Board of Managers - Regular Meeting

This conference will now be recorded.

Board of managers, you've got me presiding this evening. Our chair, Alyssa Leonard, is in transit this evening. She may be joining remotely still. But meanwhile, you've got the pleasure of my trying to kind of live up to her example this evening. And we've got an exciting agenda with a number of topics of great interest, I think, to cover. With that, I'm calling the meeting to order and let me see if we might also approve the minutes of two recent meetings, the executive session on June 8th, 2026, as well as the regular monthly meeting. And might I hear a motion?

I move to approve the minutes of the board of managers executive session regular monthly meeting held on June 8th, 2026 as drafted.

Second. All in favor?

Aye. Aye. Ms. Willard is due up.

Terrific. Okay, and then moving on from that, from the approval of minutes of our previous meetings, on to the Trader Report here.

Previously, when we have gotten income tax, income tax receipts from the state. We've had better than expected results. We've got our final one for the year and I'm afraid this time it's better than expected again. So when you add all these things up, our income tax receipts are about 50% more than we budgeted for. And they're about 30% more than we budgeted for As usual, there's very little that we can glean from that in terms of wisdom and what to expect. To the extent that they reflect economic conditions at all, it's mostly the economic conditions of two years ago that these affect. And some of the money that came into this last tranche from 2022, because the state keeps back 10% or something, just trying to keep municipalities from getting bad surprises. Anyway, for whatever reason, we got lots more than we expected to, and so the original deficit that was planned in the budget is certainly not going to happen. So we'll fake the surprise on that, yes.

Gary, we're disappointed, but we'll overlook it.

Well done. Somebody had to give you the news.

Thank you.

Moving on to appeals, special permit and variance request, and in particular, case A-2933 regarding public tree removal for Mr. James I don't know if I'm pronouncing it correctly. Ms. Bernice Ferreiro at the 104 Newlands. And with that, really, please.

Thank you. The applicants in case number A-2933, Mr. and Mrs. Todoro of 104 Newlands Street seek to remove three trees currently located in the Newlands Street public right-of-way adjacent to their home to accommodate a proposed private driveway. The three trees sought for removal were planted by the previous owner of the property and include one southern magnolia measuring 12 inches in diameter, one cryptomeria measuring nine inches in diameter, and one wood measuring three inches in diameter. The property does not currently have a private driveway. The proposed driveway would extend into the property at 106 Newlands, creating a circular driveway configuration across both properties. The applicants contend that removal of the trees is necessary to accommodate the proposed driveway to improve accessibility to the house as the applicants seek to age in place. The applicants state that there is no other location for the driveway where they could avoid removal of existing trees in the public right of way. Identifying the location for the driveway is further constricted by a power pole in the public right-of-way adjacent to the property. The trees are currently located behind a fence and there is no sidewalk along the street frontage of this area. The applicants have obtained the required roadside tree removal permits from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources for the removals, which is required for any elective removals of trees located in the public right-of-ways in Maryland. The tree committee has received notice of the request, but has not yet provided a response. To date, no opposition or support has been received from Abundant Neighbors. However, the adjacent property at 106th Street is owned by the applicant's daughter, and she has expressed her approval. The village arborist has reviewed the location of the rated forestation trees and has approved the plan. The applicants are present.

here with us today so uh and and i'm happy to answer any questions um that the board the board may have when is the tree committee gonna when would you get there so um they are so they're not obligated to comment um and so since we have not received comment from them in time for this evening's hearing i do not anticipate that we will receive formal comment from them

Is this square with any precedents?

Is this an unprecedented situation?

No, there's multiple precedents for projects to remove trees in the village for driveways and for other projects as well.

And one thing I would just highlight, Aurelio mentioned it, but just to reinforce that these were also trees that were planted by the prior owner of the property, this particular lot. had been subject to some resubdivisions and new home build, et cetera, and some various different changes over the years. And so as a part of a prior landscape plan by the previous owners, these trees were put in. These were not trees that the village planted.

Sorry, I cut you off. And they have come up with a plan to replace all three trees in the right of way, and they're located here in this plan. two smaller trees on the left side, and then that larger one on the right, two black gums, and that trees to now.

I guess I would comment that the special circumstances in this case, combined with the precedence from similar cases, this is one of the easiest ones I've ever seen. And I'd be happy to move to approve the public treatment is as requested in case A-2933 to accommodate a proposed private trial. Second. All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? Five yes, no opposed. Motion is approved.

Sounds good. I want to thank you all for being here today. And also to kind of add, unfortunately, my husband is here.

He was next month.

I don't want to take any of your time. I just wanted to say that thank you all for being here and for considering this application. We live, as you noted, as was noted, next to our daughter. And my husband and I have lived there for 11 years now. Unfortunately, my husband has a diagnosis of both dementia and Parkinson's, so he's wheelchair-restrictor bound. So we are just really looking forward to having some access for him to get to the street and get in the car. And it's very difficult otherwise, especially for me. I all summer long was saying I'm knocking on the door of 80, but I passed that. I went through the door the other day. So I know it's okay. So anyway, so I'm just really hoping that we can stay where we are. We love the village and we love being near our daughter and her children and husband, but the wheelchair access is a real problem. So thank you.

Thank you for coming in and belated happy birthday.

Thank you. I know.

Okay, we got one more. The applicants in case number A8696A and B, Mr. and Mrs. McDaniel of 46 Grafton Street, seek to maintain a fence measuring six feet and seven inches in height. An administratively issued building permit was approved to replace a prior fence, which has been installed pursuant to an approved variance and special permit in cases A5890 and A5891 for a maximum height of six feet. The applicant seek from the Board of Managers special permit for the portions located in the Cedar Parkway public right-of-way and a variance for the portions of the fence located on private property forward of the 25-foot building restriction line. In December, 2024, the applicants were issued a village permit, building permit for the income installed by the current applicants, but after receiving a complaint from a passerby, village staff confirmed that the fence exceeded the approved height by seven inches. The applicants acknowledged that the fence was not installed consistent with the issued building permit and stated in their application that the oversight occurred when they agreed to additional elements proposed by their contractor, including a one-inch trim board along the top and decorative caps on the posts. The historic preservation commission has approved the fence as constructed. And over the weekend, the applicant submitted confirmation that the maximum fence height is now six foot six inches. And these supplemental materials have been added to the record and were circulated to the board prior to the meeting. The six foot seven inch height was initially measured by staff in September, 2025. While there are case precedents for board authorizations of variances and special permits for fences in front yards in the public right-of-way on properties abutting streets with a high volume of traffic, staff has confirmed that fences along Cedar Parkway are generally set further back from the adjacent sidewalk and the highest fence authorized along Cedar Parkway measures six feet, two inches. To date, no objections to the request has been received. and letters of support for the as-built fence were submitted by three abutting neighbors. The applicants are online virtually. And again, I'm happy to answer any questions the board may have.

Can we let the applicants speak? And I don't know if Mr. or Ms. McDaniel.

Mr. McDaniel is on the virtual.

Yeah, if you'd like to take a minute to kind of describe the situation, if you would.

And if not, that's okay too. Mr. McDaniel, if you can accept the unmute request.

I thought I was unmuted.

There we go. We can hear you.

Well, now I'll go back to my confession. So I'm the root of the problem. I did agree to the the decorative crap caps and the trim board, which I didn't think just didn't even think about it. So trying to figure out my options, looked around the neighborhood and did see that other fences were in excess of six feet. So decided to appeal and did so on the grounds of, for the same reason that the permit was, was granted 25, 20, 25 years ago. But I think the real issue is the fence is not six feet, seven inches. There is one out of 140 linear feet and 18 or 24 by four posts with a decorative cap. There's one, I believe that is measured six feet, seven inches. So that's a good issue. So I'm sorry, go ahead.

What does the rest measure?

Everything is under six and a half feet. The fence itself is less than six and a half feet. It's the four by fours with the trim board and the decorative cap that get it predominantly above six feet.

And this was... just a contractor question to you and kind of an inadvertent seeding of the maximum height.

Oh, yeah. I bought the old last minute upsell, which seemed like a good idea to me, and I honestly didn't think through the consequences.

If I could offer a few issues on the topic. This strikes me as a tough one. First, because I think there's no precedent for a fence of this height along Cedar Parkway. I believe there's two other fences, Aurelio, that are at six foot two inches going back some time.

Yeah, there are two fences. I have them written down.

Six foot two inches was maybe the highest being confirmed as built.

Yeah. And was that the height of the fence or the height of the cap?

To the height of the cap, the max height.

So the fence was probably six feet.

It may have been we the villages policy is that we measure the maximum height of a fence to its highest element Whereas the county does afford decorative elements above the approved or issued height It runs along Cedar Parkway, correct So it is from Grafton Street to to the point aligned with the rear property line for the property at 46 Grafton.

And so lacking a specific precedent, but at the same time, this would be precedent setting. There's not a clear hardship other than the expense or inconvenience of correcting the height, if I'm correct. It might also be worth noting, just from my observation, that this is right up against the sidewalk, right up against the right-of-way, and I think that in the rare case where any part of the fence has exceeded six feet, there's been some distance between the fence and the right-of-way. And then lastly, just for clarity, the Historic Preservation Commission is a county body which has more liberal height standards than the village. So their approval of a six foot five fence need not prejudice the village's approach to its longstanding regulations capping a fence height at six feet. So I think that's just important to call out for my fellow board members that distinction of what the Historic Preservation Commission says versus the village's rules. I'll stop there and please other questions and comments.

