okay, so the last point in this particular section is just as things change the board stay with the notion, which has to be desperate access from Wisconsin, not just just car, but pedestrian access conversation. Okay, next slide. Continuation of this broad section, but with an emphasis on building rather than open or public or green space. So point one is to support the planning staff to recommending for CR zoning in Jacksonville collection. We may not think that's what we absolutely would like to have happen in the best of all possible worlds, but in the actual world we live in, that's going to happen. Strong sense. So there's no reason to fight it.

And if I understood the material I read just before this meeting, that number, the 80 feet, is kind of a starting point. And once they are allowed to have any given height, then they could start having the right to go higher and higher by doing certain things like putting a daycare center in it or having public parking available or whatever. So we should look at 80 feet as probably not what it will end up being.

Absolutely correct. And we have intentionally, these numbers presume that it will go up from there because of the negotiations that will take place. That whole system of FAR, whatever I think it's called.

FAR, floor area ratio.

So that's why these numbers are what they are. To go back to the second point there, though, in terms of zoning, the overlay zone, which I think I won't go in to describe exactly what that is. The more important is what it does. The planning staff have been both quite keen on the flexibility of the overlay zone along the common border, boundary, of the village and CCLC, because they can specify more particularly what can and cannot happen. They've been, over the course of months, quite keen on having that capacity to go beyond what they would typically do in a sector plan. That has shifted a bit, and there's now discussion about, well, maybe we don't need the overlay zone, we can do it all in the sector plan. I don't know why that's coming up as it is now, It is something that's really important for the board to attend to because we don't want to get stuck in a situation where, oh, we'll handle it in the sector plan, and then the next conversation or the next phase is, well, we don't put that kind of detail in the sector plan. But if we let the overlay zone go, we may be letting go of what it can do because you don't typically put the level of detail in the sector plan as you would in the overlay zone. Clear as mud? Really important. I've learned about the overlay zone. It's not something new going in, but it's really important. And again, those numbers, the depth, the setback, the height, all of those are, it's not just about the height. It's about the entire structure and size of the footprint of what's gonna go there. And again, HAB-Jacques Juilland, We emphasize again what we are testing the board see. HAB-Jacques Juilland, Is reasonable. HAB-Jacques Juilland, And does not preclude other stakeholders and getting what would be reasonable to meet their goals and needs okay.

HAB-Jacques Juilland, Ask a question to the overlay plan just apply to a specific part of the village and really the order area and that's where. If we can get the overlay plan, we can get more detail about how the interface between these properties.

And in an enforceable way, I think, which is, I don't, I haven't, we've seen only rough drawings. I don't think there's yet a defined depth or width, if you will, of the overlays. I don't think we've got that. I don't think we know what that is.

Would it be helpful for Michelle to explain the overlay zone process? The board, is that something you can deal with? Sure, sure, of course. That might be helpful.

And Michelle, I'm sorry, if you want to give that a good tug, you'll unhinge the piece of tape that's holding it up.

Oh, there we go. Is that better?

Yes, thank you.

The sector plan includes a number of recommendations. And when development comes through in the future, new development has to substantially conform to the master plan. So those recommendations are taken very seriously. And under the development rules, the planning board, for example, has to find that there's substantial conformance. But it does not have the same effect as a zoning code. It's not statutorily binding in the same way. An overlay zone is a zone that's adopted by the district council. It establishes zoning standards. And so if it says maximum height is 45 feet, the maximum height is 45 feet. If it says no retail, there's no retail. So there's a difference in terms of enforceability between standards that are set objectively in the zoning ordinance as opposed to recommendations which carry great weight but can be viewed subjectively to a certain degree.

So who decides whether we can have that?

Ultimately, it's the Montgomery County Council, which when it sits in its zoning capacity is called the District Council. But it's the Montgomery County Council that will make that decision.

Going forward, continuing to work with the planning department before it gets there, To keep the overall is only good. Okay, um, a couple other things. So the, the pull the numbers out in terms of what it looks like. What we're suggesting is a series of increases in height from the northern part of Belmont going from what we have now, I love the restrictions. to the next level slightly up, then the next level higher, and then on Wisconsin Avenue, we have very little, I think, likely influence over what they're gonna do on Wisconsin Avenue right next to a metro. Okay, I mentioned the fourth point, distributing the green parcels and specifying uses so that there's a contiguous greenway, which is that second point also. And to keep Oliver Street in mind, that sometimes gets dropped out of the discussion as if it sort of doesn't matter, but it obviously matters a lot. But that connectivity, we think, has the potential to make a big difference in terms of the overall feel and use of this transitional space. Okay, the next slide, speaking of transitional space, has quite a few numbers on it, nine. So give you all a chance to look again. So this, again, is in keeping with the tone of what we're suggesting, which is to support what is going to happen in full likelihood and try to affect the how. of what's happening. And again, to keep in mind not just height, but bulk, mass, and height, all of which matter. The other piece that matters in trying to grow the narrow buffer zone in the north to a broader transitional space that is really transitional, not boundary. The piece that's also really important There is the bulk, the mass, the height. The other thing is orientation. One thinks of houses having to be in a certain way, a townhouse. Not necessarily a sub. How they are oriented toward one another and toward the example of Belmont could make a big difference in terms of the transitional space truly being a transition from the village into CCLC.

Are you talking about having townhouses fronting on Belmont, the front of the house, the driveway? Possibly.

CCLC owns that property and could theoretically, when it's rezoned, build townhouses fronting on Belmont.

That would be part of the NLR, which would be part of the NLR.

CCLC owns the Saks property and some of it fronts on Belmont. So when it's rezoned to not be single family anymore, you know, presumably we'll get some setbacks, but it could start out with townhouses that are the same height level as homes across the street.

So it'll be two-sided street. Could be a mixture too. Could be a mixture. We don't know. And that will ultimately be up to the developers when that time comes, not human.

Yes, but this plan doesn't have it fronting on Belmont. It has its own road that you enter from where the circle is now, and you would go behind. So it'll be between us and the sex park.

Just to be clear, The yellow arrow that is behind or along Belmont Avenue may not necessarily be for vehicular access. That was actually meant to represent pedestrian access. But again...

So that would be everything fronting on Wisconsin, though. And then pedestrians in the back.

Well, but again, this is also representing just buildable areas. How CCLC configures... the buildings within those buildable areas is fully at their discretion. So the sector plan won't get into that level of detail. What the planning staff is recommending and the committee is recommending would be achieved through an overlay zone would be to say, but within those first parcels that funnel into Oliver and Belmont, we want those restricted to residential units. I don't want us to get too hung up on the term townhouse because it could be some other form of residential units.

House level type thing, and then stepping back in both directions to go higher at Wisconsin.

The planning team is going to push. They're not going to want to start at the same level of existing housing. They're going to want to go up faster. So all of the negotiations about up faster, how far back, how deep and wide, all of those come into play. All the dimensions of space are negotiable.

And if I could, that lower image on the left, you see to the far right, there's a brown box. That would be representative of an existing... That's my house. That's John's house. That's a house. That's a house. So then that would be, for example, a four-level townhome or some other residential type of structure at 45 feet of height. And then staff has suggested something taller, perhaps 60 feet. behind that and then to the far left, that vertical orange rectangle that you see would be staff has proposed 100 feet on Wisconsin and the committee is recommending 80.

But that shows you how the sort of tiered approach. So staff understands the sensitivities.

Correct. And they're already proposing a step back. So we just push for more.

As much as part of what we're also we've made, I think, quite clear with those folks is that the idea of one continuous building, the ones that is maybe only would be what runs from Oliver all the way down to the top of the south side of Belmont. That's not that's not all that. That's not on in terms of whether that would satisfy the village's needs. Why is that? Because it's a block of one building, even if it's town.

But most things that are designed to have... For anybody's particular yard, it's still... Whether it happens to be a chunk that has space in it, that is important for some people and not for others that are sitting across the street from it.

I think the goal was to just create essentially articulations, if you will, so that you don't have the sense that you have single family homes on one side of the street, be it Belmont or Oliver. And on the opposite side of the street, it would read like almost like a warehouse building where you just have this very long linear building. We measured Belmont Avenue is about 655 feet from where the buffer ends out to Oliver Street. That would feel, as you are on Belmont or if you live across from it, that would feel very heavy and massive to have a continuous building going along that entire length. So the staff has recognized and suggested that there would be language. And again, the concern is whether that's in the sector plan versus also being in the overlay zone. That would make it clear that there needs to be separations and articulations. Mr. Halpern will also get into a little bit later concerns about the village's continued legislative oversight of what gets built on these properties and the limitations that we have, which further warrant those buildings being truncated into smaller chunks, if you will.

Yeah. I mean, and it's in the developer's interest to develop something that's beautiful that people want to live in and doesn't look like a warehouse, so.

So it's just for the community. It might be it's on the D.C. side, but Western, you have the pavilion, right, which is a huge mixed use retail office. And then you have those transitional townhouses that I think Aiken Young tabbed in on the east side. And that's Kaibab, right? I mean, I think, Jonathan, that's kind of what you're talking about, is townhouses next to a higher density. It wouldn't be that high. But, you know, that's an example of what we're talking about. And I think EYA, by the way, is doing the residential on the GEICO side. And all they do is very, very high-end townhouses. Not to say that we're doing this, but it's an example. of urban townhouses of high quality.

And all of this pivots off of the core strategic framework that I think we've developed with the other stakeholders, which is that it's a transitional space, which is more than and the character of the village goes with it as much as possible. It doesn't stop at .

I'm not sure I'm completely getting this. I thought we were talking about expanding the buffer area up to Oliver Street along Belmont. But now we're talking about houses fronting on this.

So we don't own this. CCSC owns this, the other side of Belmont.

I get that.

once they're allowed to build townhouses, they will be allowed to build townhouses on the other side of Belmont, if that is in their financial interest, versus stepping back and having higher and not having anything front on Belmont. Maybe that would make more sense for them.

But if we had houses fronting on Belmont from their side, then we wouldn't really have that green,

It depends how far they're set back. So if you're right, there's lots of different pieces that are playing. We are suggesting a continuous greenway, if you will, that goes all the way down from here down the park. Right, as part of the- And how wide that could be, whether that's on the Belmont side, whether that's on the CCLC side, some combination, all of which is to be determined. But we're trying to keep consistent on again, push the character of the village outward through particular designs of townhouses, chattel partners sit back, how tall they are, and green, tree color, et cetera. Somewhat more like there is on the south side where the buffer, what we call the buffer now is quite wide, as opposed to Belmont where it's really quite narrow. How much space there is there gets used for what, we're trying to set the parameters of that, but can't define it. Can find more in the overlay zone than in the sector plan, but can't really define it too much more.

But it is a red section. does run down Delmont, and it's 25 yards wide. It goes to the Saks, then it seems to extend to the south, around the parking garage, just a little bit around the corner of the giant stock against the west. So we've got to try, but it's not an accident.

Okay. I appreciate the detail that you've taken to look at that. Some of the diagrams are marked as representative, not accurate. Some of them are not. So the point is well taken. We don't know the width is actually being proposed there yet.

Okay. So in terms of our working this meeting, we got to just keep plugging along and probably not have. Anyway. Let's keep going on. So we're pushing for more green space. Anything that's next to the village, we're pushing for as much green space as possible.

The third item is more straightforward, perhaps, but no vehicular entrances to the CCLC from the village.

Okay, that's what I want to talk about. That's what I'm talking about as well. Green space, how does it have... That's not even what I'm talking about.

The issue to me is, are the people who are going to be on that Saks property living there, are they going to be Chevy Chase Village residents or not? And this decision here determines whether our police can easily go and patrol those seats. It determines whether our public works people can fill the snow, that determines whether our trash pickup can work. So that is to vote that these people are not really Chevy Chase Village residents. And I'm fine with that. I mean, I wouldn't be necessarily opposed to turning this over to them. If it gets to the point where it's all commercial and really there's nothing we can do to make it anything like Chevy Chase Village, then why do we even want it? And the reason is, the answer is taxes, property taxes probably, but can we really justify property taxes for people to whom we are giving no amenities?

Fair point. That's again, from the perspective of what's a negotiable place for us, that's a really powerful place. And I think it's not one that the, it's known but not fully recognized in terms of needing to service that as part of the village's municipal boundaries in Bronzeville. That's a key item on the list of neutrals.

Right. There's a lot of give and take. So we give a lot of height here.

We get lower height here. We may get a road here, or townhouses are accessed from that road. But maybe people don't want to see the back of the townhouses, and they'd rather front on Belmont.

So we just have to... Just to build on one of the principles that we also working from is the notion, I said this, the tent, have you heard about the tent pole? No, but the tent pole on where the metro is now, where the bus turnaround is, that's the high point of this whole effort from the perspective of CCLC. From that tent pole high, it goes down to the north and to the east. So that concept is how they are thinking about it. and the slope going down is not clear. It's going to be contentious. It's going to be contentious, but it's not going to be immediately agreeable. It's going to have to be negotiated. Okay, in terms of trying to keep moving here.

I'm sorry, I just want to make sure that Mr. Goodman, I think, was starting to also ask a question when Mr. Crockett was making his comment.

Eric, can you expand a little bit more on how you see this as a decision about our governance of the space?

Well, let's take police. They patrol our streets. And to patrol, if that thing is not there, to patrol the streets that are on the other side is going to take 10 times the time and effort and fuel and everything else to go all the way down to Western Avenue and come in just to patrol two blocks. So that's kind of impractical. Snow in the winter. Again, if our snow plows and stuff can get in there directly, then maybe they could take care of the snow for those people. But again, if they have to go all the way, they just haven't got time and energy to do that. So I think that we're either putting ourselves up to say, in order to give these people amenities of that kind, we've got to employ a whole new force of people who are providing those services and pay whatever it costs for that, or we have to expand our current resources, and I don't know where we would put them. We might need some Chevy Chase Village space on Saks to have it.

Or we de-annex what we have traditionally not had. We have traditionally not had apartment buildings, and commercial spaces. So do we want to have that?

If you look at the town of Chevy Chase, they don't own any of that stuff along Wisconsin Avenue. Their western boundary is 47th Street and West Street. So it's kind of a fluke that we have this.

Yeah, it's always been a fluke. And we don't know what's going to happen because we don't even know if they're going to release this very long-term lease that they have. that this may not change in our lifetime. Even if there's a new sector plan, we still may have two parking lots and a building there in our lifetime.

If I could just clarify two just operational points that Mr. Crockett just raised, because I think they're important as the board is thinking about this issue. From a policing standpoint, you're absolutely correct. We would have policing responsibilities to our residents who reside within this property, but it would still be redeveloped as a private redevelopment. So when it comes to snowplow operations, we would not have responsibility within this development. So even if the townhouse is faced inward into this property, Any streets that are created interior to the property would be private streets under the oversight of CCLC. So it's similar if you think about it too, we have some streets in the village where the homes have a rear yard access to a private alley. We have both public and private alleys in the village. We do not plow private alleys, we only plow the public alleys. So I would encourage you to think of it kind of in that way and that the snow plowing operation would be similar to that. But currently for policing operations, we do not generally patrol private alleys. We probably would not generally patrol within this private property unless CCLC invited us to do so, but we would have policing responsibilities to the extent necessary along those properties on Belmont and Oliver. So if the townhouses faced onto Belmont and Oliver, we would patrol those streets as we do today in the same way that we do those streets in the village where we're only going along the front facade and there's a private alley where their driveway access is, so forth and so on. So, and even if the townhouses faced interior to the property with their backs against oliver and belmont which we don't want um we would still only be policing along the belmont and oliver rear sides of those properties but that would kind of be consistent again with what we do today so i think you're absolutely raising important points though about is do we want to govern an area that has a commercial commercial use and Added residential in an extent that it goes beyond how we've been structured to date. That's an important conversation for the board to have. But I think the individual operational nuances of this may not be as challenging only because I think they're just going to be limits to what we do on private property anyway.