I agree with your observations. I think it, you know, it is concerning to your point that you start having people want six, nine fences. Yeah, it's too bad. I'm just wondering whether taking the decorative caps off at least gets it back to arguably 6-2, which is the precedent, right?

6-2 is the precedent. Six feet is what this body has previously approved for this property and what the original building permit was issued for. The additional two inches is just the highest as-built measurement that we were able to find for any other fence along Seattle.

One more time, what is the address of that

Could I ask the owners there, have you talked to your contractor about the feasibility of cutting this back down to the right size?

We did talk early on. There's probably a way to do it. It wouldn't I mean, there's got to be a way to do it. If you've got a saw and a hammer and nails, I'm sure they could cut off the decorative caps and perhaps remove the trim board. And I'm 99% sure Aurelio could probably back me up. That would get it to six feet, two inches. I think just cutting off the four by fours with the caps would do it. I'm not sure about the trim board. I'd have to ask Aurelio and go out and measure as well.

Yeah, it would be very close at that point. Yeah, I think when I measured it, most of the fence above, the added fence is what took it above, right? So the fence was six foot and then the portal on the top and the extra posts are what take it above. That's correct.

Any further board comment?

How far is the six-tooth fence from the right-of-way? This is right up abutting the sidewalk.

I think all others would have at least a five to like an eight-foot between, you know, a curve. Most of them, or some of them, I'm sorry, don't have sidewalks. So there's, you know, we always ask for a six-foot distance between a fence and a curb. This is one where typically we would ask for three feet, but it was approved at some other point, you know, to be in its current location. So the gap between the sidewalk and the fence is? It's like maybe a foot. Mr. McCaffrey, would you agree with that, about a foot between the sidewalk?

Yeah, no more than a foot and a half.

Well, that was part of the prior board decision to allow that, correct? Correct. That is something that the board had to allow because normally it would not be allowed.

And just to clarify for Mr. Goodman, the fence at 29 Hesketh, there is no public sidewalk along that block, and the fence is considerably set back from the right-of-way. Aurelio has been out, you said, 8 to 9 feet roughly. It could be even more than that, but it's considerably set back.

Did I hear correctly that this came to our attention because somebody was walking along the sidewalk and said, hey, this looks too bad? Correct.

Just offering my own observation, before I had awareness of the case walking down that street, this fence did attract my attention as well. I mean, it's a fairly abrupt... It's a fairly abrupt... fixture as you're going down the sidewalk on caesar parkway so speaking from my point of view that i am very wary of a precedent that would allow fences of this height exceeding the six foot maximum um especially this close um to the right of way but i think at the end of the day the operative concern is the six foot height maximum which this board has been very consistent

I'm usually exposed to these kinds of things to find a way to allow it. But I'm scratching my head here. Yeah.

Lou, I concur with your view of it. I think Mr. McDaniel talked about obviously the contractor way beyond what's permitted to. I think you should try to bring it back in. It looks like I'm not a fence guy. It could be done maybe with a thinner board on the top.

Knowing that a lot of times when these things get installed, my observation of seeing a lot of fence construction in the neighborhood, it's not uncommon that the fence gets installed and then they just cut it off at the intended height. Of course, this is a finished project, so it's a little more complicated than that, but it might not be an extreme hardship to correct this. But with that, is there a motion? All in favor of the motion denying 4, 5, it sounds like.

Ms. Willard as well.

Yeah, okay, good. No dissent from that. Mr. McDaniel, sorry for that outcome, though I think you've got some voices of experience, especially in the village and with Aurelia, that help find the most expeditious way to correct this. But thank you for coming in this evening and I'm sorry it wasn't the outcome.

I'll work with him and get it done. Good night. Thank you, Keith.

Thank you, everybody.

and on from appeals and permits and variances to other matters of board discussion, including a Friendship Heights sector plan update. And I think we've got some special presenters.

While staff is doing some musical chairs here, we'll just officially welcome Our new land planner approved by the board, I believe it was just last month. We really hit the ground running here, John. John Marklin has been very active with us over the last month, getting fully up to speed on the current state of the Montgomery Planning Department's rewrite of the Friendship Heights Sector Plan, as well as orienting himself to the village. had an in-depth walking tour of the western edge of the village, of the current sites on the collection property and SACS properties. And so this evening, John is going to be providing a general overview of where we are today, what has been released from the planning department, the images that John has created to help represent in more of a 3D fashion, what is being recommended by the planning department, and then to talk about next steps in the county's review process of the sector plan. I also just want to note that helping along with John has been our zoning attorney, Michelle Rosenfeld, who is here as well. And again, she has been very active in helping us get to the point where we have the materials here to present to you this evening. So I will turn things over to John.

Thank you, Shanna. So my background is I'm a landscape architect and land planner, 30 years experience. I spent 30 of those years, 15 of those years working for the planning department. So I used to head up master plans. So I'm very familiar with the process. That said, let's move on. So these two slides are the planning department's recommendations. building massing height placement connectivity parks public spaces and connections and i'm not going to go over each one of these bullets but i will cover them in the following presentation what i want to note is there's been some concern for the community that this is the last opportunity this is up to this point that we have no more opportunities for the community to weigh in And I want to correct that. The planning department will be presenting to the planning board on Thursday the recommendations. And when the planning board, if they approve, and probably will approve a planning board draft, then the record's open for comment from the public. It's 30 days, typically 30 days. I think the first hearing is on the 10th, September. So you have that 30 days to write in. uh to the planning department and when i was at the planning department we started reviewing those comments as soon as they came in so i recommend that the community begin to write not wait till the last minute the second opportunity is at the plan hearing itself they have a public hearing there's two public hearings the 10th and the 14th i believe so either in person or virtually village village meeting excuse me I'm sorry.

I think they need to mute someone who's online right now.

Okay. And then the third opportunity is when the planning department has their work sessions, funding board rather, has their work sessions. After they make the recommendation, they send it up to the county council, at which point the county council has their own public hearings. And as the community member can reach out to their county council member, the one who represents them in this district, and there are four at-large county council members, and they do listen. So those are three or four opportunities along the process. So there's no worries for the community. There's plenty of opportunities to make themselves heard. So these slides show the Planning Department's draft height and density recommendations that came out last week. So you have 100 feet along the Sachs property, jumping up to 150, to 200, and to 250 at the very southern end where the metro station is. And then this slide on the right shows the proposed densities. And I think you're all familiar with these slides. This is the urban design diagram. So basically, it shows how they propose to lay out the blocks and the roads. So the buildings would be in this light tan area. The streets would basically cut through here, here, and here. And then the yellow arrows indicate the pedestrian access. And they're presently proposing pedestrian access here where one exists today at Montgomery Street. An additional access point here adjacent to Center Street and another third access at Western Grove Park going up that 15 to 20 foot grade. This is a plan that I did based on that recommendation, their layout. So I wanted to see, I wanted to show you how this would look in three dimensions, the massing diagram. So I'm showing the step ups. the streets, and the open spaces. Can you see more of this coming up?

What are you assuming about the SACS building? Excuse me? Are you assuming that the SACS building is going to go away?

Yes. This is a slide from the Planning Department draft recommendations that came out on that. John, the SACS building does have a longer 25-year lease.

Yes, that Chevy Chase.

That's correct. This is assuming they've resolved those issues. This is all in the future. This is the ultimate buildup. So I'm not addressing some legal issues about this thing.

This is kind of a worst case scenario. If the Sachs building stayed there, it would be lower in height than some of what you're showing us here.

Oh, nothing would happen.

Yeah, yeah.

So yeah, this is the full build-up. Now, of course, the Sachs property will probably happen first, I'm assuming, because it's open, this parking lot, assuming they have an arrangement with the Sachs property to deal with that, what is it, an easement?

Agreed. And I think it's also fair to say that because of where the building is situated on the property, It's also appropriate to assume that they are not going to try to incorporate that physical structure into whatever their new development is. It should be expected that they're likely to demolish that building, very likely to pursue below-grade parking structures of some sort, and then build on the surface.

Shana, is that an historic building?

No.

No. When was it built?

In the 50s. In the 50s. Not as far as Montgomery County is concerned.

And the value of the building and the parking lots on each side is such that one would expect pretty aggressive negotiations to resolve the tenant issues with the Chevy Chase Land Company, such that something's going to happen sooner than when that lease . And the timeframe here, so at the outside edge, John, the timeframe would be, we're talking 20, 25 years if nothing happened. But the more likely scenario is something's going to happen there.

Three or four years.

Yeah. Okay.

Any more questions? Okay. So this slide, I pulled from the recommendations. And the reason why it's important is what they're offering is, This line here is a zoning ordinance compatibility plane. So typically the CR zone restricts heights along a plane that starts at the plan boundary line here. And what they're offering is they will start this compatibility plane at the face of the building here. So it's like a concession to the community. i i would i would put it that way these next series of slides are looking southwest over this existing sax building and we are looking basically above the belmont avenue and all the street intersection so this is wisconsin avenue this is the property line um the collection's back here and this is a a simulation or illustration of what planning departments massing could look like 45 foot buildings fronting on the belmont avenue and oliver street i'm stepping back at a one-to-one ratio to 100 feet here and at the northern end adjacent to the collection and that's park street stepping up to 150 feet

I think we can open it up to audience questions. Let's get through the presentations. Thank you.

And this image shows how the proposed 25 to 30 foot buffer would look. And it's important because it does have an effect on how this new building mass feels. It does a lot to tone down the um the effect of that of this new construction and this is what chevy chase village has proposed so they have asked for you have asked for 45 foot heights um going back 75 feet and then stepping up to 85 feet We feel that that's more in keeping with the character of the community. So instead of having multifamily, essentially what are multifamily buildings with a townhouse look facing these single family homes, you have essentially what are also single family homes that have to be attached facing the single family community and then stepping up after that. And this is how that would look with the proposed buffer and microforest. Again, it tones down the effect of this building mass along the street. And this is a bird's eye view of the entire proposal, target development rather. This is the collection property here and the SACS property here. And these red lines show the one-to-one height setback. So we have 100 feet here 100 feet, this is 150, 200, and at the very end, where the metro station is, 250 feet.

John, the building that you show on Western, it looks like that's, this one here? Yeah, it looks like that's much lower. Oh, this one here? The one on the far left, the upper. We can't see what you're pointing at.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

Yeah. Yeah, what's the height of that?

That's a good question. I put it at 60 feet, but the planning department has not specified what that height should be. They've specified 60 feet here, 45 feet here, but when you get to this point, there is no height specified. So I have communicated with the planning department, asking what they intend that height to be. I think it should be 60 feet. It makes sense. This is a view looking towards north over Belmont and Montgomery Street. If you can see underneath, this is the existing collection, Circle Drive, and this is where your access comes through here. Sorry, I think that's correct. And they're proposing a half-acre green space, and this building shows it's 150 feet. That's what's proposed by the planning department. this is what we've asked for rather than chevy chase villages asked for uh 85 feet in a three-quarter acre green space so if it's it's um it has a much bigger impact and feel that it's it's more in keeping with the community the community feel um for example western grove is two acres

John, does the wall of the buffer zone stay? Right here? You can't really see it.

So it would still be there? Well, what they're proposing is putting the buildings right up to it so the wall would be gone. And what they have offered here is because there's a 10-foot, 20-foot difference, they would set their 60-foot tall buildings, measure it from this side. from the collection side, so that when you're over here standing in the community, it feels more like 40 or 50 feet, because there's a great change. This is a view looking north from Western Avenue. You're all familiar with this, the collection. This is where the Amazon Fresh was, this is the metro station. These are the collection buildings. This is the parking lot. This is the West Grove Park. And this is an image of what the build up would look like. Now, I have to say, the urban designer did a good job of laying things out. I think the street and block pattern is nice. It's very pedestrian scale. I think the experience there would be pleasant. But the question is, do the buildings really need to be installed? So let me describe this a little bit. Hey, John.

Go ahead. Excuse me. The really green square rectangle next to Western Grove, is that another park that would be basically on the west side?

From the plan recommendations, it appears to be a park, but they don't call it out specifically. They call it as a transition zone, like a terrace transition zone. So I'm assuming they're thinking of it as a park. So what they're proposing is basically a terrace, set of terraces that go up this way. And from my experience, I think that it's better that you keep this as a green space and not try to create a grand set of steps because you're talking about 40 or 50 steps and a handicap ramp, which takes up a lot of space. So I think the parks would spend their money better if they just made this a green space that did not have transition and then had the transition come around this way. There already is access this way. So we could talk about that further.

The residential units here would be eligible to go higher if they provided public amenities and or additional moderately priced dwelling units. Is that true?

The way that works is they have stated that there's more height than the FAR can get to. So in order to, they're willing to give more height if they provide, or rather more FAR if they provide amenities such as parks, affordable housing, streets, there's a whole list. The MPDU requirement does allow you to punch through the mapped height, but typically, It's only in 12-foot increments. But the board's just not going to give it to them for MPDUs. They only give it to the applicant if existing heights will not accommodate additional FAR, the FAR that the MPDUs provide. So typically, it's about 12 feet. In some cases, it's 24 feet. But it's never 50 feet or 75 feet.

But it could be then 12 to 24 feet added to the heights.

It could be. It could be. And I wanted to say that, let me jump back to the slides here. So this is the village proposed, 85 feet. And this is significant because the building types that exist or that are out there today are, I think it's type 3, which is stick built over podium. It's usually 5. We call it 5 over 1 or 5 over 2. And that typically gets you to about 75 to 85 feet. If you want to go higher, if you want to go at 100 feet, you have to go to a construction type, concrete construction. And to build a 100 foot tall concrete building is financially impossible or not feasible. And as I heard say, there's no such thing today as a 100 foot concrete building. People just don't build them. So what's significant about this is If we were to give them 100 feet here, or if they were to get 100 feet of proof, then with NPDUs, they could jump to 120 feet, which would make it feasible. So I think it's important that you try hard to keep it at 85 feet, because with NPDUs, it's hard to jump from 85 feet to 120 feet, which is not enough NPDUs for that to happen.

Is there... And we're looking at these as kind of rectangular blocks, appreciating that that's what the regulations proposed maximum heights would allow. Is there any gaveling that would occur in those units that would make it less of an abrupt change in the height?

Well, it's up to the applicant. Typically, I mean, the massing diagrams are kind of abrupt and they'll never look like this. If I were to render this, it would look a lot better, but it'd still be tall. So the concern is not how beautiful they look, because I'm sure that Chevy Chase Lakes is going to do some beautiful, beautiful designs. They have a record of doing some really nice work, Chevy Chase Lakes. is done really, really well done. So it's not really, you know, the quality and aesthetics of the construction is how tall the buildings are and how they affect the community. That's a concern.

So, John, a lot of residents along Grove and Buffers. I want to go back to the other slide. Oh. That one? That's fine. But a lot of residents in that west, west western part of the village have expressed concern about security and candidly the access points that village residents currently have to develop over there it's here yeah here exactly it's really in western right across the park uh i don't know there i don't believe there's been a outcry of more access from chevy chase village to whatever occurs there right so i'm just wondering uh how much we can ensure or make sure that principle stays versus letting parking planning put parks and really try to eliminate the border of Chevy Chase Village from the commercial development. That's kind of their intent, right, from what you're saying there? Do they really want to open up?

No, I don't think it's a nefarious sort of intent. I think more like, as an urban designer, I still do it. I worked for them for 15 years. It's the idea that you as a community would want access to this beautiful development. There's a counterpoint to that. Well, let me finish. I mean, that's the argument I used when I did these exact kind of the same plans, like West Park, for example. I worked on that plan and elsewhere. And the response was, we don't want access. And I thought, well, if we don't want access, it's not important that the people who move into the new development get access. Why would they go there? So the reasoning that I had was fine. We even closed off the way it is. And if the community later wants to have access, they can petition. the property owners would do that. I think that's probably the argument you need to make. We don't need it, and maybe we'll ask for it later. But right now, there's no reason. Does that make sense?

And you'll see when we get to the second to last slide in this presentation, some of the reinforcing points of what the current village position is, and that's one of them. Additional access points between the village and the collection is not necessary, and that to the point that the planning staff has made about trying to create greater access and awareness of Western Grove Park to the Friendship Heights area, we are suggesting better wayfinding signage, better signage from the collection property to navigate interested park users to the existing entrance, but that you don't need to create additional entrances to solve that precede the problem.

Okay, so this slide shows, intended to show you what the sizes of a half acre and a .75 acre park look like. Actually, we don't have a half acre in here. This is the James Chase Lake space. It's a three quarters of an acre park, and you're familiar with this, I believe. It's the open space at the collection. And that's 0.2 acres. Now, something I want to point out is that often when we say open space, we mean everything. Everything in hardscape, greenscape, grass, trees, as well as the streets that can be closed during festivals. And the point that Chevy Chase Village wants to make is, no, we want this to be an entirely green space, not composed of walkways and streets that can be open and closed.

Do you know the building heights on the left?

Yeah, this is roughly 75 feet. That would be type 3 construction. And this is 120 and around 110. And that would be concrete construction. And then these are Chevy Cheese Village's recommendations. Do you want me to go through them or just hit the highlights?

Just highlights, I think.

So basically building massing, we've asked for lower heights at the SACS property, 85 feet height, starting at 45 feet, stepping back to 100 at 75 feet. So basically you have 75 feet of width at 45 and jumping up to 85. Connectivity, we want to maintain existing pedestrian connection at Montgomery Street. Do not add any more pedestrian connections and add more wayfinding signage so that people can find their way around. The public parks and public spaces should be a minimum of 3 quarters of an acre, not a half acre. And then the public space, the parks themselves, should not have a lot of active uses like a pickleball or loud activities. more more restive more um meditative spaces things like you know bocce is pretty quiet um opportunity you know opportunities for parks and fountains and benches and maybe a gazebo or pavilion um and then food truck opportunities along the perimeters um We mentioned wayfinding at Western Grove Park. And the last one is there is a need for public parking in the sector plan. So either publicly accessible parking within new private development or a public parking garage or both.