And what about property taxes? Are property taxes in these kind of situations paid by the individual? condominium owners or apartment owners, or is it a building-wide thing? And in any case, are we looking at a possible lawsuit for somebody that says, why do I have this Chevy Chase Village thing on my property tax bill? Where the hell is Chevy Chase Village?

Right, right. So I think it will certainly depend upon how the buildings are structured. Whomever the property owner is, whether it's condo association or if they make it into rental units of some sort, Whoever the underlying property owner is will have the village's municipal tax on their tax bill. Where we'll see the highest likely revenue coming in will be from the income tax. But all of the nuances of how the taxing structure would work if it's a condo association versus a standard, you know, just rental. I think those are all things that we need to get better informed about. We don't know today.

This would also be village residents who will be voting in elections. Correct. We want to have the same services they get.

Correct. Just to build on this, there are a lot of challenges that this presents to the village. I would suggest also, though, that as the board continues to deliberate on this and thinking of it as a systems level problem where all of relate to and influence each other, but think also about maybe there's opportunities that we can do things that would be advantageous to the village and the village residents, et cetera, not only to see it as one challenge after another. I think the pieces of the puzzle could go either way. So one other piece of the puzzle, in fact, we've mentioned it, but the overlay zone, item four, those standards we've already talked about. So I'm gonna elaborate on that at the moment. The next item five is we also have alluded to in terms of the length of a massed building that would take the entire length of Belmont, which I think Michelle, if I'm remembering your tutorial correctly, that's called the stick of the length of the building. So item six is a bit of an ad and quite important because the number of units in a building influences the extent to which the village can regulate what happens in that space. Yard signs, lots of other things, I don't know all of the details. If it goes over four, the village no longer has that right. So that is an important differentiation. Point six also references the idea of potentially staggered so it's not all one line, but it could be a zigzag, if you will, of buildings as possible. Okay, seven. It's a similar point, different levels of details, but about breaking up the massing, quote unquote, quality by what's the design of the actual building. in terms of steps or on porches, all of those kinds of things that are key to the character and the quality and the culture of the village. So item, what is that, eight. We're suggesting that the board review, I think is the right word, the history and the configuration of the three-part wall. Because it is really, it's the brick wall in the north, the ascending wall as you come up after Belmont, and then there's the fence, which is wooden. So there are three different sections. And thinking through what that is, its history, and what its future use is in terms of both challenge and opportunity, there's probably both there. One of the things that we've discussed, and we don't have a specific recommendation, but in terms of lots of activity in this space that has not been the case previously in the SACS parking lot, some additional kind of security. Maybe there is some security that CCLC provides related to the transitional space.

I'm sorry, go on.

Go ahead, Alice, go ahead.

I didn't mean to interrupt, sorry. I just was trying to get clarity on who owns the wall. Sachs built and owns the wall.

CCLC, but yes, it's within the Sachs Park.

Got it.

But we own the land just about to the wall. Correct. That's correct.

Along Belmont and Oliver, we own the land. We control the public right-of-way up to the wall.

Okay, and Church's Land Company does not have an ownership stake in it.

Correct. Is that correct? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Okay, the last item in this long list is no retail facing Oliver and Belmont. Okay, let's go to the next slide. Jonathan said no retail, Oliver and Belmont.

The implication, too, is that we have talked about it, Wisconsin-facing, and that's something that has to discuss both the CCLC and Montgomery Planning. So Wisconsin-facing, we do not have a problem with that for retail.

Right, good clarification.

Yeah, one of the things that came up in the survey of, I don't know, 600-some-odd residents is the desire for community retail, that there are places one can go and shop that would be useful and practical and enhance, again, the sense of community. The two pieces now, this is the southern section, but as we've said, they are intimately related in terms of what happens in one and the other. So the first point there is, again, a recommendation to remain open to considering, which pretty carefully in this instance, retail and access along Western. which is now a wall from the circle up to the park. That blocking access there limits pretty severely pedestrian retail flow into what is now the Dead Space Act, what was Amazon Fresh. But that's all predicated on negotiables where that The suggestion that would be open to that as a possibility pending what is offered right in response.

Right here, Western.

Yeah.

Once upon a time, the village board said we can never have retail in Western. And to my mind, as someone who used to get out of the subway and walk up Western, I would like to be able to buy flowers on my way home instead of going around a truck entrance. to get into a shopping center that was not pedestrian friendly. So opening that up, I think would be beneficial to the village. So it's a thing that we can negotiate because right now we've said no.

And that's something, frankly, that could be done ahead of a redevelopment at the site. There's an empty storefront right now that they cannot find a leaseholder for in the former Amazon Fresh building. And so... I think messaging from the board, that would make it clear to CCLC if that's something that you all are open to them exploring here, even in the interim of future sector plan changes, I think would be welcome.

Yeah. So I think, you know, we're pushing for quieter stuff here and more usable pedestrian stuff at the western area. And do they take our thoughts

as much for the area that is not in our jurisdiction as is or do they wait yeah i think i think certainly the village has very clear leverage over the saps property while it remains within our municipal boundaries i think um i would just say the planning um world here in montgomery county has changed a lot since the last sector plan and while i think we exacted a lot of leverage even over what is currently the collection in the last sector plan, I don't know that we will be able to exact that same level of leverage in the current planning world. But I do think that to the extent that we can be open and reasonable to things, which I think is the committee's point about supporting retail along Western Avenue, I think the greater leverage we'll be able to achieve.

Shana, we had the Amazon stretch, right? Right. So that's retail.

Right, right. But facing interior, the suggestion would be to allow it to face western.

But they have retail shops all along there. Are you talking about, Jonathan, are you talking about the west wall where the parking lot and access point is?

The north wall of western. The north wall of western where the loading docks are now.

And it really is recycling that building to other uses that would have smaller retail and that kind of thing. Well, I don't know why, you know, as long as, I mean, I will tell you that I think, you know, the concern would be on the southern part of the, western part, Grove Corner, is we've got to be as defensible and aggressive in defending the densities and what happens there as we are with the SACS property and residential property. I think we've got to be very careful on that.

Yeah, totally agree.

And I do not think, I saw John, I mean, I won't jump ahead, but you did talk about access to Western Grove Park from potential redevelopment of the Chevy Chase land property abutting it. And I don't think that would be in the village's best interest. I mean, you've got a sidewalk there that people can come up and access the park and go down the buffer. Were you thinking about actually opening up the western part of that wall on the Western Grove Park to development that would provide access coming east? Because I don't think that's.

Yeah, but if you look at it, if you can see it, it's a little bit hard to see up there, but on the upper, on the diagonal to the right, halfway up the right side, you see those thick green arrows?

Yeah.

That is the, that's the county's suggested opening, which looks right there.

And would that, I apologize, I haven't read, would that open to a park? Or would that open to commercial development?

That's a really good question. So I don't know.

The idea here is that it opens to open space. The development area is south of it.

OK, all right.

So it just expands a little. Right, so I have a larger set.

So the key again here is we're suggesting, and it is, you can jump ahead very far, David, but it's the second point here again, but can the other elements that are negotiable that the board consider the possibility of, again, I'm gonna use the word, expanding the sense of Western Grove Park into and as an entry point then to the CCLC property, not letting them build a tall building there. That's obviously completely objectionable. But creating something there that meets some of their needs, protects and actually expands potentially the feel of that park in that southern corner,

um and so that's not a cul-de-sac but basically nobody wants to go to it jonathan what is their need they just want residents of the village to have pedestrian access to their property what what are they why is that useful to the land company what's their objective go ahead i think the the relative lack of connectivity that exists now from a pedestrian standpoint they see that as something that's been a barrier to success in the project

Yeah, we don't want to have a failed shopping center, and that's what we have. I'm just trying to understand.