If I can just highlight on that last point, I do think at least from some of the feedback we've already seen from the planning board and some of the policy decisions that the county has made about properties that are proximal to metro stations, that last point is what I think we're probably going to need to really stress. People will park where it's easiest to park. We currently see that and are currently tackling that issue today. with people visiting doctors' offices and commuting, what have you, that attempt to park on village streets. And so reinforcing the importance that this level of development and density has to be coupled with parking, not just in the sector plan area, but associated with the development on these sites is really going to be critically important, or we're going to end up with a lot of parking saturation that we'll be constantly trying to manage. but we may have an uphill battle with that one that we should just be aware of.

Further board questions? Yeah, just one.

John and Shane, there was some rumor about them reorienting the road, but that's not been in the sector planning.

No, it is in the working draft. So we can go back to, it is represented on a couple of these slides.

Yeah, I'll go all the way back there.

Zoom in. Can you see this? So the sector plan does recommend reorienting Wisconsin Circle, which runs this way. Let me get my pointer here. Today, it runs this way. And they're proposing to run it this way and around and then to have a pedestrian access here. Okay. I'll use a highlighter. I'm sorry.

I can't figure it out. This is the existing one. Yeah. And what they're showing here is a little more of a...

So it comes out where the entrance to collection on Western is. Is that right? Excuse me? So the entrance to the collection on Western... is where that arrow is. Right here. So this is on my- No, on the other side, on the western side. Right.

It's supposed to come this way. Got it. Today it goes like this.

Right.

They are also proposing a road here and keeping this road here. Also another road up here that will serve these two buildings.

How speculative is that road change, thinking that you're talking a wholesale change in the building around Metro Center?

At this point, it's proposed, but we have to wait and see what the planning board says and what the county council says. These plans do change as they move along.

Because that seems like it would just be a huge economic thing to fight off for Metro, the county, as well as the land company.

It is ambitious. Yeah.

Okay. The only issue with that drawing off of Western is the backup issue, right? We get backup all the way to curbside, even with them going down to Wisconsin Circle and turning right. So if they're eliminating that and moving it east on Western, we're going to have more backup on Western, you know, into the village, right? That's a concern.

We have asked for traffic studies to see how this works. Something that could be proposed is adding another street cut through here. So instead of just one, you can have two, which is good urban design anyways. The idea of creating a network of streets, small blocks. So instead of having arterials, you have more like a network or capillary action, if you want to use that human body analogy. So a street here and a street here and even a street here would go a long way to solving that backup problem.

Right. Appreciate it. We've got, I think, some residents in attendance who'd like to ask some questions as well. But if you could approach the microphone and please be succinct to make sure we get a couple of folks' questions in. Anybody? and let us know who you are as well.

Hi, I'm Diane Cartelli. I live on Grove Street. And now that I'm closer, I think I see the roads you're having off Western. Is this proposal that keeps the current driveway and makes it a road? Yes. And then you're saying that better urban design means another road, possibly.

Yes. That would be my recommendation.

In the 1998 sector plan, Mr. Wolfarth and I protested the driveway being there, so I will resend that letter. Thank you.

And appreciating, as John described up front, there's a lot of opportunities still to influence this process. with the planning board and after that, the county council.

Next up. Hi, good evening. I live on Montgomery Street, on the western area. If you'll forgive me, I'm not a native speaker, so I might stumble along the way with English, but I just have a couple of questions. I don't have really the bandwidth to follow this in detail, and I think most people living in, or what I talked to my neighbors also. But my general sense, so I moved to the village in 2020, like six years ago. And to me, I feel that we're constantly under siege since I moved here, constantly. I don't know if this has been the norm from you guys, but year after year, there's always some sort of new initiative to change things around here. This is very ambitious. So we're pretty worried. I think most people in my block are. pressure on the infrastructure, sanitation, water, safety, right? I mean, they're looking at, in the best case scenario, 85 foot height. I mean, what is that, eight stories high floor?

How many people are we?

So from the diagram that you showed us, what's your estimate of how many more people are we gonna get in this area?

We haven't done that calculation. 500? Probably more than that. If this whole thing were built out, more than that.

Imagine all these people funneling in through Montgomery Street, which is going to be the sole sort of channel. Like we were saying, we already have problems with people illegally parking on Montgomery. We're going to need a patrol car there 24-7 stationed there because it's with 500 more people. from what I read from the plan, they're saying no parking and we can ask for parking, but even they were talking about sub-level parking. We do have the experience from when they build the parking from the collection, that some of the basements on Montgomery Street were damaged because of the vibrations generating from excavating all that. That's years of litigation. So for me, my worry, again, I'm an economist, I don't know anything about this. So when I read this, written in a way, like a very bureaucratic way, almost to kind of lose people along the way. But the feeling I got was that this is terrible for us. This is going to change the village. And there's the risk that it will create two villages, the village in the periphery and the village in the center. And those people in the periphery, you know, think about the people along the Belmont Street. They're basically going to have no privacy. almost maybe no sunlight if they build those mammoth buildings there. But then again, I don't know what the village can do about this. And so me wanting to come here was also trying to ask the village if we could, I didn't know that we had asked for 85 rather than 120. I don't know who made that decision. So I think I'm not the only one because I've asked all my neighbors and nobody really knows what's going on, even though everyone is affected on that.

I don't know what the best- A couple of thoughts, if I may. So the board tonight is just hearing kind of an update on the plan and there's no vote to be taken by the board either for or against a particular position. So just so you know that we won't, there'll probably be future occasions where the board will be taking a position that will have a pretty open-ended hearing. So just to be clear that these are still plans in a medium stage would be my way of thinking about it with further input to come over the next few months. And that there'll be additional opportunities both for residents to express to the board here, as well as to the planning board, as well as to the county council down the road, kind of pros and cons. That's just one thing.

But when John was saying that we asked for 85 feet rather than 120, who is we?

The board.

The board.

Right, so there was some processing which 85- Yeah, fair point, based on the prior discussions.

Okay. So I just want to be clear there. I had no idea that that had happened. Maybe I missed it, but I've asked my neighbors on Montgomery, which are going to be primarily affected by all this, and nobody knew. So I don't know, for example, a table saying what they want, what we propose, that would be great to summarize, to distill all that, because there's so much information in this 145-page document that was circulating. Nobody with a job has really, you know, I also have small kids. I don't have time to go through all that. So distilling that information, that would be useful. What I did read in that document was that they were proposing no schools, like no extra schools, because in the document, it says something that I remember there was a table that Somerset Westbrook had spare capacity, but I'm confused because in 2021, Montgomery was rezoned from Somerset to Westbrook. I'm with you on that. So somebody, either I misunderstood or somebody's lying because there seems to be no capacity in the school. So how can they say that we're going to put 600 more people there and everything is just going to go dandy?

I think just in the interest of time, because I do think you're raising all good concerns that the board wants to hear and will also have further opportunities to hear. I just don't know that tonight is the night to express all of those concerns. In terms of how one would be aware of this already, of course, we publish a lot in the prior with online links to this. I hear you, that's complicated. Is there a way to make this digestible? Actually, the board letters to the planning board do a pretty good job of saying, here's what we're aware of, here's what we're concerned about, here's what we want to know next. So the board letters on this matter, which are circulated, posted online, are a pretty good source of information. Also, I think it's important to keep in mind the timeframe. This sector plan is how many years looking out, 20?

Oh yeah, it's a 20 year.

Right, so GEICO has had a sector plan in effect since 1998 also. Do I have that right? The last year. And nothing happened. So this is not, this is what the land company is thinking about looking ahead 20 years. It's not what they're thinking about. Now we said, gee, sacks might happen sooner because of the, you know, it's just a vacant property right now. But this is looking out at 20 year timeframe. This is not something that'll happen, you know, starting in two years that we're going to see all of this redevelopment overnight. Also worth keeping in mind, when each of these would come up, so suppose the Chevy Chase Land Company wanted to act on this, what additional approvals would be required at that time? I mean, it's not just a buy right, go to it.

No, there's three steps. There's preliminary plan, there's sketch plan, there's site plan.

So before any of this would happen, there will be a lot of additional input and opportunity to prevent bad things from happening. So I just wanted to reassure you that this isn't something that's happening in two years if we don't get in the way.

And keep in mind, there's this existing a bus terminal here owned by WMATA and that has to be resolved before anything happens. And that's a huge infrastructure project that will take years. So to Lou's point, this area here, Probably not going to happen for a very long time, if at all.

Some reassurance.

I think we have a couple more folks behind you. Just one last question. What's interesting, because I'm not an expert, is what can the village basically refrain from accepting? Can we say no to anything, or do we have to negotiate everything because, you know, I don't know how this works.

My experience is that saying no doesn't get you very far. You don't get listened to. You're more effective if you go in and you negotiate. You say, these are the things we want. These are things we will accept, exchange for the things we want. And most stakeholders, most developers are willing to work with you and talk to you.

And the Chevy Chase Land Company, from our experience, I think, has been a pretty good partner. partner in a lot of these things remains to be seen. We want that to continue. Additionally, there is the planning board, the County Council, and as John had mentioned at the beginning, we will have, in addition to our incumbent District 1 County Councilman, Andrew Friedson, we'll have a new County Council representative starting in early January after the elections. These are people who will be eager to hear our input in addition to the four at-large county council representatives.