The collection as it is is a place where restaurants and other businesses go to die, and that's what they want to change.

Well, you know, that's a demographic problem. I mean, you know, they've had a hard, hard time heading high, and we've seen it for decades. It's really a demographic issue. It's not a locational issue, or is it the design of its properties? It's got parking there and that kind of thing. They've all failed because they look at the demographics of that market and they go, oh my God, we need a store there. And yet the traffic just isn't generous.

But where they have the green arrows is kind of a win for us.

It expands the idea of a Western Grove Park. Right now, right next to it, that's just all parking. It's just cars parked there. So why not have it be a friendlier open space and the cars are underground? I mean, all this buildable area is farther away from us and the cars go underground.

That's right.

And again, they also want increased pedestrian connection.

There's the green, but look at the yellow arrows.

Montgomery County plans talk about how do we make that easier to access. And that gets to your point of maybe that's one reason the question is that in problems with stores and retails, people have problems. after, right? That's not really designed well. So that's the other thing planning has told us is we want more of that pedestrian connection, not vehicular, but pedestrian.

I support the idea of of greater pedestrian access. But frankly, you can walk there now. There just aren't compelling things to walk to. There's virtually nothing we walk to there except across the street to go to doctor's appointments. It's not that far to walk. There's nothing to walk to. And we can do

Because it's failed. We have to let them not have a failed shopping center.

We need to let, and it has to have stuff that we would want to go to.

Just to build on that, remembering, there are going to be more residential units in that whole area. So there are also, those are two-way arrows. They also want those residents to be able to access the park because that makes it an attractive place to live.

And also more people living there. Right now, nobody lives there. Nobody lives there. But if we have more people living there, they're going to use the restaurants. There'll be coffee shops. It'll have a vibrancy that it doesn't have right now. We need people to live there.

The opportunity to rely on office to service.

Yeah, we can't do audience participation. This is a workshop, sorry.

I think the ability to rely on office to help with the retail has diminished significantly. It leaves the option of people living there to be the ones for revitalization.

Yeah. Okay.

Let's continue. Onward. So we're now on page five. We're done with the next page. And that's also the last page. And it's what we were already talking about. Making clear that the village is aligned with the core goal of successful retail is a significant point for the board to make and to continue the positive relationship that we have even though with somewhat differing interests with the land company. We want them to succeed, as you said, not to have a failed shopping center next door. And you can see that we suggested we're way beyond our influence, but that if we want successful retail and we want community local small, the county may need to step up and create incentives so that it's not outsiders coming in and running stores that are very different from what we might like. Now, quote unquote outsiders, I only use that term in the sense that there is this sense of wanting a village and a community level retail. We may need to combine that with some name brands that will draw people. That's not our decision by any means, but pointing that out to the county and that they have a role in making this either a success or potentially a failure is an important thing.

Right. As Shana has pointed out, they no longer try to dictate what kind of retail will be there because it doesn't allow for the flexibility that things change.

And when we have in the past tried to impose, the board said, this must be a supermarket and there must be the loading dock on Western. Well, we got stuck with that for a very long time and it it helped the shopping center fail.

It was well-meaning, but we have to be careful about being rigid and not allowing for a dynamic shopping center and place to live. So anyway, that's my thought.

That builds nicely to the next two points. One is that pedestrians and cars are different things. open to pedestrians and asking everybody else also to be equally sensitive to the fact that the village doesn't become parking lot.

What will the parking, required parking be for this kind of thing? Do we know? And is that one of our recommendations?

So again, to the notion of the planning flexibility that they're looking for. There isn't a prescription now for a certain amount of parking. They really leave that to the developer. It's interesting because in the planning staff presentation to the planning board, the preliminary recommendations, there was some conversation about the fact that the planning staff identified that additional parking is really necessary generally in Friendship Heights because there's insufficient available parking. And the planning board kind of pushed back against that because they feel that this area's proximity to Friendship Heights should limit the amount of parking that is imposed. So I do think that that is an area where the board could certainly recommend to the planning staff specific amounts of parking to ensure that these developments can support the parking that's necessary for them to thrive and be viable, because I do think that we have to be very careful about this redevelopment forcing more parking in the village. It's something we're constantly tackling as it is through our permit parking zones along the western edge of the village. And so it is certainly an area that we need to be cautious about. And something we heard about, the committee heard about in response to their survey, that there was absolutely a concern from residents about parking pressures and vehicular traffic pressures in the village.

But as we said earlier, that one of the ways they could get, that developers can get the right to build their buildings higher is by providing public parking. And so that's, there may be an incentive to do that.

I just came up with one in terms of parking and that there are three sets of four stakeholders, right? Not just two. This is the county's current rendering. And we've also heard from the land company that building here is very difficult and expensive because they've got a parking lot underground. So putting something big on top of an underground parking lot that was not necessarily planned to have a building lot may not be what the Chippewa City Land Company wants to spend its money on. So this is what, this, this, this. That means even what the county is suggesting to the land company, I don't know if the land company is going to love that.

So how long is this sector plan going to be

in effect approximately 30 25 to 30 years is the lifespan of a sector so what you're saying is they just built that parking lot and you don't think in the next 20 years they want to rebuild it we were told that they see that now as something that would be very expensive to do and that they've got a lot of other property that they could use more efficiently with their resources to bring residents in and leave that maybe it's something smaller maybe they would think about that being part of a buffer in the green space i don't know But I don't think they're keen on trying to put up a big building.

Okay. So in terms of the recommendation, if we take your recommendation, we ask for more green space and more green space and more green space. And if this is all going to be Wisconsin Avenue high rise, we ask for even more green space and we consider de-annexing it. so that we don't have to police it.

I don't think you want to go on record with that just yet. Well, I guess I am on record. As a board. Yeah, as a board.

The board is a halfway zone, which is Cherokee's Land sells this as lots or series of townhomes, and we take them on. Now we have some new residents in Cherokee's Village on Belmont,

And everything else would be annexed, potentially, because it's office buildings.

There are big opportunities here for the long-term future of the village. So I would urge, again, think creatively long-term about how this could be really advantageous to the village.

And our biggest negotiations are we own this right-of-way right here.

So we- I'm sorry.

Yes, it's an extension of Belmont. Montgomery. I mean Montgomery, sorry. It's an extension of Montgomery. So it's our right of way to allow churches to have to build that circle in the hopes to help them, help the collection become a better shopping center. But that's our big negotiation point there, that that's our right of way. And then here, We just pushed for the most green that we can get.

And building heights, which you probably should talk more about.

I also think the wall should be on the list as well.

The wall remaining or leaving?

Either one. I mean, that's a point of negotiation, and they would much prefer for it to be removed, so it's a piece of work.

Is that the planning staff?

The wall is... Allison, is that the planning staff that you're recommending?

Did the wall be removed? It's a lightning rod.

I heard that they would prefer something that just didn't hear what.

I think that the developer would strongly prefer for the wall to come down.

Even though the developer owns the wall and could tear it down, right?

I'm not clear on the history there, but it seems to be a lightning rod in the discussion.

Yeah. I mean, I think it was a protection for the parking lot. It was a wall around the parking lot when that was a very successful

store and lively parking lot but yeah um but we can't stop them from removing it so the planning staff was the first entity in these conversations to suggest making the term that they originally used is porous to make the the the separation between chevy chase village single family homes and sac slash the collection more porous by opening up points where there could be more pedestrian connection between the village proper and these commercial areas. That could come, as was noted, in various different ways. Porous could be certain sections and entry points. I think the graphic to the right shows where an additional pedestrian connection could be accomplished in some way given the topography. at Center Street instead of the only mid-point entry being at Montgomery Street. So those were the kinds of ideas that they were representing. I think that as Ms. DiGiovanni mentioned, CCLC I think also saw benefits in making that barrier more porous because it would potentially serve to bring more customer traffic into the shopping centers through various different points, rather than being funneled around Oliver to Wisconsin, at Montgomery, or through Western Grove Park around to Western Avenue. So there's been no reason to do it now.

Right, right, right. But for the future, for sure. I mean, add more pedestrian.

Well, Shaina, I do think that you need to evaluate that statement in terms of, you know, we have to look at it more closely. What is the benefit of more porous between the development and Chevy Chase Center and the land company and the village?

And I think that's exactly what the committee is recommending that the board talk about, consider, and make a recommendation or statement about.

We ought to really look at that carefully because I doubt, even if we survey, maybe we have surveyed, I forget, Jonathan, I know you sent up, but I would doubt there is any concern in the village about pedestrian access to shopping at Chevy Chase Land.

What? We know that there's a lot of desire to have retail. The access points question is complicated. I think the other, I would suggest also. There needs to be a cost-benefit.

Yep. What is it? Bring the village. What is it?

Give the village. To that point, I think it's also these details really matter. down in the weeds is really important. That's not all going to happen now, right? This plan might have more in the overlay zone, but I think I would urge the board to think about what's the purpose of all of these different pieces. What purposes are serving for the village long-term, as well as the purpose of these pieces for all the other, for the two other stakeholders.

So the planning committee has only recommended, so Montgomery Street, we have pedestrian access now. The only recommendation is maybe there's a small entry at Center Street and maybe Western Grove Park is expanded so that it's not parking right next to it, but it's more usable open space that spills into the shopping center. I don't think that is a big risk for us.

They are also recommending at Montgomery Street. that the entrance, that the entry point that exists now be opened up in some way, undefined, but be opened up in some way that would further increase that flow. Right now, if you're in the collection, you can't really see that that's a pedestrian entry point until you're right on it. So part of what they're actually suggesting at Montgomery would be a grander entry point, if you will.

For vehicles?

For pedestrians.

All for pedestrians.

This would all be under a very new configuration. But yeah, so they are making a suggestion there as well.

I think having Greater pedestrian access, I don't see a really huge problem with that. I don't know that it's going to serve anybody's interest unless they put stuff over there worth watching to. And we have an interest in seeing them do that, and we should communicate with that. It's kind of a dead space now. It's not a good thing for our community. Having walking distance restaurants, coffee shops, places that we actually want to go to would be huge. I do want to observe, though, the wall. The wall that they're saying is this touch point is a pretty significant negotiating item for us. I mean, it's not that we're going to take down some of their property. They could probably take it down tomorrow, but we could also put one up on our side. And so I think before we give that up, That's a huge negotiating point. And we ought to really know if we want houses fronting on Belmont and Montgomery, because I think it just, it changes the character of things and it changes delivery of services. I hadn't thought about the idea that maybe you could move the village boundaries behind those houses so that they could be incorporated within the village, but the delivery of services to people In office buildings, it just sounds odd to me. And having new residents in our village who are going to want services who are living there, why wouldn't they be able to get access to the two-hour zones that they'd be in? So, I mean, we're going to hear that. And why wouldn't we? They're paying taxes. I think I want to go back. Go ahead.

If we have two-sided violence, I think I think we de-annex what's behind it. I mean, off the top of my head, that makes sense because it's now part of Friendship Heights.

Yeah, we can't know until we see what the plan is. I agree just in principle that that seems to make sense.

Another option is you keep the wall and we de-annex everything on the other side.

So we don't have two-sided Belmont, but then we've lost the negotiation of the step-up.

I get the trade-off.

The step-up. you know, let them have the lower townhouses on Belmont.

Otherwise, they are building taller and closer to Belmont.

And keep in mind, you can de-annex right before they start construction. So you can continue to maintain leverage in controlling what gets built there. You can de-annex at any point. But still achieve what you want as far as, you know, what gets built there.

Right. No, I do think that I think that our recommendation continues to be the step up because otherwise we've got really tall buildings right up against them.

I think it's also worth the board thinking about if we are very firm on the backside, the Belmont side height, that that will likely push for more and a more aggressive ask on the front side. So it's just worth thinking about, like, if you have this or if you have this.

Right.

That toggle.

The front side being Wisconsin.

Yeah. So you could end up winning here and losing here.

But is it losing if it's Wisconsin and we decide to de-annex it? Or is it just what's on the other side of Wisconsin? So Wisconsin has a two-sided thing of tall buildings, and Belmont has a two-sided thing of small buildings.

I just wanted to come back to the, because I think it's a really good discussion and I don't have time to do it tonight, but to continue having this conversation and back to the point of the list of negotiables, right? So the wall would be on there and understanding how that plays out in different scenarios, because I think there is a lot of concern. I think it's because of history that if anybody touches the wall, the village will erupt. I think that's the fear. And that's maybe a good fear for people to have because it might be true. It might be accurate. But it also creates for us the opportunity for a give potentially there in return for some kind of a get is really also what the village really needs to have for the village residents. So that key piece of what is negotiable and what's advantageous for us, I think it's a really important piece to help you all focus going forward.

you can walk through and tell me if I'm right. For reference, when you all think about it, the buildings on the other side of Wisconsin are 200.

As proposed. Not quite yet. They're 150 right now. So they're 150.

And then Somerset House is taller, right? Correct. And it is in the appendices. It will be on the other side of the street, but there's a reference point across the street for 150 and for 250 that you can look at and see what it's going to look like.

And just to build on that, because I also don't know what's planned at the corner of where Tiffany moved from and became Brooks next to the hotel. But that's a proved site, which I understand they're just not financing. I don't know what the heights are there, but that would be also an important factor in what this whole area looks like, which is related to the next point. which although it's in some ways beyond the scope from the committee or the ward or the village, what happens at GEICO is really, really important to what happens here and to the number of pedestrians and traffic and all of that. So I think it does behoove the board to keep an eye on that, not that that's over there and it's therefore not that important to us. It's really important.

Michelle, as a GEICO update, I don't know if it's the right time or not.

Yeah. please sure um the village of friendship heights i believe yesterday filed a lawsuit um over the proposed redevelopment of the geico site and um the the basic argument is that um the geico property had been rezoned many years ago by the county council and has a number of binding elements that limit what can and cannot be done property they are recorded in the land records and that unless and until the binding elements that were associated with that approval are amended through a development process, they cannot do what it is that they're looking to do now just by going through the standard development review process. It was filed yesterday. It's a declaratory judgment. They're asking the court to issue a ruling of law, and in the meantime, they are trying to keep what's happening there from moving forward.

What were they going to do then if they're trying to stop?

There's a number of town homes and I think they're also trying to put in a bit of commercial.

I think it's apartments.

Apartments, yes. I was looking at the complaint but I couldn't really be more specific than that.

I think saving more trees on the site is also an issue that's been cited.

So that's really important, but it's slightly different. We didn't know that was going to happen coming in. So I think we're basically through the list of recommendations, one still up there. And is there, I think I would suggest this has been a good conversation and keep going with it. And again, the opportunities, the negotiable, et cetera. The last point is really more of an internal issue. And we've talked about this in the, The committee, I mean, it's complicated stuff. We've immersed ourselves reasonably well in it. And it's, I think, from the discussions we've had, it's also, I think, a different kind of set of issues because it's dealing with external stakeholders who are stepping up around this. Big staff, big teams hiring all kinds of, folks, and we're the committee of three people. So I think we want to ask the board also to think about how we can function better. We all want to stay engaged and involved, but the way it's happening now is it's not sustainable. And us as volunteers, relative to teams of lawyers and architects and landscape people and whatnot, we're way, way, way, way And the other thing there worth you to consider is the timeline for this is like years. Now, I exaggerate a little bit there, but not really, because it is in the village's interest to really track this thing in a consistent way, not with people coming in and out and in and out and in and out, where they've got long-term knowledge, the other stakeholders, and figuring out how to do that and track it and keep the board up to speed and trying to stay ahead. of where they're at, or at least not fall behind, is a different kind, I think, of challenge for the long-term welfare of the village than in some of the other communities. And I've not served on any of them, but I may be wrong, actually. Could it be correct? But we're asking the board to consider.