And the whole council votes on this.

Yeah. So there's a lot of opportunity. So do we have a formal right as a village to say, no, we're not going along with that and you can't do it. But I think as John's describing and as the board has discussed in the past, that there's a dialogue that takes place. that we do have a lot of opportunity to influence things even before the political process. But I think we should open things up to other folks who are also kind of in line behind you there. Thank you. Thanks for the good questions.

Hi, Mary Sheehan, 30 West Street. I have a much more granular question than the large ones you're currently discussing. When you're coming, if I understand this correctly, if you're driving down Western, okay, going toward Wisconsin, there is the possibility of having one, two, or three places to turn right.

No, right now they're only proposing one.

Well, but we're talking about, you said there's a possibility of a third.

That would solve a backup problem, and it's good urban design.

Well, I guess that's what I want to probe a little bit. Let's just say there are three. Mm-hmm. So you're coming down Western. You want to make a right turn and get yourself over to Wisconsin. So I'm in my car. Am I going to take the, all three of those roads? First of all, if I understand this, they're all going to lead to the same East West road. They're all, you're going to go one block or one building, not a block. You're going to go one building and then make a left turn. So you've got, Well, I'm not entirely clear. But my point is, if you've got the potential of three streets feeding up into one street where everybody's going to want to turn left to get over to Wisconsin, right? So I'm coming down Western. Am I going to take the first right? Because maybe that backup isn't so bad. But there is a backup there. So I'm going to leapfrog around that backup. I'm going to go to the second street. and see how bad the backup is there. And if it's bad, I'm going to leapfrog around that, and I'm going to go up to the furthest place where I can turn right. This sounds like a plate of spaghetti to me. I don't see how this improves.

Well, I think we should just be clear that right now, they're simply recommending taking the one right that you would make currently on the Wisconsin Circle, moving that farther east, and creating a new road. So that's a one-for-one train. What John was suggesting is that through the urban planning, it could become two. Three is not on the table. at all.

It's not on the table, but you're imagining it.

I'm not with the planning department, so I'm working for Tiptee's Village. So the planning department has proposed one road. Maybe I shouldn't have said two.

Which is probably the extent of what we should focus on now, because that's the only thing that's on the table.

I didn't mean to muddy the water.

It would be a one-for-one replacement of Wisconsin Circle with a new entry and longer road

okay all right I'll let it rest there okay any other just a reflection you know this that all this would have substantial impacts to your point you have a bunch of people trying to get to River Road it take Wisconsin Circle and if that's no longer there you're going to really congest a lot. So really, we have to do a lot of traffic. I think we have to do some traffic studies on how the village, if it really gets to a point where they are proposing a new street going in, we've got to look at what impact it's going to have, in addition to looking at it from a planning standpoint.

Yeah. John? I'm not sure what your question is. Okay, we're talking about creating a new road where... Right here? This road you mean? Yes. It's the road that right now is the entrance

parking lot yes okay so that's not going to be that's going to become a major brother right a real road is supposed to be a road carrying a lot of traffic right okay well if you're turning into there from western on the right hand side you've got western park they're proposing to open that to what this nature that makes like no sense

Crosswalk in the city. You wait for the light.

I would just note one of our virtual attendees has asked, how is there room for green space if that road is redirected? I think that may be aligned with the point, Mr. Goodman, that you were just mentioning.

There seems to be enough room for green space in a road. Let me see if I can find me go back to the All right. So the road would come here and then the green space with here it'd be a long rectangular space.

First, it's not showing up.

Keep doing that. Sorry.

Are you

Are you looking at the Western Grove and the parking lot?

Yeah, let me go to another. So this is where the road would go, and this would be the green space. So there is room for both. The distance between here and there is like 180 feet, roughly. So there's room.

That would be good. I mean, if it were back there, then you've got further distance between that and the wall where the park is.

Right. I don't think we're posing it coming up here. And I think the problem with these big sort of big diagrams is they're very diagrammatic and you tend to read into too much to them. I think this kind of model helps show you exactly what you're proposing. So it would be better if it was here instead of there.

I think it's appropriate to think of that then as being roughly where the truck entrance is for the grocery store, more so than the current vehicle entrance into the shopping center.

The current entrance is right here. And I think they're proposing it moving it this way. 80 feet, 100 feet.

Which is currently about where the truck entrance is.

Yes. You now can take that entrance and actually get on to Wisconsin by Clyde.

I wonder if that's part of what may have inspired this proposed configuration, but it comes currently just north of, of course, the intersection at Willard that it becomes on the other side of Wisconsin Avenue. So this would align you a little bit farther south to align with that existing intersection. But yes, somewhat patterned off of the current configuration that you could take if you wanted to bypass Wisconsin Circle.

Yeah. Yeah. We should probably move on. We still have a pretty lengthy list of things to cover. And appreciating the input from the Board and residents here tonight, that there will be a lot of additional discussion on this to come. This is an update, no decision being taken tonight.

And just to reinforce what's on the screen, the two public hearings have been tentatively announced for the Planning Board. These are the As it's presented in the staff memo, these are the dates and times that staff is recommending. These will essentially be ratified by the planning board when they meet on July 16th to receive the formal presentation from the planning staff. So key dates, people should, and we will of course have a link to the recording of it, but people should watch the July 16th presentation from the planning staff to the planning board. They should plan to participate in the two public hearings. One will be in Wheaton at the planning board's headquarters on the 10th. The second, they're actually bringing the planning board to our area, to the BCC Regional Services Center. That will be unfortunately the same night as the villages board meeting in September, but that will be a second opportunity. Testimony does not need to be formal. Testimony can simply be, impassioned concerns about the effects of this level of density you do not need to speak the zoning speak that the planners do and that the planning board does this is an opportunity for them to hear the concerns from the community so residents should take advantage of that and also continue to write in we ask that residents copy me so that we're aware of the concerns that our residents have but please do write in getting uh feedback in volume from residents can be more impactful to the planning board than a single letter from the village board. So continue to write in and make your voices heard.

I have one more. I received some questions from my members about the presentation.

Let's go one more question.

And it incorporates what Diego mentioned, which there hasn't really, we don't feel, I live on Grove Street, I'm Diane Cartelli, We don't feel there's really been a robust discussion about the height on the collection. It's sort of just like an automatic, yes, the village is okay with this. And I think it has great implications for the park. Park vistas are crucial. I learned that there's a formula about park vistas. And so to ignore a park, the village supported, that has been spent $6.2 million and totally ignore what makes an urban park and why it's a legacy park.

The heights need- But let me, I'm going to cut you off, I'm afraid, just to say your point's well taken and we need more discussion.

Okay.

You know, I'm right with you. I think this board was probably right with you too, but I don't think tonight is the issue.

But what I'm saying is all the implications of height, no one discussed. I think you went along with the proposal and you didn't really evaluate it. And so I feel you need to evaluate the heights on the collection.

Just to clarify, the Board's official position about the heights at the collection is to say that the 200-foot heights proposed for the remainder of the collection property are unreasonably high adjacent to our R60 zone neighborhoods. And the Board's specific request was that the eastern edge of the entire collection property be capped at a height, a max height of 60 feet. That's where the Board's position is.

We're on record opposing the proposed heights. We are on record opposing those heights. And there will be more discussion to come. And I'm looking at Michelle as well as John in terms of future discussions. Okay, next on the agenda, contract and agreement authorizations, starting with traffic engineering.