Yeah, no, this is big, big stuff. And, Michelle, you've been absolutely terrific. And I heard that we were considering getting somebody who could model this for us, right?

we do think that that would be helpful to have an actual land like a planner yeah who would be hired to do a number of things including some mock-ups that would be mock-ups would be amazing um but also to do shadow studies to determine if these buildings were built where would the shadows be cast on the abutting um property existing properties things of that nature so yes we do um the committee i should say does recommend that the board consider authorizing um hiring a land planner to support the the committee but also by default support the board as you continue to deliberate this yeah no i really appreciate these recommendations and i also think that you know this is a start the zoning board hasn't given us something that's terrible

that the idea that we have open space, open space, open space, a bigger park there. I think that having, though, that planner show us a mock-up of what would Belmont look like with a series of townhouses and this be apartment buildings and office buildings that are no longer part of Chevy Chase Village.

I think most people in Chevy Chase Village don't realize that that the sax building and parking lots are part of the village and are zoned single family people do not know that and so the thing we won't miss it because it's not part of the village really we just want to we want to control how or help guide how it's developed so that it's it's compatible with what we have now and to me the most compatible thing might be A two-sided Belmont that we own and buildings on Wisconsin that are part of Friendship Heights. And we don't police them. Other people do. But I don't know that for sure. And I'd love to see it in a 3D model by some pro who can say, this is what you really want. Of all the possibilities, this possibility is the best thing for Cherry Chase Village.

I just want to build on, thank you for appreciation of the recommendations. Appreciate that. Also to build on the notion of where we are now, these are preliminary. They're not necessarily the scale, et cetera, et cetera. So I think the recommendations are pretty good. We thought about them a lot. We hope that they're useful. But I also think one of the things that I think we've accomplished that I hope the village will maintain is we're in early at this level of detail with this conversation. This is not an envisioning conversation. This is not a public hearing, but we are working collaboratively with both of the other stakeholders, which gives us the opportunity to have these materials and see what they're thinking. And we have other scheduled planning workshops coming up with the other stakeholders. So it's a process that I think we've put in place that has the potential to create really good outcomes.

for the village long term. Yeah.

The land planners are not only good at scaling and drawing, but they also understand the development process. Right. Because they represent a developer, so they understand zoning, they understand .

I mean, I think I hear a consensus in the board that we want to do that in general, but do we know how to find these GDI?

We do. Michelle's got her finger on the pulse. I'd love to see three different models that show You know, okay, what if we take all the possibilities? And, you know, we give up this in order to get that.

And the other advantage of a land planter is that, you know, we have what park and planning has envisioned, and we're reacting to that. But a land planter might look at this and, have other ideas to bring to us that we just don't even know to consider.

And Michelle, can I just jump on that point too? Planning has told us many times sector plan is a broad blueprint, right? And so some of the decisions you're talking about are assumptions on townhouses, et cetera. Those are down the road after plan adoption by CCLC and others. So I guess, again, if we could have that laid out or discuss that further with the board, because some of the things we're not going to know now before we have the plan adopted. Some of the things you're talking about are assumptions. It may or may not be true, but CCLC has had all kinds of trouble with the current process and what's there. So just for that caveat, because planning is mentioned a couple of times, there's only so specific they're going to get. And we do need to be a little careful about our assumptions because some of those decisions are actually non-governmental decisions, CCLC, by a private company later, which is why you're bringing them in as a stakeholder.

Yeah, and I appreciate the recommendation that we get the president of the land company in, because maybe they do have a mock-up of what they think would be perfect, and it would be great to see it.

And I'm not a land planner at all, but the other way that this might be helpful for the board is to do some tabletop stuff with land. You could actually see what the board likes. It's done and might be really helpful.

yeah you know the other the other idea there's a friendship heist alliance which really represents all the developers in friendship fights and it might be interesting it's headed up by a very talented lady might be interested in hearing from her because she would have a comprehensive understanding of what donahoe is doing what jbj's land is doing but the geico people are doing so it might be worth

asking her we have we have we have talked with her she's a friend of a friend so we can bring her yeah but i think her perspective in terms of giving an overview of what's and the more convenient type activities we do the better our position is in conversations relationships and the people that we've been working with seem very open and their their goal is also not to create you know a firestorm they want to see something happen that works

Right, and it's before our time, but Michelle, again, as the lawyer here, there was an adversarial process, I understand, last time, which resulted in litigation, which has started at Friendship Heights now, so people are trying to avoid that, so now's their chance to avoid that, working together, but that's always on the table, too, and Friendship Heights pulled the trigger on that with Geico, so Montgomery County planning has to answer that, you know, so that's another warning sign, too, for as we start the process here.

So if I can just kind of help steer us to... coalescing around some direction for this evening. So part of this presentation from the committee is to get the board to now come to some positions and recommendations that you will then transmit back to the planning staff in response to the preliminary recommendations. So this will be essentially the village board's first bite of the apple and your opportunity to speak to the planning staff on behalf of the village in regard to some of the points that have been discussed today. To be clear, the board can be silent on certain areas that have been discussed and that have been recommended. You can side with some of the recommendations that have been presented by the committee. You can go in a different direction than what the committee has recommended. But we should go through maybe not in all of the detail that was just laid out by the committee, but we should go through and just make sure that we have a very clear sense of what you want transmitted to the planning staff so that we can begin to articulate that in a letter that will then be circulated for the board. The planning staff has asked for those comments by the end of next week because they are finalizing the working draft of the sector plan that will then be released in June. There will be two public meetings. As of when the committee's report went out, there were two dates that were set. The planning staff has pulled back on those dates because one of them conflicts with both the Village Boards meeting as well as the Council for the Village of Friendship Heights. So they are looking at finalizing two dates, but they will be in June, and that is when the staff will be issuing the working draft after which the village board will have another opportunity to present comments on that working draft before it goes to the planning board. So if we could just take a minute to just kind of.

Does anybody have a problem with essentially these committees recommendations to be?

Okay, well let's just label them. So we like the recommendation that we have more space than they have originally. more than the 10%, right? So we like to advocate for more green space. I mean, I don't remember any recommendation that I didn't like. I liked the lowering of the maximum heights that they proposed.

So let's just be very specific on that to make sure that everyone's on the same page. The proposal for heights from the planning department is 100 feet. I'm going to go north to south. On the Saks property, they're proposing 45 foot heights along Oliver and Belmont that would stair step up to 60 and then 100. as you get closer to Wisconsin Avenue. So it gets bigger like this. Correct. The committee has recommended and agreed with the 45 foot height along Oliver and Belmont. So you're stepping up to 60, but instead of 100 closer to Wisconsin, they're recommending 80, understanding the point that Mr. Crockett highlighted earlier that bonus densities could allow CCLC to achieve up to 100 feet.

Yeah, so they could start at 80 but get some bonus points in order for them to get to 100.

To incentivize things that the community might want in order to achieve that 100 foot height. Okay, next. So does the committee,

Right, no, I agree. So I was going to say that anybody, members of the public should submit in writing what you want us to include. That we'll get a preliminary draft based on these recommendations that you can read on the website. You give us more. We'll work with you to incorporate those into our recommendations. So, but yeah.

Excuse me, can I?

It's not, the problem is it's not a public meeting.

We who live on the 5,400 block of Grove Street have endured not only pre-home invasions, and on our property alone, we intruders, I taught in the act of it and had great rapport with the Village police and they came, they endured the fire at the Mormon church. We endured the construction across Western Avenue with all of the contractors parking on our street. We have endured a great deal. And I ask that if you would continue to advocate for those of us on the most southwestern point of the village, we'd be ever so grateful. We're so grateful for all that you are doing now. But we are really at risk.

So it would be great for you to put in writing any additional things that you would like us to.

But you're talking about. This area right here at the end of the bumper. We are right at the park. And we're also the grateful recipients of access to Western Grove Park. But we are at risk. We are really at risk. And we had to go as far as installing an electric driveway gate to protect our children and our grandchildren. And we let the village be

want to you know take all the benefits and and give back to the village but i ask that you all continue to advocate for all of us absolutely so once again all public members of the public who want to give us feedback we welcome it in writing and as we get this letter together we will take into consideration all of these wonderful points so thank you

Next. So I just want to make sure that we have a clear sense of the board when it comes to the north property, current sacks, 45 feet along the eastern edge bordering Belmont and on the northern edge bordering Oliver. Sarah's stepping up to 60. Sarah's stepping up to 80 for the buildings fronting Wisconsin Avenue. Yeah. There's agreement across the board for that? Yes. Okay. Then as you get to the southern edge, or what's currently the collection south of Montgomery Street, the proposal from planning is 60 feet along the east side of the property of budding the buffer and 200 feet along the entire length of budding Wisconsin Avenue.

So the... Yeah, that's for everybody. They want to make this part really big. because this is where the metro is.

And along the corridor of Wisconsin Avenue.

Yeah, right. So the massive is going to be here. Like you said, the tent pole, this is going to be big, and then everything towards us will get small, right? Not sure we're going to be able to negotiate this down very much.

So the specific committee recommendation, the specific committee recommendation is to agree to the 60 in, let me just, maybe it's a Yeah. So to agree to the 60-foot height budding the buffer, which would extend this buildable area and here, and then instead of 200 feet essentially north of Center Street, they recommended 170 feet. Then south of Center is where CCLC could achieve the 200 foot height along Wisconsin Avenue, still 60 along Butler. And then the planning department has proposed 250 feet foot height for what is currently two Wisconsin circle, which the committee also supports, but then for the buildable area here along Western Avenue to stair step down to no greater than 170.

Just if I can add to that.

I'm sorry, it's not a public meeting. We've got to get through this, and you should put your things in writing.

All members of the public should put it in writing, and we will take it under advisement for the purposes of this letter.

Shannon, do you want to finish?

I just want to make sure, because it's cut up into various different pieces, So just to be clear, eastern side 60, western side along Wisconsin Avenue from 170 up to 200, then up to 250 once you get to two Wisconsin circle, basically at the intersection of Wisconsin Avenue and Western Avenue. And then again, stair stepping down as you get closer to Western Grove Park to 170 feet.

Right, but still the buildable area doesn't go to the park. Correct. And there's a widening of the area.

I think the suggestion that I just heard is that they may be shading the park out of existence.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think.

How tall is this now? 45. No.

We don't have anything close to that. Office building.

The office building, right? 70 feet.

The current building, oh, the Wisconsin Circle is over 200 feet. Yeah, so we've got over 200 feet.

The office building, yeah.

Correct, to Wisconsin Circle.

And we're stepping down, and we're expanding the park. Well, we're adding open space where there's parking right now.

Right. I think it's really important, particularly for the southern part. We're talking about the concern with Stephanie I think it's really important to get a land planner in here that understands zoning because this is a very sensitive side. And I'll tell you, you don't start higher and then back down from there. So I think we need the input to really look at the scale of those buildings and figuring out what's best from the neighborhood in the village. I would concede. I would not concede to 200%.

If I'm not mistaken, the motivation behind those numbers is that we don't think we have any leverage.

Is that right?

The motivation behind the recommendation, yes, is that if we take the tent pole concept, they're going to want to build on the Wisconsin corridor at the metro. The leverage that we have is getting that to really decline as it heads up to the park, and as it heads north.

I think we ought to get input, particularly for this. When you're talking about townhouses along Belmont, you've got three stores, and going back from there makes sense, but ceding high density along Westford, you know, hitting the wall just doesn't make sense right now.

I think the board has options. You can either say you're not in a position to weigh in on the heights right now. I think if you don't weigh in on the heights, they're going to move forward with the heights as they propose them. Or the board could say that we think these heights are too high and we want lower. And if you're not comfortable putting an actual number in your letter to the planning staff, you can speak generally to your uncomfortability with the current proposed heights and that you feel that they should be lower. I think the committee has given you food for thought and food for consideration in regard to what that does as far as leverage for the rest of the property. But that's absolutely a position that you can take. I have a suggestion, if I may. Okay, go ahead.

So I think we're thinking that this needs to get resolved in a week, right? As requested by planning staff, yes. So that's a lot, right? This is a big set of things. Now, it's not the final opportunity we'll have, but it's a pretty important opportunity. to take advantage of. We can certainly ask, now Tara and the folks at the planning team pushed back the dates for the hearings with the public. Maybe we ask them, we tell them that the board is now actively in discussion about this, and we ask them, can you give us another 10 days? Maybe they say no, maybe they say okay. I don't know what they'll say. But I think it's worth asking because this is not something that we would want to rush through Maybe we can get a land planner to not do the whole piece now, but give us some more insight. If we buy ourselves 10 days, we might be able to, we might not, I don't know, but I think it's worth considering that as an option.

Yeah. Let's push for getting a letter, but also push for an extension and find out what that really means and what it really just waive our input. I mean, we don't want to not submit a letter and waive our input. I'm comfortable with, the recommendations, but if other people don't like those heights or think that it's wrong, then I think we should just say, we are not comfortable with the heights that you've proposed, and we're getting a land use person to help us give you our feedback on that, if we can't come up with the exact heights in a week. Does anybody?

Without directly addressing the leverage comment, we believe there's some level of inevitability, as we all did here, that this proceeds. And so these are places that might be reasonable to end up. So to David's point, we might consider taking a very restrictive stance with these recommendations in mind still as the end goal. But I think what you all need to develop is a strategy around how we end up somewhere, not start somewhere.

Let's just play this through in the timing for a second here. And I don't know the dates that you mentioned, Shane, off the top of my head in terms of postponing the public hearing.

June 8th is no longer a meeting, right?

Correct. That creates an opportunity. We have another stakeholders meeting on the 28th. That brings the three stakeholder groups together. We might be able to tell them, look, we can make that a really valuable meeting for you if you give us, if that is also the date on which you will let us provide comments that still have real meaning. That's a reasonable alignment of something that's already on the books, something they've already scheduled so that we don't have to do this.

There's no reason not to ask for an extension. That's a good idea. But we should also be preparing our letter and getting the input from the community and forging ahead so that we're not left behind.

And in that particular case of that 250-foot height, a reason other than we just don't like it to be that tall would be very helpful.

Yeah.

Specific, Ruth.

Well, yeah. I mean, it's a jointly owned park, so Montgomery County should care about their park, too. But anyway.

so beyond the building heights i think the other pieces that we should get the board's feedback on are um the concept of a more porous connection to the village and this pedestrian connectivity um question that has been raised uh without i don't think the board needs to weigh in on the specifics that have been outlined here But it was my sense, and committee, please jump in here, that the planning staff was looking to get a better sense of the village's position on the porous nature of the connection between the village and these properties.

So it's very hard to say anything about this because we don't know anything about this. We have more experience with the collection. You know, we've got that opening there. And we've got right now, there's a circle here that allows pedestrian traffic. And they're saying, allow the pedestrian traffic. This kind of circle's going away for those people. They're proposing that we get rid of it.