Yeah, so bear with me as I flip myself to that matter. So as a way of background, the Village Board received a petition last year in September from residents of the 100 and 200 blocks of Primrose Street expressing their concerns about cut-through traffic. In May of this year, residents on the block submitted a supplemental memo outlining specific recommendations that they had to resolve those concerns. The Village's Traffic Committee met They held a public meeting on May 28, 2026 to consider the petition and to hear from residents. They have since issued a series of recommendations, one of which includes access restrictions along all village streets that intersect with Western Avenue as a means to cut down on cut-through traffic. They have also made some recommendations related to improved signage. and a reduction in the posted speed limit in the 100 and 200 blocks of Primrose Street from the existing 25 to 15 miles per hour. There's also a pending assessment that we had of sightline concerns within the 100 block of Primrose Street that the committee also recommended that we implement some recommendations that had previously been issued. So in consideration of the Primrose Street petition, the traffic committee also heard from residents of Broad Branch Road and Newland Street who also expressed concerns about cut-through traffic. That was followed up with a formal petition from those residents requesting access restrictions on their street as well. Rather than taking these petitions independently, we have essentially kind of grouped them together since at the heart are the same underlying issues of cut through traffic and high volume and speed. And so the staff is recommending that in light of the recommendations from the traffic committee, that we hire an independent objective traffic engineer to conduct an assessment of the potential impacts if the traffic committee's recommendations were to be implemented. A traffic engineer will also have the capacity to assist the village in implementing efforts to mitigate GPS navigation to these streets and to coordinate with the District of Columbia's Department of Transportation to obtain approval for new or relocated signage within the district's public right-of-way. We have been limited as to where we can put signage on the streets that intersect with Western Avenue because Western Avenue's right-of-way line comes inside the curve by approximately 30 feet along Western Avenue. Where signage would be most effective, of course, would be much closer to Western Avenue before vehicles have committed to making the turn onto Village Streets. But in order to do that, we would need to coordinate with DC in order to get their authorization to place those signs within their public right of way. So staff has reached out to the traffic group, which is a leading traffic engineering firm that the village has worked with, as have many of our neighboring municipalities. We've asked them for proposals to conduct an assessment of, one, the potential impacts from the village traffic committee's recommendations for streets located east of Connecticut Avenue in the village. The total estimate for that is approximately 47,000. And then to do a second study of the existing rush hour access restriction signage that exists in the town of Chevy Chase, our neighbors to the north, that exists along their streets that intersect with Connecticut Avenue to study the current level of violations that are occurring there as a benchmark for the potential viability of an access restriction here in the village. The town of Chevy Chase is also interested in having that data set run, and they have agreed to split the cost of that secondary study with us. So the total cost of that study is estimated at $12,500 for what would be a three-day study with crews actually on the street counting vehicles who make illegal turns during those rush hour restrictions. we would share that cost 50 50 with the town of chevy chase staff is also recommending an override of the village's competitive bidding requirements the code requires that we do a competitive bidding process for contracts exceeding ten thousand dollars staff is recommending that given that these issues have been in existence for a while We have recommendations from our traffic committee. We want to move as expeditiously as possible to study the proposed recommendations. And so we're recommending an override, which would allow the board to waive the competitive bidding requirements, make a decision this evening on the proposals in hopes that we will have the studies conducted and a report back from the traffic engineers by mid-October so that you could then bring this forward for public hearing and consideration in November. I would just add that we do have the proposed traffic engineer joining us virtually and he will speak briefly about what their process and study and methodology would look like. I would just note that all of the materials related to Primrose Street, including our previous um traffic studies that our police department has done with showing vehicle speeds and volumes as well as the petitions and other supporting materials that we have received from the residents of the 100 and 200 blocks of primrose as well as the residents of broad branch road and newland street have all been provided to our traffic engineer to ensure that they had a full understanding of the residents' concerns. So they have had an opportunity to review that volume of materials, and we'll talk about their proposed study methodology as a result of that. So if it's okay with you, I'll turn it over to Paul Doerr from the traffic group, unless you have any questions for me.

No, just emphasis on the six, excuse me, hour.

Mr. Doerr?

Hi, is it possible I could share my screen just to go over on a map? I guess.

Is that possible?

If not, I can just do an intro. So, hi, my name is Paul Doerr, and I'm the Director of Engineering Design here at the Traffic Group. Yeah, I can share now. Okay, everyone see my screen?

It shows up on my screen. You might just want to go ahead and talk to it.

Okay. So like I said, I'm Paul Doerr, Director of Engineering. I've been with the company for 38 years. I lead a team of designers and traffic engineers here. We are traffic engineering professional traffic operations engineers, along with a bunch of land planners. So we have provided two proposals to the village. One to look at turning restrictions along Connecticut Avenue between the hours of seven to nine. So we provided, again, our proposal to conduct turning movements to determine what those violations are along Connecticut Avenue above rosemary up to uh j of Maryland for 10 um nat violations are observed. reasonable police presen cut through traffic could So at the end of that stud all the traffic turning movements and we can tell you what the violations are for the community north of Bradley. And again, assuming the national average 50%, so we can also, you know, just show what that percentage of cut through traffic is based upon our data from that study. The other study, so we can't see my screen.

The virtual attendees can, but we cannot in the room.

Okay. So we are looking at conducting a cut through traffic volume speed study, looking at all the intersections, basically south of Primrose Street, all the way down where Western Avenue and Maryland 185 come together. And we've listed all those intersections within our proposal. And what we're going to do is we're going to use a program called Replica. If we were to go out today and conduct our own traffic counts, where we would count every vehicle movement at every intersection, at the end of the day, we would have a lot of data, but we really would not know where those vehicles are coming and going from. So what we're going to use, we're going to use a program called Replica. And what that does, it allows us to use data from fall of last year and spring of this year on any given Thursday and a Saturday. And what that allows us to do is we can flow those traffic volumes through the community based upon historical information and come up with recommendations based upon real good cut through, real good traffic speed volume and turning movements. So that's the goal of the study, including Primrose all the way down to where Western and 185 comes together. We did receive a lot of information. I think it's like a dozen different items. I have emails going back 10 years from 2015 to 2025. I have other traffic companies reports accident information um and a lot of concerns for various residents and and and we recognize um you know the concerns um a lot of cut through traffic a lot of speeding and one of the great things about making uh turning restrictions during peak hours like i said it does reduce the volumes of cutting cutting through the neighborhood and those reductions will in fact reduce accident potential and speeding gets cut down because half of those folks will not be coming into the community. Also, when left turns are restricted along major streets, that reduces accidents along the major streets by 60%, just restricting those left turns during peak hours. So at the end of coming up with all the data, we will make recommendations. We will prepare plans that address a lot of the residents concerns, um, over the years. Um, we will look at one way design scenarios. We will look at possibly some additional traffic coming while there is a sufficient amount. Uh, there's quite a bit of speed humps out there today, uh, looking at term restrictions, um, again, Whatever the data tells us at the end of the data collection, we will address every issue that comes out of that data.

Thank you. And thanks for that. And as you already appreciate, this is an important subject for the village and also for the residents of Primrose, Broad Branch, Newlands, Oxford Streets, all together, I think, have a keen interest in getting the results of the traffic study fairly soon and a report that the Board could then act on. And are there any Board questions for our guests? And I know we might have a resident or two who wanted to speak briefly on the subject as well. Board questions? And Mr. Ullman, if you wanted to kind of also just make sure the Board was aware of a few aspects of it.

Yes, thank you. My name is Craig Allman. I have lived at 104 Primrose Street for 37 years. Last fall, I made the fatal mistake of permitting some of my neighbors to talk me into playing a coordinating role for what are now referred to as the Primrose Street petitioners. The rest is history. Let me, in light of time constraints, just focus on a memo that I believe you have in your packages that was distributed just this afternoon. which is a memo doing nothing more than commenting on the two proposed agreements between the village and the traffic group, making a series of pretty specific recommendations, some of them technical that I'm quite sure your council will be able to deal with, and I won't dwell on them, but let me hit perhaps four that are worth highlighting. First of all, as to what I'll call the major agreement for the traffic study. As Mr. Dorr, if I had his name right, mentioned, that agreement includes a list of 11 named intersections to be studied. Well, that list is incomplete. It misses two. It misses the intersection of Primrose Street and Brookville Road. It misses the intersection of Newlands Street and Broad Branch. Those are inflection points for the cut through traffic on the east side. So those both need to be studied. The principal agreement doesn't expressly provide for the engineers to make site visits. I assume they plan to do so, but that ought to be made clear. It's especially important on Primrose Street because of its unique challenges. And frankly, if the traffic engineers are so inclined, some of us would be happy to meet them when they make those site visits. And important to make those site visits during rush hours, on days when schools are in session. Pedestrian traffic, frankly, is a big issue, particularly on Primrose Street. The principal agreement calls for the engineers to make a detailed review of all information provided. Both Mr. Doerr and Shana have mentioned that there's a large volume of material. that material needs to be identified either in what the traffic group produces or the village can identify it but it's going to be important to make sure that it is as comprehensive as it should be as I think Shana has mentioned it goes back a long way but we want to make sure it includes everything and on a similar note the principle agreement makes a reference includes a modest budget for identified meetings and hearings but then it doesn't identify and those should certainly include a public meeting after the traffic groups report has been submitted and before the board is asked to make any any decisions on the traffic committee's recommendations perhaps all of that is understood.

And to that point, not to interrupt you, but to that point, not to get ahead of the traffic committee, which will also be reviewing this, but I think that we are targeting a November discussion at the board meeting, by which time we'll have the results of the traffic study. So we'll be in good shape. And so mark calendars now for the November board meeting.

November 9th.

November 9th. So that Would be and looking to keep this thing moving forward and looking to have the report, um, and be able to hear residents inputs at that meeting for sure. But yeah, okay.

No, that's fine. Thank you. And by the way, if it isn't clear, I mean, we endorse, frankly, we commend staff to getting things moving as they are. we're not by any means suggesting that the village should not enter into these contracts we're just making specific suggestions about what should be in the contracts and we're fussing about what information is provided and about hearings in part because frankly there's been reference to the previous assessment that was done back in 2023 and that assessment uh Really was not very thorough. It did not include anything like all of the data that the village has available. It may reach findings for which there was no support.

It doesn't even have a date.

The board actually considered it in in, I believe, March of 2023. But that's that and the fact that it includes some 2022 data is the only. Right. Only way you can point to it. So I'm quite confident that the, at least I'm very hopeful, that the traffic group will do a much more comprehensive, serious job. But I think it's important that the data, what they are looking at, be clearly identified and that there be an opportunity for people to discuss their report before the board is asked to to make any decisions. And then one final example, and it actually relates to the first study that Mr. Doar mentioned, and that is the agreement to study the efficacy of the turning restrictions in the town of Chivichakes. And as Mr. Doar correctly described, what the contract provides for is simply counting violations, basically. counting the number of instances in which vehicles make prohibited turns into the town of Chevy Chase during the peak hours. Now, I am only a superannuated English major with a law degree, so maybe I don't understand, but I fail to understand how you can determine the efficacy of restrictions based on nothing more than counting the number of violations. Presumably, you also have to have some way of measuring compliance. That is, how many cars might have turned into the village but don't because of those restrictions. Now, you obviously can't count hypothetical cars that didn't make an illegal turn, but there are some data that you could use. You could certainly count the number of cars that do turn into those town streets. during the hours when the restrictions are not in effect. You could also count the number of cars that turn into Rosemary Street where there are no restrictions at all hours, and then use those to come up with some estimates.

I think that's a fair point. And I'm going to bet that if Mr. Dorr is still on the line, he probably has a methodology. And without going into a lot of detail, you've probably heard that question. and probably believe it's an addressable issue?

Yeah, so I do want to say I do have the comments that are being talked about, and I will gladly go through those. If we were to count all the traffic 24 hours a day and include intersections along Bradley, Rosemary, and even on 410 to determine what those traffic vehicles are going around the turning restrictions, first of all, it would cost about 10 times the cost of this study just to do those additional turning movement counts for 24 hours a day. But mainly, it would be impossible to tell who is going where without an origin and destination study where you would know, in fact, who is going where at what time. Again, what I mentioned earlier is that it's a national average that the turning movements between 7 to 9 is about a 50% folks obeying it, 50% not obeying it. So whatever our total hourly counts are at each intersection from 7 to 8 and 8 to 9, we could pretty much double it and say those folks are following the restrictions and accessing the community in a different route without spending another $60,000, $70,000 to just come up with that figure.

So that's- And that's a common practice, what you're describing in terms of applying those national averages.

Correct.

Yes, okay.

Because we're trying to determine if these type of seven to nine, four to six restrictions down along western is something that we can do and it's going to help the community. And in fact, it would just with a reasonable amount of police assistance, that 50% goes up to 80% compliancy. And that reduces all the problems that you're currently having along Primrose and all your other streets. Because again, if you restrict just at Primrose, the traffic's going to redirect to the other streets. So we really believe at the end of the day, the turning restrictions will have a substantial impact, safety impact for the community.

So that's probably the immediate answer on that question, which, and of course, there will be both the opportunity, I think, that staff will be working with the traffic group leading up to the study to kind of make sure these issues are being addressed. And then the staff as well as the traffic committee will be able to review the report. And then November 9th, making sure that any outcome of that report is readily discussed and openly discussed here, because I think that's where, you know, I think there's a lot of sympathy for the folks on Primrose and the neighboring streets that, you know, we got to get some kind of improvement in the situation going.

So if, I'm sorry, if I can, answer uh two two other the main questions um so we will have truck data we will we will have the percentages of semi trailers versus single unit trucks like fedex and ups and things like that we will conduct site visits during school hours and look at pedestrian flow um that was another question uh let's let me call it that the one the one i wanted to uh highlight was

I think the first thing you said is that there were two intersections that weren't included in the list.

Oh, yes. And we will substitute. We did duplicate one as item F. So we will add Brookville Road and Primrose and then the other intersection. We will add that to the proposal.

Okay. And that the reason I ask that is that we have the motion we're about to make it involves a not to exceed price. Does those streets

They won't change the price. That's our mistake for not including those. But again, I want to emphasize that we will flow traffic in all directions from east to west, west to east, north, south, through all the road network. And we will have speeds and traffic volumes for the entire road network at the end of the day. So just know that we'll have all the intersections covered.

All right, thank you. And thank you, Craig, and thank you to your neighbors for the attention to detail you're putting on this. And I think we're going to see a reliable and thorough discussion and study to come. So thanks for the effort and appreciating that it affects your quality of life on these streets. Yeah. really quickly, but sorry to be pushing things along given how late it's gotten.

My name is Walter Reich. I've lived on 200 Cameroon Street for 50 years. And I just want to stress, and I'm a doctor, I just want to stress that this is actually in real terms a matter of life and death. Because there are children running around. There are places where there are no sidewalks. All of these details are very, very important to accomplish this end, this important end. But sooner or later, somebody is going to threaten. And I just wanted to bring back the dimension of the issue. Thank you.

Thank you. Personally, I think that's the critical point to keep in mind is that these are not just too much traffic on the street. This is also kind of people's families and kids playing in their yards. What risk are they facing? Thank you. And is there a motion then in terms of the studies?

competitive bidding requirements, and to authorize the Village Manager to enter into a contract and substantially the form provided in the sub-definition by the Village Council with the Traffic Group Incorporated for the performance of the traffic analysis pursuant to the recommendation of the Village Traffic Committee in an amount not to exceed $47,000 and an assessment of the efficacy of existing access restriction signage along Connecticut Avenue in the town of Chevy Chase in the amount not to exceed $6,250.

Lou, I'm recusing myself.

Okay. Okay, is there a second?

Second.

And all in favor, including Ms. Willard, please make your views known. All in favor, aye.

Aye.

We have four in favor and a recusal. The motion passes. We don't need to .

One sec, good question.

We're waiting to know if there's a red card or a yellow card. Sorry. We do have five, don't we? We have, but one recuse will mean we only have one. Oh, I'm sorry.

Yeah.

I don't know if Alyssa might have joined us late in the game. Yeah, that's what I was just looking at.

No, no.

I feel like you have two, I think.

Video assisted replay.

Sorry. That's okay.

It's not a frequent. Yes, it does require 5, 24, 15.

Yeah.

Next question.

Let me... What I could... Well, let me ask you. Can we try to get... one of the absent board members to join by the end for that vote.

From the meeting? Yes.

Certainly. Oh, or could we do this? Would you be comfortable just voting on the ability to override the... Oh, good point.

We could take it as two separate votes. Override the competitive bidding process as a separate vote from the contract. Can we do that?

Yeah, I could vote for that. What are you voting on then?

Four of us could vote on the actual contract, but five of us could vote on whether the board can override.

But it's not properly in front of you if you don't have, if you haven't gone out to bid, it's not properly in front of you unless you override. So I think you can separate those two things out.

Then an alternative would be if we're able to get a fifth board member or an additional board member on the line in the next little while.

You can just table it until the end of the meeting.

Yeah. And Chana, if you've got you and your team are sending out some messages.

Yep. Okay, I think we can move on for now and then let's circle back and hopefully one of the two of them .

That sounds good. And then that kind of brings us on to, Shayna, the next item is regarding the And let's access and is that something we should discuss tonight or can that be deferred until the next meeting?

So I don't know how urgent how pressing that I will describe it in 60 seconds, but out of deference to our friends in town of Chevy Chase, who are hoping to get an answer from us following this meeting. I think we should proceed. Um, bottom line is the town of Chevy Chase is looking to stand up a photo speed enforcement program on Bradley Lane along the, the. westbound side, they cannot do that independently and have a full functioning program that allows them to access the criminal justice information system without an ORI, which is a number that is assigned to police departments. And so they have come to us and asked if we can be a sponsor for them to get an ORI issued to them through the Maryland State Police. And so we would need to execute this through two vehicles if the board is so inclined to agree to this. The first thing would be for the board to authorize the police chief, which is the only signing, authorizing individual that the state police will recognize for the purposes of this type of MOU, to sign into the MOU to state that we would sponsor the town of Chevy Chase to be issued this ORI number. The second thing that we would need to execute is an agreement that I circulated to the board earlier today, hard copies of which are at your places, that would be between the village and the town of Chevy Chase, making it very clear the conditions of our sponsorship. I think a couple of the key elements there are that it is a two-year term during which the town of Chevy Chase would need to get authorization for a sponsor preferably through Montgomery County Police or through another department. The agreement also makes it clear that we have the right to exit this agreement and to exit the MOU with the state of Maryland, either for cause or for convenience to us. It also limits the photo speed enforcement program to Bradley Lane. If the town of Tempe Chase were to desire putting speed cameras elsewhere, they would have to come back to us to have the agreement modified. So this really does put a lot of constraints on, I should say limitations on what could be done by the town.

What I wasn't entirely clear about when I read this was Are we suggesting that one of our police, presumably, would actually be looking at their citations? No.

We would have no involvement whatsoever in the operation of their speed program. They would still need to go through Montgomery County Police, likely through the off-duty police officer that they already have that does contract policing in their jurisdiction for the actual processing of the citation. The only village involvement would be our sponsorship for them to get the required access number to get into the criminal justice database for the purposes of running tax.

No other involvement whatsoever. That was actually an initial request that they made at the staff level that we said that we did not, we were not at the staff level comfortable with standing that up.

an offshoot to try to still stand up their program. Part of why they would like us to decide on, the board to decide on this this evening, is that they're hoping to get their program stood up and ready to go by the time schools go back into session.

When I read it, I thought this was pretty thoroughly vetted.

Yeah, as long as it excludes Connecticut, right?

For now, yes. Has the 100K be chasing this draft?

They have. They have a couple nips and tucks to it that they're requesting, but it wouldn't be anything really substantive.

The substance and limitations they're up there with and more on good relations.

They don't have a council approval at this point, but I think their attorney's recommending and their manager is recommending.