It's one option that's on the table, but not a finite plan.

Yeah. Yes. So in terms of forests where there's Retail. I mean, I'd like to go look at Center Street again.

I think the other language that might be helpful, and of course, it was brought up a while ago, but pardon me for the blank, more dynamic interface. There's more flow back and forth, but there's more.

There can be flow if there's something to go to. I understand that. We should get the land company president.

There's nothing that would make me happier than to be flowing forestly into that property. There's nothing to go to. The language I was suggesting only is that if one focuses on there is a wall, can we make a wall in the forest? The other focus is on the spirit of doing something that works well for everybody.

I suggest that it would be reasonable at this point to say we are not necessarily against doing things to that wall or making it more forced. However, it just depends on exactly that. When there's something we're going to see, we won't stand in the way.

We're happy to have

Right. Plus it's way too vague. I mean, to make it more porous, what the heck is that? It's like, that's so vague.

I think examples of what that would look like are really, would be really.

Right. Shana, have they talked about getting rid of Wisconsin Circle? Where all the traffic go down Western, take a right on Wisconsin. Is that their concept?

So if you look at the, um, They're basically suggesting that as an illustrative concept that would be subject to CCLC approval would be eliminating Wisconsin Circle, essentially Montgomery County would abandon that to the developer, and then a new street, whether it's privately owned or publicly controlled, would enter in from essentially to the west of the current entrance into the shopping center, and would then carry you directly over to Wisconsin at Willard. So you would essentially still come out at the same point that you do today, but it would be more of a right angle turn rather than that semicircular pattern that you currently travel on today to get onto Wisconsin Circle.

So just as a comment on the traffic setting, I can understand Wisconsin Circle is somewhat is functional, and they changed the turning on Wisconsin that made it even more difficult, because they stopped the right-hand turn. But we've got to consider that if all the flows of traffic going to Wisconsin, coming west on Western, were to take a right there, the backup on Western Avenue in the morning is going to block not just Kirkside. It already does. But we've got to consider the traffic impacts of moving a major light that would provide a right turn access to this. It could be horrendous. I mean, it could back all the way. It already backs halfway towards 34th Street in the morning. And trying to get past that one light where you can't. It's just something we ought to think about.

And this is so high in the sky because Charity's Land owns this and built a parking garage under it. And you just said that in speaking to them, they even wanted get rid of their parking garage.

Yeah, this is very illustrative. And one of the things that they noted is that they're trying to be responsive to WMATA's concerns about the current bus terminal. It's not meeting WMATA's needs.

And their safety issue.

Yes, and the current building configuration for 2 Wisconsin Circle is not meeting CCLC or those businesses' needs. And so the idea is that configuration needs to go away and be improved. And this was just meant to reflect an option that could happen there. But this is not a concept that they're proposing for the sector plan. This was just an illustrative plan to show how that could be reconfigured.

Why are we commenting on what's hypothetical? We should not be commenting on that piece.

Yeah, we're commenting only because they invited us in to share their thoughts with us and respond. The other issue with this traffic In terms of this, again, the phrase we've been using is transitional. What does that look like? If that is agreed to and they really want to do that, that narrows the opportunity to expand the park. This could become the barrier that makes this tiny. We need to be very careful. That's not a way of limiting the park space moving in to the CCLC property.

Yeah. Okay. So maybe the letter has to say we're concerned about traffic backing up on Western Avenue to get rid of Terry T's. Oh, you don't want to comment on Terry T's circle, the circle at Wisconsin Circle at all.

It's out of the preliminary recommendations.

All right.

And then, sorry, then I think we also should just, in recognition, as the committee raised, that GEICO is certainly something that the Village should be continuing to monitor the developments. We're just opposing the question, does the Board want to say anything more specifically about the GEICO, portion of the sector plan in this initial write-up.

We're not suggesting that you need to- I don't have enough knowledge to make a recommendation about the DICO area. Does anybody? No. No.

We don't know what's happening there. How can we help?

No.

Michelle, were there any other areas of the recommendations that I missed, or committee members, are there any other areas of your recommendations that I missed that we should get board feedback on in this letter?

I think one question is whether we want retail on Oliver or Belmont, the restriction on retail.

So the committee recommendation, just as a reminder, is we want no retail directly abutting Oliver or Belmont to preserve the residential character of those two streets.

Yeah, those two streets feel like village streets, whereas Wisconsin feels like Friendship Heights Street. So I think that we're in agreement with that.

Yes.

Part of this recommendation, are we supporting and making it an important ? That was actually the next question. I thought we already agreed to that. If we're gonna take down the wall or allow it to be taken down, we should get a strong overlay for that. And on this taking down the wall, is that a planning board recommendation? Do we know if the land company even wants to do that? But it's not in the section

It's not in the preliminary recommendations. It's only what has been verbalized by the staff. Yeah, it's just been a side discussion.

It's been a side discussion. It's hard to have successful account homes with a law in front of them, so it's come up, but it's not in the subsector plan.

Which doesn't mean we can't comment on it.

Right. I think it's fair to say that from planning staff's perspective, having low density and residential facing low density residential on those residential streets makes a lot of sense. The way they've drawn it, you can see they've got townhouses facing existing single family homes on that left image there. And if you're going to take that approach, it's hard to do that if there's a wall. Because if you're going to put them behind the wall, it will.

I get that.

So I do think that They have been, I think that's their preference, and I think that's really the context where the wall is starting to come up for discussion.

Yeah, and I just suggested in the letter that we say we're not unalterably opposed to taking the wall down. It depends on precisely what's on the overlay, the size of this property.

I think we're giving up a lot. We should get a lot for it.

They're not making a proposal here, though. It was really keep Montgomery but make it better and add pedestrian here and here to get people into the shopping center, into the collection. It's not to get people into this residential apartment building.

But I just heard that the people that they've been talking to are concerned about that wall because you can't really put townhouses there if there's a wall.

But that's not what they drew.

Well, it doesn't matter.

Well, it's what they drew there.

Yeah, I mean, what they drew at the bottom. Yeah, that doesn't happen if the wall is there, period. So I think we want to signal that we're not.

The wall is not here if this is a stepped-up situation, unless the wall is behind the townhouses, and we've de-annexed what's on Wisconsin.

So can you put it in writing?

Because we have to keep going. No, I don't want to say it.

We've already done it. Okay.

Yeah, so we need to get the land planner sooner rather than later. Yeah.

Okay, and then there were other comments from the committee about supporting varied retail and things of that nature. It sounds like there's general board support for those things that we can also incorporate into the letter. They're not formal positions necessarily, but more so.

You mean retail generally?

Correct. Not finding one to Belmont and Oliver, but just supporting varied retail elsewhere across the two properties, as well as the concept that was mentioned earlier of retail along the... essentially current rear of the Amazon, former Amazon Fresh building.

The town of Chevy Chase has got a vape shop, but we don't have one. We didn't.

In addition to a vape shop, I think we have a strong interest in the commercial success of that property. And I think if there were a way that they could create some community space there that with these new access points, people in the village would actually like to walk through and go to those places and linger in those places and have a sense of community. That would be an enormous benefit for us.

But you don't want to hang out in the parking lot?

Not entirely.

No, you don't. They keep trying to do that.

I know. They keep having those movies in the parking lot. All right. So I think we have a sense of the board there.

And the main thing, let's get the land use person right away so we get some visuals and some help on doing and we'll get input from the community on this letter that we're gonna do and we'll see if we can get an extension on the letter as well if that's doesn't waive our you know best input yeah yeah getting in and writing during this phase is important but having an additional time okay All right, so once again, public comments or questions should be submitted by emailing the village office.

And... Me?

Yeah. Okay. My happy place at the moment is home, so I move we adjourn.

Thank you all for your 30 meetings.

Yeah, thank you all so very much. And we're going to keep plugging along on this. Thank you all.