Nice detail. Yes, indeed. And, Shana, it's a two-year term, but also if If they were able to route this through Montgomery County instead of through us, sooner than that, would that also apply?

Absolutely. We then have the ability to terminate the contract, I think it's 30 days.

Yes.

If Montgomery County can fill this gap. Whichever first occurs. If they get a deal made with another jurisdiction to do this, that's when it happens. Under the MOU with the state, Either party can end the relationship within 30 days. So that's the timeframe we're sticking with in terms of everything else.

And Chief, you're aware of this and feel good about helping?

Absolutely. It's fine. There's no real lift on our piece. It's very limited involvement for us. We're just kind of almost like vouching for somebody.

Is there a motion?

Thank you.

Um, I moved to authorize the village police chief to sign a memorandum of understanding on behalf of the village police department in the village and substantially the form provided. And subject to review by village council with Maryland state police to sponsor the town of Chevy chase to receive an originating agency identifier for access to the system. in support of its photo speed monitoring program on bradley lane and to authorize the village manager to enter into an agreement in substantially the form provided and subject to review by village council with the tap chevy chase regarding the sponsorship second all in favor aye aye and uh five in favor opposed hearing none of motion passes thanks shana where to next

So next we're going to look at resolution 7126. The long and short of this proposed ordinance is to amend the personnel code. The principal reason was to codify the board's authorization of a new paid parental leave policy. This was something that the board authorized as a part of the FY27 budget discussions. And so it's reflected in the budget. This would be codifying it as an additional form of compensation for eligible staff. As we try to do, Council and I try to do, whenever we are making amendments to a chapter of the code, we go back and look in our notes and say, what are other things that we've needed to clean up in that particular chapter of the code? And so what you see here are a series of things that align with current practice. For instance, removing the director of public works from the definition for exempt employees. We had done work several years ago to confirm that our director of public works does not meet the IRS definition for an exempt employee. We've been operating accordingly. We just needed to update the code. It was a small enough thing that we didn't need an ordinance just to do that. But since we're making other changes to the personnel code, it's timely for us to do that at this point. Other changes that are listed in my staff report, I'm conscious of time, I won't go through in detail, but all of these changes align our code with what has been our practice or clarifies provisions that were unclear. The last thing that we're doing here is also attempting to remove gender references throughout the chapter. We've done that in other chapters where references to he or she are being replaced with employee or village manager, et cetera. And so that is kind of a wholesale change that we're also recommending for this chapter to align it with other chapters of the code that we have updated in recent years to make them gender neutral. Anything, Sue Ellen, that you would like to add to that? And again, happy to go into detail about any of the specific changes But again, just trying to be cognizant of the act.

I move to adopt resolution number 070126 as drafted.

All in favor? Aye.

Aye.

Five in favor, no opposed. Motion passes. Next up, I think we're moving on to some board appointments.

And if anyone is so brave, you can take these all together. The first would be to reappoint Mr. Crockett to continue serving as building officer in that role. Mr. Crockett is responsible for countersigning all right-of-way license agreements and administrative special permit and variance cases that come before us. We also have- It's exciting. Don't fight him for it. Also appointment of Mr. Van Horn who has so patiently hung in here with us for this meeting. To be the new chair of the Friendship Heights Sector Playing Committee, Jonathan Halperin, who has been serving as chair since inception of the committee, will be remaining on. We're doing some musical chairs to share the load with the membership. Of course, it's a three-person, very busy, very mighty committee, and this would allow... A little relief for Mr. Halperin as Mr. Van Horn steps up to lead the committee as we go forward. The last item related to committees would be reappointments under the two-year terms for Community Relations, Financial Review, Traffic, and Tree. It would be reappointment of all of the existing committee chairs. Now I fear we're going too fast, because I still have not heard from Ms. Leonard or Ms. Waters, but it's okay.

I see a motion coming up. I move to reappoint Gary Crockett to serve as Village Building Officer and to appoint William Van Horn to serve as Chairman of the Ad Hoc Friendship High Sector Planning Committee, as well as reappoint, as chairs, Lance Patterson to the Community Relations Committee, Bill Webe, I guess it is, to the Traffic and Tree Committee, and William Kirby to the Financial Review Committee. will serve two-year terms expiring in July 2028. Thank you.

Second. And all in favor? Aye. Aye. Five in favor, no opposed. Thank you, everybody.

Thank you.

And that now moves us down to a police report, manager's report.

Yeah, we'll skip over the Chief since he's trying to reach Ms. Leonard by phone. Really just wanted to highlight Sad news that unfortunately, our longtime public works supervisor, Luis Galindo, has decided that he will need to retire. The back issues that took him out of service back in March have worsened, and his doctors have essentially given him the long-term prognosis that he will not be able to return to work here. So we are working with him to establish his eligibility for long-term disability. And so his actual retirement date is pending until we make sure that he is fully set to go on that. But he will be retiring from us very soon. He would have reached 20 years of service with us in September of this year. And Luis is a really special guy, but he really was instrumental in bringing Anthony Young, our director of public works who started with us now four years ago, I believe, bringing him up to speed and fully getting him acclimated into the village. Luis has also been our lead on all things mechanical and technical and so he really has over the years saved us what i would imagine is probably hundreds of thousands of dollars with mechanical electrical plumbing fixes that he has been able to do for us that we then didn't have to contract out uh to someone else so he his loss will absolutely be felt um anthony young and i have already started talking about not only filling his position, but identifying where we may need to fill in some of those technical skills gaps with some additional contract support. So we'll certainly have more discussions with the board about that as we move forward, but just wanted to highlight for you that there's certainly a deep loss that we'll have from his retirement.

Absolutely.

I have nothing else to add to my written report unless there are any questions, but Chief, I did take your place while you were making that.

Okay, thank you. You need me long or short? Short. Am I dancing or are we stalling?

I assume you were not able to reach.

No, left a voicemail and sent a text.

From Ms. Leonard? Yes. Okay. I may step out there to try to reach this water as well.

Yep. Okay, so June was luckily a quiet month. We had one theft. Turned out it was a worker in the 5500 block of Park Street. Officer Warner was able to track down the workers and locate the item at a pawn shop. And she went last week and got charges on the commissioner. So we have both the property back and charges were approved. So hopefully we'll see some good court action on that. The other good news is we are fully staffed now. We hired Officer Jamil Lee, who is riding with Officer Hearn Jack right now. waiting for his certification card to come in so he can actually start doing some police work, but he's in a ride-along status now. And we are continuing work for National Ride Out on August 4th. Public Safety Committee is doing a great job getting the word out to the listserv, so anything you can do to help spread that word as well. We've got a good expanded lineup this year, a lot of good information. We're going to try walking tacos this for some food along with hot dogs. So we're branching out and getting experimental. So come out and join us.

That's great.

And that's all I've got unless you need to hear a knock knock joke or something else while we wait.

I'm unable to reach in this water. So I would suggest that we can either bring this back to the board in September, or we can try to schedule a special meeting where we might be able to get five votes. to move forward on the traffic group contract.

Unless there's another option.

I've got relationships.

No, no, you've got to do what you've got to do. No apology needed.

How about just, could we find out when the other principal member and just have a call?

Yeah, we can do a special meeting that we can convene just on that one topic. and we can just do that virtually. That doesn't need to be a person.

We can do that next, later this week or next week, as soon as we've got a, and they can move forward on the current schedule, I mean, as long as we. Oh, because Waters is calling me back. Well, what do you know? Here we go. We were stalling.

Sorry about that. I'm so sorry to bother you. Did you get my voicemail? Okay. If you can log in right now, we can get this done in 60 seconds. This is the traffic group contract recommendation. Yes.

No, it is.

Primrose, Broad Branch, Newlands Petitions. That is to look at the east side of the village as well as a proposal for an efficacy study for the existing access restriction signs in the town of Jenny Chase. Yeah, that's perfectly fine. Just a phone vote. We just need to be able to record that you are present remotely, and then we'll call the vote again, and you can place your vote. So give me one second. I think I can actually call you.

Let me see. Yes, invite.

Actually, let's do it this way. Since I'm on the phone with you, can you give me your cell phone number?

Jaina, put your phone on the speaker.

Okay. Actually, everyone is suggesting I just put you up to the mic. I think we're going to get feedback if I do that. That's the one thing I'm worried about, but let me try. just put it on speaker phone just like anybody else talking yes that's what we're going to try to do but all right hang on if we get feedback in the room though i will just send you a text with the login that you can click on all right hang on oh just set it down on that okay can you hear me yes hello hello can you hear mr crockett who's going to who's going to give the motion okay

I move to authorize an overriding of the competitive bidding requirements and to authorize the village manager to enter into a contract and substantially deploy the riders, as submitted by the village council, with the traffic group appropriate for the performance of a traffic analysis pursuant to recommendations from the village traffic committee in an amount not to exceed $37,000 and an assessment of the efficacy of holistic access restriction signage along the etiquette avenue.

is there a second yes all in favor say aye aye aye uh any opposed and noting uh one accuser um the motion passes and uh we will proceed with the traffic stuff thank you everyone thank you uh nancy yes ms waters thank you so much

Oh, fantastic. Thank you. Appreciate it. Have a good one. You too.

Any other motions tonight? Second. All in favor? Meeting is adjourned. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, Linda.

Thank you.